Computer was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said simply.
It was a response I’d never heard him admit before.
“The rooms are assigned randomly when the couple first arrive,” Computer said. “There’s no way to know where he is.”
Shit.
A door opened along the hall and a figure stepped out.
He was too short and skinny to be my Shadow.
I ran through the problem, peering at it from multiple directions.
The moment Iav left his room it would already be too late.
I needed to know where he was right now.
I had no bond connection with him.
I couldn’t locate him the way Emma could.
Someone hustled past me.
I snapped to attention in case one of the prison guards had managed to escape from earlier.
It wasn’t a guard.
It was a Shadow carrying a silver tray.
His physical agility was the only reason he hadn’t crashed into me.
“Are you lost?” he said. “The arena’s that way.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m… looking for a friend of mine. He’s going to participate soon and I wanted to wish him luck.”
“There are thousands of participants today. I’m afraid finding his room is like picking a needle out of a haystack.”
I knew that but so long as there was a needle to find, I couldn’t give up.
The waiter appraised me before checking over his shoulders.
“I’m not supposed to do this,” he said. “But I can see how nervous you are. You probably need this more than the guy that ordered it.”
He lifted the silver tray and plucked a single succulent glock from its stem and handed it to me.
“I suggest you get to the arena,” he said. “Your friend will be there soon.”
He turned on his heel and left.
I held the glock between my fingers and rolled it over.
A waiter brings fresh glock for a participant.
It wasn’t for his nerves.
It was what he ate when he was excited.
Nobody liked glock as much as I did.
Except for maybe myself.
My Shadow.
I trailed the server and kept my distance.
The glock idea was a thin and tenuous thread but it was the only one I had.
Finally, the server came to a stop outside a door halfway down a corridor that to my eyes looked identical to all the others.
He knocked on the door.
It opened but I couldn’t make out the figure inside.
The door blocked him out.
The figure reached for the tray and checked its contents before taking it from the waiter.
The server smiled, nodded, and turned to head back down the hall.
The door began to shut when it froze for a moment.
“For your trouble,” the figure said.
He flicked the coin through the air.
The waiter caught it, bowed gracefully, and tucked it in his front jacket pocket.
I turned my back on the server as he strode past me, whistling as he went.
I turned back to the hallway and watched the door swing shut.
I had found him.
Iav.
It was him.
And he hadn’t yet left for the ceremony.
Emma
The cries were pitiful, terrifying.
The screams from the crowd and their baying for more were even worse.
I couldn’t see the ceremony taking place in the arena and I didn’t want to.
A wall of onlookers blocked the worst of the events from me.
They cheered and raised their voices and fists, encouraging the previous participant, her fated mate, and the other Shadows.
It was grotesque, disgusting.
And soon, it would be happening to me.
I wept inwardly, knowing Narissa from earlier was right.
There was no escape from this.
This was my “duty,” my destiny now.
Iav would claim me and my fate would be sealed.
In the near distance, I felt him, a throb of light of his current location.
No doubt he was preparing to claim me.
Every so often, I felt a slight quirk, pulling me in a different direction.
Maybe the Severing hadn’t been completely false.
It appeared to be giving phantom signals, as if there were two origins.
Not once did I think Vai was the one responsible.
It was too much to hope for.
He would be halfway across a neighboring universe by now, racing toward his home and the warm embrace of his loved ones.
It was the only positive thing I could think of.
I clutched it close to my chest, knowing I would need something to get me through the next few hours.
I stubbornly clung to our memories together.
It cheered me up some.
At least the first Shadow to claim me would look like Vai.
Maybe I could fool myself into believing it was him rather than the dark version.
And then after that…
I decided not to think about it.
The effects of the blue poison Iav had given me still hadn’t fully worn off.
But I had the use of my little fingers now.
It had to mean something, right?
There was a final howl and the crowd went wild.
They high-fived each other, hugging and kissing, thrilled.
It could only mean one thing.
The event was coming to an end.
And soon, it would be my turn.
The crowd broke formation and a figure limped through the hall unassisted.
She clutched her torn dress close and failed to contain her modesty.
Tears streamed down her face, her makeup ruined, her hair viciously tugged from its no doubt former beautiful display.
Her expression was shattered and broken.
I knew on a deep level that no matter what, she was never going to be the same again.
“Keep moving,” another hefty Shadow at the girl’s elbow said in a severe tone.
They couldn’t even bring themselves to be kind to her after what they had done to her.
Now my fear morphed into something far more powerful.
Anger.
White hot and furious.
They might take my body but I would never allow them to break my spirit the way they had the girl’s.
I would fight back.
If I couldn’t escape, if that really wasn’t an option, then I could attack from the shadows.
I could assassinate one Shadow after another, poisoning them, doing to them what Iav had tried to do to me at the beginning of all this.
I would turn their own baser instincts against them.
I would use my body as a weapon.
Yes, I thought. That was a challenge worth living up to.
“Up,” Hefty said.
My body obeyed.
I marched through the throng of
