Chapter 105

KATHERINE.

I blinked at the direction Noah Dawson had gone in, half expecting him to show up again and chase after me with the huge sword he had been carrying, but nothing of the sort happened, and I swallowed. Okay, I needed to find someone to stick with. I quickly kept the chain in my bag and as I zipped it up, the dungeon shifted into a swamp. ‘This is new,’ I thought as I glanced around the dense, humid woods. The arena had never shifted to a swamp during practice, and after checking my list to see what I needed to find here – a piece of broken pottery, a snake’s skin, and a turtle’s shell – I began to move.

The air was thick with moisture, and the sun barely shone through the towering trees. The ground was muddy and unstable underfoot, and every step threatened to sink me into the bog. “Ugh,” I groaned, wishing we’d been given boots instead of soft shoes that rapidly absorbed liquid while I walked with caution, my eyes scanning the treeline for any signs of movement. The swamp itself was a vast foreboding expanse, with trees rising out of the water and thick, black wines tangled around their trunks. The water was a dirty, brown color, and the smell of rotting vegetation hung heavy in the air.

I groaned again before quickly hiding behind a tree when I spotted a Dumein student running past some distance away. ‘Noah’s also running around here somewhere,’ I thought as I peeked around to see if the student was gone while hoping I didn’t see Noah again till this competition and the inter-school competitions ended. I really needed to find someone from my team to stick with as soon as possible though.

“Helloooo.” My walkie-talkie crackled to life with Ethan’s voice just as I confirmed that the student was gone and I removed it from my belt. “Does anyone copy? Over.”

“Hello,” a couple of people and I said at the same time while I moved out from behind the tree and unfolded my swamp map to see the areas where I could find items on the list.

“Oh, hey guys. I just realized we didn’t check if this was working. Over.”

“Well, it is,” I replied. According to my map, I was close to one of the places where snakes stayed and I hoped there weren’t actual snakes there before I began to make my way over there.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. Over.”

“Shut up,” I muttered, the corner of my mouth turning up. The fact that I hadn’t run into a lot of people so far meant that the locations were far bigger than they were during practice, and I wondered how long it would take for me to run into a teammate. There was also the case of if the teammate was a nice person and would allow me to stick with them.

“Anyone get got yet? Over.”

“Me,” a girl answered and I sighed in relief because if my flag got stolen now, at least I wouldn’t be the first person out of the match.

“Who is ‘me’? Over,” Ethan replied.

“Amber.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate, over…” Ethan sounded disappointed and I couldn’t help but snort at his comical tone. “And rather fast. What the hell? Were you walking around with your eyes closed? Over.”

“No. I ran into a Dumein student the moment the match started.”

“So, your flag got stolen at the beginning? Shame on you, for real. Over.”

“Some of us are hiding, Ethan,” an annoyed voice I recognized as Adeline’s – one of the uppity members of the scavenger hunt team and a friend of Satomi – cut in just as I got to my destination which was right next to a lake. Thankfully, it was on dry land, so I didn’t need to worry about snakes hiding under the bog. “How about you don’t reveal our location? And you don’t have to say ‘over’ every time.”

“Hiding? Shouldn’t you be hunting? Scavenger hunting? Over.”

“I can’t hunt if I get got,” she hissed as I began to poke around the undergrowth with a sturdy piece of wood I found on the floor while keeping my attention on my surroundings. God, I really hoped there wasn’t a snake here. “Speaking of hunting, has anyone found the snake’s skin? I’m not searching for that, it’s disgusting.”

“I’m not searching for that either. This swamp’s gross. Why did they put this in? It wasn’t there in practice,” another girl said just as I finally found what I was looking for – a snake’s skin.

“One snake’s skin right here.”

“Great. Who is that?” Adeline asked while I heaved a sigh, picking up the skin with the wood in my hand.

“Katherine.”

“Who’s Katherine?” she replied and I raised a brow while taking off my backpack because she knew who I was. She just preferred to act like she didn’t because Satomi constantly said I was a nobody.

“People are watching us. Stop showing them that you’re dumb. Over,” Ethan said and I snorted before the other girl that said she wasn’t going to search for a snake’s skin swore.

“Great. That Dawson dude just stole my flag,” she said.

“Were your eyes closed? Over.”

“Fuck you, Ethan.”

“Language. Over,” he replied and a beat of silence passed before he spoke again while I kept the skin in a place my hand wouldn’t brush against it in my backpack. “Kath, you have the snake’s skin, right?”

“Yep.”

“Does anyone have a turtle’s shell?”

“I do,” came Blake’s voice and I paused before reminding myself that I was angry with him.

“That’s my man,” Ethan said. “Okay, so sit tight guys, and wait for a location change. Also, protect your flag..”

“Roger that.”

“Signing off.”

I returned the walkie-talkie to my belt before I zipped up my bag and got to my feet. As I swung my bag over my shoulder, someone suddenly shoved me hard from behind, making me stumble forward before falling into the lake. I let out a yelp, holding my breath as I hit the surface before the cold water washed over me and I began to rapidly sink to the bottom. I tried to scream for help, but my words came out as bubbles as I flailed around in the water, trying to stay afloat. ‘Oh, dear God.’ I was going to drown. My panicking intensified and I reached for the walkie-talkie at my belt, but as I realized I couldn’t use it underwater, it slipped out of my hands and to the bottom of the lake. The same place I was heading to.

My heart slammed against my chest as my lungs screamed for air before something dawned on me… This wasn’t real. It might feel real, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t drown here. I stopped struggling as I realized that and instead of sinking further, I remained where I was. ‘Oh.’ I had held my breath when I hit the water, and since this wasn’t real, I stopped. I could breathe.

I lifted my gaze to the surface and began to move upwards like I was on a staircase instead of swimming, and surprisingly, it worked. When I broke through the surface, I sucked in a breath and fell to my knees on dry land, panting even though I hadn’t been deprived of air. Almost drowning hadn't been real, but I was soaking wet, and apart from my walkie-talkie, my list was also gone and my maps were stuck together.

“Just great,” I muttered before wildly glancing around to see who had pushed me into the lake. It had to have been a student from another school, but my flag was still at my waist. Had they been too slow to grab it or had they not been after the flag in the first place? …They just wanted to push me in?

Noah’s face flashed through my mind before I slowly took a deep breath and as I dropped the wet maps on the ground, the location changed again to a rocky forest during a rainstorm. I quickly got to my feet. I knew a couple of hiding places here and with my list gone, they were going to come in handy till I ran into a teammate. I couldn't search for items anymore, so the list I could do was not get my flag stolen. Also, if it had really been Noah who pushed me into the lake, I ‘needed’ to stay out of his sight.

As I made their way through the dense forest, I could hear the sound of rushing water in the distance, and when I emerged from the trees and found myself on the edge of a steep, rocky hillside. Below me, a rushing river sliced through the landscape, carving its way through the rocks and making its way down to the valley below. Steep cliffs loomed overhead, and the trees on either side were twisted and tangled as if they were battling against the wind and the rain. The air was thick with the scent of wet moss and pine needles, and the ground was slippery beneath my feet.

I was far from the area I always appeared in during practice, which was the woods beyond the rocks and the river, but I didn’t waste time sulking over it and began to make my way down the slope with caution. A little while later, I crossed the river and as I headed into the woods, I came across a Staerdale student who I recognized as the son of Silver Bow’s beta. ‘Shit.’

The corner of his mouth turned up as he came to a stop while I took a step back. “You're that River Ash girl,” he said, his eyes twinkling, as he began to walk over to me and I kept taking steps backward. His gaze didn’t even stray to my waist to see if I still had my flag and that told me, he wasn’t interested in getting me out of the game.

“We have an audience,” I stated. I didn’t what Noah planned to do to me, but I wanted none of it, and as long as we were being watched, they couldn’t do anything serious to me. Unless they made it look like an accident just like the lake thing.

‘Accidents happen in Blackwood more often than you think,’ Poppy’s words from over a week ago came to mind and I narrowed my eyes at him. He still hadn’t glanced at my flag; his eyes were trained on me.

He suddenly lunged at me, but I rushed off at super speed before he could touch me. Branches scratched me as I passed through trees and just before I decided to stop because I was running out of energy fast, I ran into something hard, forcing me to a stop. It was Noah Dawson and a smile lit his face when his gaze landed on me.

“Oh, Katherine. There you are. I was looking for you.”

I was breathing hard, taking off at the same speed with which I got here would be a bad idea since my muscles were burning, but this guy planned to mess with me. I wouldn’t be able to defend myself if he was looking for a fight and just like Poppy, he was a fire elementalist. I needed to get away from him.

“So–”

I took off again and when I finally came to a stop again, it wasn’t because I wanted to. It was because I was forced to; my body couldn’t go at super speed anymore. “Shit,” I muttered, breathing hard as I glanced over my shoulder. I hadn’t gone that far and since he’d said he had been looking for me, I was sure he was coming after me.

Thankfully, I had come to a stop next to one of the hiding places I’d discovered during practice – a small, hidden space beneath a huge tree – and I quickly tucked myself into it, pressed up against the trunk of the tree, before waiting for Noah to pass by.