Chapter 120 Chapter 120: A Call to The Beach
Senna’s POV
We all stood staring at each other for a moment. Then the horn blasted again.
“What if we don’t go?” Kalev asked.
“We have to,” I told him. “Those are the rules.”
“Fuck the rules,” Korrigan said. “We’re playing by our own rules now.”
“We should go,” I said.
“But what if it’s a trap?” Kalev said. The thought had occurred to me. The capital was still in charge of the games. Who knew why they were calling us to the beach?
“The others will go,” Isolde said, stepping forward. “The other sector borns. We could gather them. Bring them back here.”
“And kill some nobles in the process,” Korrigan said, squeezing his hand around his knife.
“True,” I replied. I looked at Kalev. “What do you think?”
He paused, thinking. “Isolde has a point. If they’re calling everyone to the island, it could be a good chance for us to find some sector borns and bring them back here.”
“It’s dangerous though, isn’t it?” Junie asked. She looked scared. I took her hand in mine.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “None of us will let anything happen to you.”
“I think we should stay here,” Sandra, one of the sector borns, said. “It’s safer here.”
“The others need our help,” Korrigan said. “Remember that camp? The bodies? We should go. We might be able to save some people.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But we don’t know why they’re calling us.”
We all thought for another minute. It was a tough call. Everyone else would go to the beach. Which meant nobles. But which also meant sector borns. We didn’t know why they were calling us to the island. It could be an opportunity for us.
I thought about the river that had taken the two nobles. And the tree. And the wind storm.
“We have the island on our side,” I finally said. “It will protect us. I think we should go.”
Everyone nodded. Then we turned to leave. Kalen stood up. I shot him a glare.
“Not you,” I said. “You’re staying here. You’re not one of us, remember?”
“But…” he started. I silenced him with a look. He slunk back down against the wall, resigned to the fact that he wasn’t coming with us.
The waterfall parted for us and we walked through it.
“Everyone stay on high alert,” Kalev said. “We don’t know who we’ll come across on the way there.”
We started walking through the forest. The trees bent for us, closing together behind us. The island was eerily silent as we walked towards the beach.
When we came to the tree line, we saw others in the forest. And then, about a hundred feet away from us, we saw Viktor. He saw us and sneered. My blood boiled. It took everything in my power not to shoot him right in the face. But this wasn’t the time.
A loud voice boomed through the sky.
“Participants,” a familiar voice said. I recognized it immediately as Petra’s voice. Beside me, Kalev inhaled a sharp breath at his mother’s voice. “We’ve gathered you all here because we have a gift for you.”
Suddenly, a helicopter appeared. It landed on the beach. Everyone stood in the tree lines, staring at the helicopter. An uneasy feeling settled over me as the helicopter landed.
The doors opened and two capital guards stepped out. They hauled a large crate out onto the beach.
“What is that?” Korrigan asked.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” I whispered.
The crate was wooden, with no markings on it. One of the guards took a pry bar and opened it.
“Please accept our gift,” Petra’s voice boomed through the sky. “We think you’ll really enjoy it. Happy games!”
Her voice clicked off. We all stared at the box, puzzled. One of the sides fell off the box and landed in the sand. The inside of the box was dark.
We weren’t sure what to do. Should we go to the box? My eyes locked with Viktor’s. He had a strange smile on his face, like he knew something we didn’t. It made me uneasy.
“Let’s go,” Korrigan said. He stepped out into the tree line. All around us, others did the same, cautiously. They were all drawn to the large crate on the beach.
We took a few steps out onto the sand. My bow was clenched firmly in my fists. Something about this felt off. Maybe it was my instincts.
“Verity?” I asked.
“I smell wolf,” she said, sniffing the air.
“In the box?” I asked.
But she didn’t have the chance to answer. Because as soon as the words had left my mouth, something stepped out of the box.
A man emerged. He was naked from the chest up. He had a collar around his throat. He was large and muscular. His eyes were wild as he scanned the beach, his fists clenched, his chest heavy with his breath.
“Oh my god,” Isolde whispered, clamping her hand over her mouth.
My heart leapt up. Excitement prickled through me.
“Thor?” I asked. Then without thinking, I began running toward him. I couldn’t believe it. He was alive? He was here? On the island.
I didn’t stop to think it through. If I had, I would have realized that it was some sort of trap. Petra had called it a gift. That should have been the first sign.
I was just so excited to see Thor. I’d honestly believed that he was dead. So I didn’t stop. I didn’t think. I just rushed towards him.
“Senna, wait!” Kalev called after me. “Stop.”
“Danger,” Verity said.
My eyes locked onto Thor’s as I ran. But then I stopped. Something about his eyes was wrong. They were vacant in a strange way. He saw me and his eyes narrowed.
My blood froze. The hair on my arms stood up. A profound sense of dread washed over me.
Thor snarled, his lips curling up over his teeth in a menacing way. Then he raised his finger and pointed at me.
“Thor?” I asked, but my voice cracked.
Something was very wrong.
He hissed. “Flora wolf.”
Then he came right at me, his eyes wild, a knife in his hands.