Chapter 33 After The Trial
While I was in the infirmary, I sat on the narrow hospital bed with my legs crossed beneath me. Heat radiated from my skin in dull waves; I was running a high temperature. My hair lay scattered across my face, damp and unkempt, but I didn’t bother pushing it aside. I didn’t care.
Mixed emotions wrapped around me like a heavy coat, too tight, too suffocating. I couldn’t tell whether I was angry, sad, numb, worried, or quietly terrified. Perhaps all of them at once. What I knew with certainty was this: I wasn’t happy.
That trial had been something else entirely.
Waking up trapped inside that sealed room. Choosing a door without knowing what waited beyond it. Was the purpose to find a clue? To escape? Or to break us? To see who would drown, burn, suffocate, or shatter under pressure?
I knew very well how close I had come to dying.
The memory returned in fragments, blurred and disjointed, like light flashing before my eyes as I gave up struggling against the rising water. My lungs were burning. My body, sinking. And then—
Something had happened.
I hadn’t seen it clearly, but something had saved me.
“Creeping plants?” I muttered under my breath.
“What?”
I flinched sharply.
I turned, heart leaping, and found Julian leaning against the wall near the doorway. He stood half swallowed by shadow, as he always did, legs crossed at the ankles, hands tucked casually into his pockets, posture loose but alert. For a moment, I wondered if he had heard my thoughts… or if I had been speaking aloud without realizing it.
“How long have you been listening to me?” I asked.
“Wait… let me guess. Hours?” He said dryly.
I gasped when his lips curved into a smirk.
He noticed my reaction immediately and dragged a stool away from the strip of sunlight slanting through the infirmary window before sitting down. “What?” he said lightly. “That’s how long I’ve been standing here. And I haven’t heard a single word from you.”
I exhaled slowly, relief loosening the tightness in my chest.
Julian leaned forward slightly, resting his elbow against the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?” he asked. His voice was calm, low, and careful.
“Do I look okay to you?” My voice came out hoarse. “I almost died in there. In the second trial.”
“But you didn’t,” he said quietly. “Thank God.”
I lifted my gaze to him. For a moment, I almost laughed, but instead I covered it with a soft scoff. “You believe in God?” I asked.
“Who doesn’t?” he replied. The depth of his voice made the words sound almost ironic.
I tilted my head. “Harvey doesn’t.”
“Who’s that?” he asked.
My eyes drifted down to the bangle around my wrist, its surface catching faint light. “My aunt.”
He followed my gaze. His eyes lingered on the bangle longer than necessary, studying it as though it were something unfamiliar, or something that unsettled him. “She gave you that?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. It was a gift.” After a pause, I added, “From a friend.”
Julian’s gaze remained fixed on it. “What does the gift represent?” he asked.
I looked up at him, surprised by his questions. He lifted his eyes to meet mine, openly curious now.
“It’s just a gift,” I said, faltering slightly. “Friends give gifts to make each other happy. That’s all.”
He scoffed softly. “Just like that? Without a reason?”
I shrugged. “Gifts signify care. Sometimes love.” I studied his expression. “Why does that seem strange to you?”
We held each other’s gaze. There were questions in his eyes, too many, and none of them simple. Questions I didn’t have answers for.
He let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t. I just… I’ve never received a gift before. Not in my entire life.”
Something in my chest tightened.
I smiled faintly. “Then the Daylight ring will serve as your first.”
His expression shifted, half serious, half playful. He stared at me as though trying to decide whether to accept the idea or reject it outright.
“The Daylight ring,” he said slowly, “still remains a deal. Not a gift.”
I held his gaze. “Maybe,” I said softly. “But even deals can carry meaning.”
Julian left me alone in the infirmary as the sun dipped below the horizon, saying he had something to attend to. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. Still, the silence he left behind felt heavier than his presence.
I had hoped Adrian would show up.
He had promised he would be here today, or perhaps that was only how I remembered it. Maybe I had been thinking about him too much. Maybe something had happened.
What could have happened?
Vincent remained unconscious since the game. They said he must have inhaled too much gas. Cordelia, I didn’t know where she had been taken, but when she was pulled out of the trial, her uniform had been coated in sand, clinging to her like a second skin. Jamie emerged covered in angry red bruises, stung by bees. He is undergoing treatment now.
None of them had qualified for the final round.
And yet what unsettled me most was not who had been eliminated, but how such a trial had even been conceived.
What if someone had died?
What if Vincent never woke up?
What would they tell his parents?