Page 42 of Blaze of Our Lives

“Yep, that would be my foot,” I snapped, trying to hop faster. If my boot melted into the stones, I’d have to remove it. The thought of hopping barefoot was not working for me. “Think I’m melting. Five more hops to go.”

“You’re not the Wicked Witch of the West. You can’t fucking melt,” Pandora reminded me. “You’re Bitch Goddess Cecily, and you had better remember that, idiot.”

Her pep talks sucked ass, but at least it was taking my mind off the fact that I was close to going up in flames.

“Done,” I screamed as I slapped at the embers off my foot. “Spike maze. Three feet ahead.”

“Create some water for your foot,” she insisted.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I asked as I waved my hand and doused my foot in ice-cold water.

“Because I’m brilliant and you’re not,” she informed me.

I didn’t agree, but I wasn’t going to fight her on it. I had more ahead of me. Plus, getting my leg ripped off and burning my foot to a crisp had kind of worn me out.

“Entering,” I said.

The maze wasn’t long. It was simply a fence on two sides that zigzagged for about ten feet. There was about two feet of space between the walls. At first, I didn’t see any spikes… until I did. They were protracting and retracting from the walls of the fence. There was no rhythm, no rhyme or reason, or pattern to memorize. They came out high and low.

“Crap,” I muttered as I narrowly missed getting stabbed in the head.

“Narrate,” Pandora insisted.

“The spikes are about ten inches long and sharp,” I explained as I made my way through. “Moving in and out of the walls of the maze.”

“High or low?”

“Both,” I said, ducking to escape my decapitation.

“Do you hear that?” she asked, sounding frantic.

I listened. The guys were fighting again. There wasn’t much time left. “Shit, shit, shit,” I snapped as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel—or maze to be more specific. “I’m gonna make a run for it.”

“Is that wise?”

“Absolutely not,” I said with a laugh that sounded tinny and false. “But thems the breaks.”

“Do it! You’ve got this.”

“From your mouth…” I muttered as I prepared to hop like my life depended on it, which it did.

I was so close. So close.

“I’m stuck,” I snarled as I tried to pull my left arm away from the spike that had embedded itself deep.

“Define stuck,” Pandora commanded.

“Left arm,” I said while panting like a thirsty dog. “Ten-inch spike. All the way through. Hurts. Bad.”

“To be expected,” she replied, sounding as calm as she had when my leg got blown off.

I was not calm. “What should I do?”

“Either pull the spike out or leave your arm behind,” she said. “As long as you have one arm and one leg, you can finish the challenge.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled.

“Do I sound like I’m fucking kidding you?” she shot back.

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