Page 41 of Blaze of Our Lives

“Hot rocks. About ten feet ahead,” I narrated. “Ground full of landmines. Have to go slow.”

While the next part of the obstacle course wasn’t that far, it seemed like a million miles away. Slowly and with painstaking attention to the dirt ahead, I made my way.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Butch Goddess Messily,” Heff yelled from his comfortable and landmine-free seat in the bleachers. “There’s a time limit on getting through the obstacle course. Fifteen minutes.”

“You’re a dick, Huff Boobs,” I shouted. Two could play the name game.

“Been called worse,” he let me know.

That was a given.

“What happens if I don’t make it in fifteen minutes?” I yelled, keeping my focus on the ground below me. I wasn’t about to let an asshole like Heff Bropst be the reason I got blown to smithereens by a landmine.

He laughed through the bullhorn like I’d just made an outstanding joke. “You don’t want to know. Trust me on that.”

“He really must be decapitated, Cecily,” Pandora recommended. “Or, at the very least, electrocuted until he can taste his entrails.”

“Shockingly, I agree with you on that,” I told her, still focused on each careful step I took. “That aside, we’ve already used five minutes in the mud box. I think I have to go faster in order to get to the end.”

Pandora was quiet for a long beat. “Fine. Do as you think best. If we have to start over, you will know where the danger lies. You can avoid it on the second try.”

She made sense. I didn’t want to die, but if it meant succeeding, I’d give death a shot.

“Okay.” I gritted my teeth and scanned the ground around me. “Here we go. I’m throwing caution to the wind and probably some of my body parts along with it.”

More prophetic words had never been spoken.

The sound of the explosion was an unwelcome surprise. The shock and the pain as I stepped on the mine were like nothing I’d experienced thus far. I’d been in battle and had fireballs thrown at me, compliments of the woman inside me. That had been harrowing, but this… this was next level.

As my body went flying toward the rocks, I realized one of my legs was missing. The grenade had no mind, no pity and zero care that it had just torn part of me away. My scream of agony felt like it was coming from someplace far, far away. Landing with a loud thump on the ground in front of the hot rocks, I sucked in air like I’d been deprived of it for years.

“My leg,” I gasped out. “It’s fucking gone.”

“Are you dead?” Pandora asked calmly.

If it wasn’t for the excruciating pain I was in, I would have slapped my face hard. She was asking for it. “NO, I’m not dead, you piece of shit.”

“Then get up and keep going.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. I wasn’t dead. I was just missing my freaking leg. I could still hop. “Okay,” I grunted out as I got myself up. “I’m gonna hop across the stones.”

“Keep your arms out to the sides for balance,” Pandora instructed. “Hopping would have been the way to do it even if you had two legs. Get off each stone as quickly as possible.”

“Will do,” I said, gauging the best way to go about it.

The path of fiery hot stones was about twenty feet long. The steam coming off of them wasn’t welcoming. Hell, none of this was welcoming. The guys were still dead. That meant I hadn’t wasted too much time when I was getting my leg blown off. Quickly reaching down to make sure I wasn’t bleeding out, I was shocked to realize that the skin had already closed over the wound. Demons could regenerate body parts, but I knew there wasn’t enough time for my leg to grow back. I had less than ten minutes to get to the end.

There was no time to start like the present.

“Here we go,” I told my uninvited roomie.

“Be the badass.”

The heat was intense. Pandora had been correct about hopping being the best way to get through this particular obstacle, but having one leg was screwing with my balance. Falling and touching the rocks would surely burn the skin right off my hands. I needed my hands. Falling wasn’t an option. I decided to go in a straight line. Hopping from side to side would waste time I didn’t have.

“Shit,” I gasped out. The minute my combat-clad foot hit the stones, they hissed and smoked. The blueish tendrils twisted upward toward the golden clouds and red sun. If I wasn’t terrified that my boot was going to melt in the heat, I would have taken a second to follow the swirling slender curls as they rose. That would be stupid. I wasn’t stupid. However, I was on fire.

“Umm… feeling some pain,” Pandora rasped.

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