Page 22 of Of Heathens & Havoc

“If you’re new this year, you should have familiarized yourself with the rules of the game in the packet delivered when you were selected from the entries to participate. There are miles of underground tunnel here, so if you didn’t familiarize yourself with the map, good luck.”

A few of the girls titter nervously around me, but the Hellhound continues speaking.

“Remember that no one will be left here, so don’t panic if you get lost. The tunnels will be cleared after the game. If you nolonger wish you participate, you may leave at any time. Simply say the safe-word phrase and the game instantly ends—for you. You will be escorted safely back to your room, and the game will continue without you. All other words, sounds, and gestures will be assumed to be part of the game. Did everyone memorize the phrase?”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” a chorus of voices answer in unison, echoing through the cave like the Lord’s Prayer echoes through the church every Sunday.

I glance around uneasily, since I’m left in the dark. Of course Heath didn’t give me an out. He didn’t give me an orientation packet or a safe word. He wants me to lose the game.

Another Hellhound emerges from the other room, this one wearing a terrifying mask with glowing eyes and glistening fangs that must be the actual hellhound. I wonder if that’s the one Heath called the Master, or if it’s the plague doctor. As I count the figures—thirteen total—I realize I’ve lost Heath. He must have slipped out to put on his costume. The fact that I don’t know which one is my brother, and which one is Angel, and which mask Heath will be wearing makes my blood run even colder. My stomach is shaking with fear, and I think I’ll be sick.

But lower down, below my belly, a hot throb of pressure is building.

“Lastly, remember the same rules apply to the special player we select to sacrifice at the end of the game,” the plague doctor says in his distorted, muffled voice. “You are here to satisfy the appetites of our Hellhounds, but should you be unable to fulfill the role to completion, you will be dismissed and another sacrifice will be chosen to follow the first, and so on, until every Hellhound has been sated. Did everyone familiarize yourself with the rules of sacrifice?”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” echoes through the chamber.

“You’ll have a one-minute head start,” he says. “Then we will unleash the hounds of hell, and the hunt begins.”

With that, the Hellhounds let out another round of howls, this time snarling and growling at the same time. The sound is so animal, so primal, that shivers of terror and excitement clash inside me. What if Heath catches me? Will he really do what he said?

If I can’t stop him, is it still a sin?

Suddenly, the church bell begins to toll in the tower high above. The sound is muted in the basement room, but it reverberates through. Everyone stands silent, listening.

The hair on my arms stands on end, and my breathing comes quicker.

What if someone else catches me? A stranger who takes my body against my will, ruins me in ways too terrible to contemplate? Suddenly, I can hardly swallow, can’t breathe past the beads in my mouth. My ears echo with the bell and my thunderous heartbeat.

And then the last chime sounds, and the Hellhounds scream, “Reap havoc!”

ten

The Merciful

The sheep scatter, and I’m knocked to my knees, my legs trapped by the restricting nightgown and my bound hands unable to break my fall. The girls all run for the three doors around the room, and I struggle to my feet and take off into one of the tunnels after them, panic stabbing through me with each footstep. I got a late start. It will all be over in seconds.

I run smack into a dirt wall and bounce off, nearly falling before I hit the wall on the other side. There’s no way out, no way to win. The game is completely stacked against us. We’re wearing white, the tunnels are unlit, and the Hellhounds have night-vision goggles.

I bite down on the beads, relishing the pain as they dig into the roof of my mouth. I need to get myself together, stop panicking.

I’m okay. No one has touched me. A man will want to marry me someday, and I’ll have plenty to give him. Which means I can’t letthemtake it.

I may not know where I’m going, or how to get out with a special phrase, but I don’t need any favors. I’m too smart to act the way I have been, buffeted like a seagull in a storm by the conflicting winds of lust and fear.

I still have my mind—a mind I’m going to use to find out what happened to Eternity. If she was here, she wouldn’t freak out. She’d fight.

I still have my hands and feet, but I know I have no chance against all those men at once. I reach up, silentlythanking Heath for tying my hands in front of me instead of behind.

Ridiculous, yes, but the priests always encourage gratitude.

They probably didn’t have these sinful games in mind when they were preaching their sermons on being thankful for what you have, but I’m adaptable.

Running my hands along the wall, I make my way along until I reach a bend. Behind me, I hear a distant countdown echoing. I know what’s back there—the main room, and off it, the crypt. When we were kids and snuck down into the underbelly of the church, we found it—with a body waiting for burial. That was the first and last time we snuck down. Before that, it was enough to play in the graveyard behind the chapel, to peer in the windows of the priest’s little house out back, to run in terror into the woods behind it if he was inside. There was no shame in us then, not even when we were being naughty kids who spied on a priest. We were free, wild, fully and unselfconsciously ourselves.

The very opposite of now.

My heart twists with a sense of loss—a loss I didn’t even notice among the others. Maybe I don’t need to worry about what they’ll do to me if they catch me now. Our innocence is already gone, washed down the river with my best friend or rubbed away on my stomach well before that.

---