Page 37 of A Match Made in Hell
I need time to move faster here too.
Sasha may not be an option, but Harper is. Her giggles, bright and infectious, echo in my ear. This wouldn’t be like last time. I’d make sure of it. I know the cost of getting too distracted now, of spiralling out of control. This would simply be a conversation or two to help me make it through the day.
Thus, my fruit salad is abandoned in favour of Mission Find Willow a Friend, and I leave the cave with a spring in my step. This’ll work. I’ll have something to perk me up between each task and I’ll be home before I know it.
I increase my pace as Harper and her friends board a lift. Shit. It’s moving upwards before I can jump in, so I settle for hopping on the next one, wedging myself between a boy who smells inexplicably like petrol and a girl who I suspect may be new if the tear tracks on her cheeks are anything to go by.
I thinkfollow Harper, and hope this contraption will understand where I need to go. Something tugs on my stomach when we reach the entertainment floor, so I rush off, poking my head into rooms filled with pool tables built out of bones and balls that look like enlarged eyes. Personally I do not think a ball staring at me would help me take my best shot, but the dead in here are not to be deterred, cheering when a particularly bloodshot-looking ball drops into the corner pocket.
No Harper though. I keep moving, past a bowling alley (the skittles are, once again, made of bone, but the balls are sensible at least) along with the arcade room and projection caves. Each room blazes with colour, like every open doorway is a television screen blaring brightly in a place where all the other lights have been switched off. They’re the antithesis of the corridors themselves, where the cliff is crumbling in places, rock peeling like old paint to reveal darker stone beneath.
Further down the corridor, there’s a yell. A bang. Someone screams, ‘Stop!’
Something growls in response. Something distinctly inhuman. The floor beneath my feet shakes.
My heart stalls for a second, and then I’m running towards the noise.
I skid to a stop outside one of the smaller rooms, used for private games and tournaments. Harper’s inside with her two friends and, of all people, Aric. The sharp spike of his tail repeatedly bashes the sides of the pool table so hard I think the legs may splinter.
Shit. When I said I’d be what I needed to be to make afriend, heroic saviour wasn’t on my list of options. I’m neither heroic nor a saviour. Getting involved with Aric will get me killed; I saw that much my first night here. If I manage to stop him doing whatever he clearly wants to, he’ll go complaining to Sath and I don’t know if Sath would be able to protect me from punishment. Not if it’ll risk inciting the riot he fears.
Harper’s face pales when she catches sight of me. Shakes her head and mouths something that looks suspiciously likego. My feet are rooted to the spot.
I’m on another cliff edge: run and save myself, or stay and deal with the consequences later.
There’s only one smart choice.
And yet I don’t move.
Aric’s tail collides with the pool table once more, and the leg snaps. The table buckles, crashing to the floor on one side; Harper and her friends dart out of the way as balls pelt towards their feet. Aric grabs the top end of his tail, caressing it before twisting it round his palm like he’s preparing to use it as a whip. Nausea churns my stomach.
Nausea, tinged with rage. Once again, I’m reminded of how the demons are ruining this place. If this is supposed to be a middle ground, maybe the demons should start acting like it, instead of milling around instilling fear into everyone. Forget setting them on fire with Tartarus’s flames, if the gates weren’t broken, I’d go to Sath right now and demand he shove every last one through. Let them torture each other for eternity instead.
‘Little humans,’ Aric says.‘You have been naughty, haven’t you?’
Please. They weren’t that far ahead of me; they can barely have been in this room more than a minute. As someone who’s been callednaughtymore times than she can count, I can say with confidence you need at least two minutes.
‘I’m going to cut you into pieces.’ Aric drags the spiked end ofhis tail across the boy’s cheek, slicing into his skin. Blood wells in the thin cut. Aric smacks his lips, and sighs. ‘Oh, I will enjoy eating you.’
Ew.
This is definitely the part where I should leave.
Absolutely. Definitely.
And yet for some reason, my hand finds itself grabbing a pool cue. Harper’s eyes go wide. She shakes her head a little more vehemently. But the three of them clearly aren’t going to do anything, and someone has to. Why should Aric get to do what he likes because he’s bigger than them, because the rules allow him to – becauseSathallows him to? He’s a demon with a bad haircut, why should he get to decide who does or doesn’t get chopped to pieces today?
Fuck it.
‘Hey!’ I call out.
Aric spins round.
‘Leave them alone.’
At the sight of me, Aric’s lips curl, revealing a set of long fangs protruding from his gums. Gross. He sniffs the air – sniffsme, my scent, most likely, to see if he deems me tasty – the gesture reminiscent of an animal waking from a nap because their owner waved a treat in front of their nose.
But the way he looks isn’t the worst part of him. No, it’s the way I can sense his malice leaking from his pores, like the evil is a stench he can’t wash off; he’s a rotten apple, rancid and reeking, only growing worse with age.
