Chapter Nineteen
Taylor held the creamy sheet of paper in one hand. Cliff had been gone when she woke up, but this time he’d left a note behind on the pillow. He’d written the word Cliff, and drawn a heart, and then written the word Taylor. It made her smile, even as her stomach was tied in knots of worry.
She folded it up and stuck it in her pocket.
He’d sworn up and down that he’d be fine. Nobody was in better physical shape than him, and a Dominus werewolf could recover from severe injuries.
But still.
She was sitting on the front row of the bleachers at the finish line, waiting to see if Cliff was actually going to show up in one piece or not. The reality of it was just starting to sink in. He could be seriously hurt. He could die.
Chantelle sat next to her on one side, and James sat on the other. Truman and Rusty were there, guarding Chantelle. Serafina and Dax and Roger were sitting in the same row.
There were booths with food, and the air was thick with tension and testosterone – like being at a particularly contentious sports match between hated rivals. Jerrold’s crew sat on one side of the field, and Cliff’s sat opposite them. Several fights had already broken out. The Hidden Hills Police Department roamed through the crowds, trying to keep the peace.
The Elders sat in the front row of another set of bleachers, listening to two-way radios.
Should I have said I love you? Taylor thought miserably, holding a rapidly cooling cup of coffee in her free hand. Will I get another chance? He couldn’t actually die, could he?
“I’m Team Austin,” Serafina informed Taylor and Chantelle. “I have to be. He’s my favorite uncle.”
“That’s fine. We’re all on the same team, basically. We’re rooting against Jerrold,” Taylor pointed out.
“I’m down with that. What a flaming asshole.” Chantelle said loudly, then glanced at Serafina and cleared her throat. “Sorry. What a flaming…jerk.”
“Oh, Iike I’ve never heard the term asshole before,” Serafina scoffed. She glanced at her brothers. “You’re not allowed to say that word. Deal with it,” she added as they started to argue.
“Chantelle, could you try not to be a terrible influence, for maybe just like five minutes?” Taylor scowled at her best friend.
Chantelle grinned. “I could try, but I’d fail.”
“I like your friend,” Serafina said. “Maybe she could teach me some new swearwords. I’ve lived a very sheltered life.”
“Stick with me, kid, we’ll go places.” Chantelle glanced at a food booth. “Like over there to buy some sandwiches. And chocolate chip cookies.”
“Cookies, you say?” Roger looked at her hopefully.
“You look malnourished. You should have at least five,” Chantelle pronounced. Roger and Dax gazed at her with utter adoration.
“This early?” Taylor frowned at Chantelle.
“You know, we really like you, but we might like your friend a little bit more. Even if she is human,” Roger said solemnly to Taylor, and they headed over to the food booths.
Rusty leaped to his feet, and he followed Chantelle, Serafina and the kids all the way to the food booth. Truman trailed behind them. Taylor couldn’t tell what Chantelle was saying to Rusty, but from the laughter of the children and Rusty’s annoyed look, it probably involved spicy language that she wouldn’t have approved of.
The morning felt as if it were dragging on forever. The hot sun beat down on them, and Taylor dumped out her coffee and got a bottle of ice water and tried not to worry. Loudspeakers boomed out the progress of the contenders. Grant had gone first. He’d passed the first set of obstacles…the second…the third… He was at the finish line, and he’d made it, well under the time limit.
He came back and joined them, drenched in sweat and mud. “Anybody want a hug? Nobody?” he said, as Serafina and her brothers shrieked with laughter and dodged him. He took them to the booths to buy them treats.
“They already had cookies! No more sugar!” Taylor yelled after them.
“Tattle-tale!” Roger complained.
“Donuts don’t have sugar, right?” Grant called back over his shoulder.
“Whatever.” Taylor waved them off. “When it comes time to peel them off the ceiling, you’re on your own.”
Jerrold was next. Unfortunately, Jerrold made it through the obstacle course just fine, and his time was good too – only thirty seconds slower than Grant.
Next was Cliff’s turn.
* * * * *
The obstacle course was over two miles long, doubling back on itself several times so the audience wouldn’t lose sight of the contenders. It was constructed from sturdy timber, and tested speed, strength and agility. It was clear why the others had finished the course in such a filthy state – there was a section of the course that could only be completed by swimming underwater, with nowhere for Cliff to surface for air if he got into trouble, and other sections where he’d have to crawl on his belly underneath vicious razor wire. He’d already scaled sheer walls and climbed an intricate structure that required leaps over massive gaps hundreds of feet above the ground. Any one of those falls would be enough to kill a human outright, and the lurching sensation in Taylor’s stomach each time Cliff’s muscles bunched and he launched himself into the air told her that even a werewolf, Dominus or not, could crack his skull or break his back. Could he heal from something like that? She didn’t know.
Now he was at the rope portion, in which he’d have to swing Tarzan-like from rope to rope through the treetops until he got to the next section of the obstacle course.
He grabbed the last rope and launched himself from a tree limb. As he swung, he realized the rope was giving way.
The rope snapped, and he plummeted towards the ground. He twisted and clawed, and just barely managed to catch himself on a tree limb as he fell.
He hung there, heart pounding. That rope had been sabotaged. He needed to make it to the end and tell the Trials Monitors immediately so they could stop Austin from going after him.
But who knew what other traps had been laid ahead of him? Should he skip the rest of the obstacle course? Under pack charter, that might disqualify him.
Cursing, he climbed to the ground and raced through the forest to the next obstacle – a teetering rickety bridge, with a rope hanging overhead to steady himself, dangling eighty feet in the air over a river. He glanced at the rope. If someone wanted to sabotage the bridge, they’d probably also have messed with the rope, knowing he’d grab at it if the bridge gave way.
He couldn’t rely on the rope. He shifted into wolf form so he’d have a lower center of gravity and hurried forward. As he did, the bridge began to sway.
As he reached the end of the bridge, he heard a tearing sound, then the bridge dropped from under his paws. With a mighty leap, he landed on the rocky outcrop on the other side, shifting into human form in midair. He caught a rocky outcropping, and painstakingly hauled himself up. The jagged rocks viciously scraped his arms, and blood poured from his wounds as he flopped onto solid ground.
No time to waste. He raced full speed to the finish line and quickly warned the Monitors. Unfortunately, Austin had started on the course the second Grant had finished.
Then he went to speak to the Elders. The Monitors took a helicopter up and stopped Austin partway through the obstacle course.
The games were temporarily halted while the Monitors swarmed over every inch of the rest of the course, testing for more sabotage.
When the ropes were examined, it was clear they’d been cut by a knife – sawed partway through. The most likely culprit was either Grant or Jerrold, since they’d gone first, but there was always the possibility that somebody had snuck onto the obstacle course and sabotaged it.
All four competitors were called before the Elders, in a tent on the sidelines. The accusations flew thick and fast.
“Grant went first, and everybody knows how desperate he is to win,” Jerrold snarled.
“You made it through the obstacle course just fine, so how could I have done it?” Grant growled back. “You went right before Cliff. Obviously it was you.” He looked at Herbert. “This is a unique circumstance, not covered in the pack charter. In a case like this, the Elders’ vote decides the matter. We need a truth challenge. We need to interview all the competitors. I’m happy to go first.”
“He’s only saying that because he knows it’s strictly forbidden by the charter.” Jerrold’s lip curled in scorn.
“No challenges of any kind to any competitor,” Phineas said in a fussy, self-righteous tone. “That’s the law.”
“Maybe Cliff did it, to throw suspicion on the rest of us,” Jerrold continued. “Or because he was losing.”
“Me?” Cliff scoffed. “My time was excellent; I was being tracked throughout the entire course, so you know I was ahead of both you and Grant. As for me doing it, I came seconds from death, twice. I nearly fell a hundred feet to the ground.”
“Well, we only have your word for that last bit, don’t we?” Jerrold said. He glared at Grant. “My money’s still on Grant, though. Possibly conspiring with his other brothers,” he said to Minnie.
Grant snorted. “Everyone knows that when I win, I do it fair and square.”
“Everyone knows that you claim that.” Jerrold glared at him.
“Leave us,” Oswald said to them. “We will summon you when we make a decision.”
Half an hour later, they called the four men back in.
They would not do a truth challenge. It would violate the pack charter.
It was going to take the rest of the day to check over the entire obstacle course to ensure that it was safe for Austin. Austin had offered to go anyway, because he was a reckless ass, but the Elders had refused. He could go in the early evening once the course had been checked, and this time they’d station Pack Guardians along the entire length of the course to ensure that it wasn’t sabotaged again.