Chương 67: Book Two - Chapter 16: Trust, Who Do You? (Trust)

Anti-piracy note: If you are reading this on any platform other than Royal Road or Amazon, this has been pirated/STOLEN. If the author who wrote it has any name other than ShawnD or ShawnDePasquale, it is STOLEN. Please report this book if you are reading it ANYWHERE other than Royal Road. Thank you for helping to fight piracy. (Trust) ZONE 2 INCINERATION: 02: 28: 22 The first friend I'd made in this godless hellscape had just disappeared right before my eyes.

Literally vanished the second her butt touched the seat. The metal cap she'd had on her head dropped from the space where her skull had been onto the empty wooden chair in time with my own stomach bottoming out. Everyone yelled something. Either Isabel's name or some variation of "what the fuck?!" Except for me. I stood stone still, staring at that goddamn empty chair. A dry grinding sound. It took me too long to place it as the three bone fingers on my right hand closing into a fist.

At the same time, the metal straps that had been keeping Anabel held to the wheel suddenly released. She dropped to the cement with a thunk, unable to control the fall or the landing. Her body splayed on the floor beneath the wheel, her head and feet leaving scarlet snow angels behind when she made her first attempt to sit up. The long, greasy strands of her red-tinged hair spread wildly in all directions, framing her head in a sunburst of bloody streaks." Look at the whole carousel of flavors!"

Brad's head swiveled between Gen and me." A ginger, an Asian one..."

"Excuse me!" I said to him." Sorry. Half!

"He cackled." Are you into watersports?"

"I hate him," Tre said with zero sarcasm. The demon-possessed man knelt next to Anabel, and his whole posture changed. His shoulders loosened and his arms, which had been permanently clutched into awkward positions, fell to his sides.

"Bella? Bella? Baby, are you okay?"

"She's gone? What happened?" Anabel managed to eke out the question between soft, pained moans.

"Don't worry about that now. Let's get you healed.""'Don't worry about that?'" I closed the space between us, standing behind Brad, looking down at him and Anabel.

"Are you still the demon, or is the guy in there also a fucking asshole?" Brad's head whipped around, eyes instantly clouding over." Suck my filthy taint and find out, bitch?!"

"Why is his taint dirty?" Kane quietly asked Gen.

"Where did she go?" I demanded.

"Why did she disappear?!" Anabel groaned. Blood continued spilling from both her wounds.

"I don't know!"

"Bullshit!"

"Nora—" Gen started.

"Did you set us up?! Is that what this was?!" I stepped toward Anabel, fingers curling, a sudden desire to tear off her head, reach down the hole, and rip out her heart. Wait. What? I stumbled backward. An involuntary step back. The impulse to hurt her was so real it had come fully formed, leaving my palms sweaty and my heart pounding." Can I kill her? I wanna kill something," Brad said. He whirled around, snarling at me." I'll chew off your piss-flaps!"

"Bro," Liam said.

"NO!" Brad screamed at himself, pivoting back to Anabel.

"No killing!"

"HEY! WHOA!" Tre yelled it over the ruckus.

"Everyone, calm the fuck down. Stop talking about killing each other. Gen and Liam, restrain Brad. Kane, help me sort through the rest of this stuff." He pointed to the remaining items on his crafting table. While Gen and Liam muscled the possessed man away from Anabel, Kane went right to work sorting.

"What should I do?" I asked, feeling left out.

"Cool down. Smoke a joint in the box or something."

"You have weed?" Anabel asked weakly.

"No," I lied, taking Tre's advice and walking away. I posted up against the far wall near the door and opened my LifeLine. Isabel's picture was still there in the party roster, which helped loosen my shoulders for about half a second. Then I clicked on her name. ISABEL HOYOS STATUS: Temporarily Left the Party Temporarily. I stared at the word until the letters blurred from not blinking, definitely not from tears in my eyes. Either way, I clung to the word, choosing to interpret it as a guarantee. She wasn't dead.

If she were dead, it would say dead. Instead, I got "temporarily." And that wasn't entirely me coping either.

"Guys. She's on my map."

"Alive?" Tre asked, pausing to look up from the table.

"I think so," I said. In the midst of the remaining fog, past the edge of everywhere we'd been, sat a tiny icon of Isabel's face. No clear path to it or distance listed. It was just her head floating in a sea of digital swirling mist.

"What are we waiting for?" Liam said from the corner, hand still clamped on Brad's shoulder.

"Let's kill this Boar fucker and rescue her!" God bless his jock brain.

"Speaking of violence." Tre pulled the Bowie knife from his inventory, holding it out to Liam.

"Wanna give this back so you have it when you need it?"

"Good looks." Liam reached for the knife.

"Actually…" Tre's head tilted past Liam's shoulder at something behind me.

"Gimme a minute."

"For what?"

"Something better," Tre said, then pointed to Anabel.

"Her first." He pulled an unmarked amber pill bottle and one of those blue vials from the pile in the center of the table. Shring. NEW ITEM CRAFTED! PLACEBO-PLUS (2x) (Unmarked Pills + Blue Mystery Vial) Effect: 75% Temporary Health, stacks on current Health. Does not heal wounds. Decays over time 1%/min." You won't feel pain. I'd avoid operating heavy machinery, though." Kane scooped up the crafted bottle of what looked a lot like painkillers and walked it over to Anabel.

"This won't heal you, but it should help the—" Anabel snatched the bottle out of his hand, popped the top, and shook two white, chalky pills into her mouth. There was a crunch as she chewed them, made a face, gagged, then swallowed.

"You can take those from your inventory," Tre said.

"I know," she replied. That told me she'd been here a while. Nothing happened, and I had a momentary panic that these were nothing more than regular painkillers. Not some magical item. They were literal opiates we'd just fed to this random stranger. Then her whole body unclenched at once; every muscle seemed to wave a white flag of surrender, ending whatever internal war she was waging against her pain. In the HUD, her health ticked up through the mid-eighties and beyond. ANABEL LICHI HEALTH: 149% (Temp)"Oh…

thank you," she mumbled, pupils slightly dilated. Brad stopped struggling against Liam and Gen, the white receding from his eyes.

"Bella?" Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Anabel pushed herself off the floor in stages, keeping her chin perfectly level, as if she was terrified that at the slightest tilt some of her brain might spill out. That's how I got my first good view of her head injury. A brutal gash ran across the crown of her head in a horizontal line. The deep trench on her scalp parted down to bone. It hadn't healed, but the flow of blood had finally stopped.

She got her feet flat on the ground. As she stood up, it was clear the pain was gone, even though her feet were still uncooked hamburger meat. It would have been a lot more magical if she hadn't left bloody footprints as she walked across the room to put a hand on Brad's shoulder.

"Hey, I'm right here, boo," she said in an unexpectedly soothing tone.

"We're okay. So… maybe you wanna take control again for a while, huh?"

"I-I was so scared… I'm sorry, I just…" Brad started, quieting when Anabel put a finger to his dry, cracked lips. Her other hand cupped the side of his face, gently stroking his mottled gray skin.

"I'm right here," she said, looking deep into his eyes. Then she kissed him. They used tongue. Hers was a normal pink. His was the color of an aging, bruised banana. Liam let go of Brad's arm and turned away.

"Okay! That's... okay… I'm going over here now." He moved to stand by Kane and Tre at the little table.

"You can let him go too," Anabel said to Gen.

"He'll be okay now."

"Oh, will he?" I asked, not waiting for or wanting an answer.

"How convenient. You're free, your boyfriend's suddenly no longer a demonic dirtbag, and everything's just good?! Is that it? Was that the entire plan? Sacrifice someone else for your freedom?!"

"No! No, I swear!" Anabel shrank away from me as her hands flew up defensively in front of her face.

"She sat down, disappeared, and you got free!"

"Das ist schon sehr verdächtig," Kane added.

"It is suspicious, Love," Gen repeated.

"I didn't know that would happen to her!" Anabel cried.

"She's my friend!"

"Bullshit!" I screamed." NORA!" Tre turned to me.

"You wanna rage? Go kill that wheel and bring me the razors and some of that cable." I looked between him, the wheel, and Anabel.

"Fine." It turned out a torture wheel is deceptively simple to destroy. Behind the frame, bolted into a rusted housing, was a drive assembly full of gears. I pulled out the Mother's Ruin and went to work. It didn't take much, as the metal that had spent hours torturing a girl was a lot less tough when someone hit it back. I hit, and I hit, and I hit, and I hit, and I stopped keeping track of what my arms were doing and just let myself enjoy it. There was no grace to it, and I definitely wasn't strategic.

When the top blade track finally popped off, I put the weapon back in my inventory and went for the other one. I ripped the second razor out of the lower mouth with my right hand, because my skeleton fingers couldn't feel it, then tore the cables from the back of the Fear meter with a breathless " Hraaaagh!" When I was done, I stood there, holding the blades and wires and breathing heavily. Dr. B once told me rage rooms sell you a catharsis they can't deliver. She was right.

I was exhausted, and still furious at Anabel. The two feelings sat in me side by side. My ears stopped ringing, and I finally noticed the room had gone silent and everyone was very politely not staring at me. Anabel watched me walk away from the wreckage of the thing that had been peeling her like a piece of fruit. When I caught her eye, she gave me a small nod. Then she looked away, biting her left thumbnail and spitting out the piece. I dropped the stuff on Tre's table.

"Here."

"Better?" He asked.

"Meh."

"We got no idea how long those pills will last, so if we're gonna do something, it should be now," Gen said, as Kane climbed back up on her shoulder.

"Agree," the gremlin said, perched on his wife's shoulder. Tre's tabletop shuddered again, making the same shimmery sound. NEW ITEM CRAFTED! GUTTER-WRENCHJ (Bowie knife + torture wheel razors + cable sheathing) Weapon Type: Heavy melee, Two-handed Damage: Bludgeoning / Laceration" Best used for clearing out gutter trash. Try it on a new friend!" What sat on the table was a massive iron wrench with a heavy jaw and a row of serrated steel teeth set into the metal running down the length of one side of the shaft.

A thick, black rubber-wrapped grip topped it off. I stared at the gutter trash flavor text, then stole a glance at Anabel, who was still biting her thumbnail. My stomach did a small, guilty twist. I still didn't trust her, but if she really was another Final Girl, she was a victim like the rest of us. None of that changed the fact that we'd lost Isabel.

"Dude!" Liam punched the air.

"It's like the wrench Dom fights Shaw with in Furious 7."

"Outta my wheelhouse, but I'll take your word for it," Tre replied.

"Oh bro, we're watching the entire Fast franchise when we get outta here."

"Can't be worse than this torture maze," Tre deadpanned, struggling to pick up the weapon. He held out his arms theatrically to present it to Liam.

"All yours, big guy." Liam picked it up with one hand, then stepped back and swung it through empty air. It made a low whoosh, pulling a shuddering draft in its wake.

"Fuck yes!" He pumped his fist.

"This thing could dent Wolverine's skull! You rule, little duder!" He held out a hand for a "low five," and Tre slapped it with his tiny, vinyl doll palm.

"We're surrounded by nerds, babe," Anabel stage-whispered to Brad.

"Hang on," Gen said, ignoring her.

"By my count, we're out of supplies again."

"Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen," Kane said.

"Exactly," his wife replied.

"Everyone's healed." I regretted it because Anabel was standing right there. Gen didn't bother going after that weak point in my argument. She had a better in.

"What happens when someone gets hurt? Do we just dope them up too?" I hadn't mentioned the other cache out loud. Second thing I'd kept to myself in the last few minutes, and the first one had only been weed. If I lied and they asked to see the map, I'd kill more of my credibility. Gen was right; we should get the supplies before we ran into an obvious trap.

"There's another cache nearby," I admitted.

"It popped up on the map as we ran in here. There was no time to double back."

"How far is it?" Gen asked.

"If the monster's gone, we could get it now," Kane offered.

"Isabel's the opposite direction." I held out the phone so everyone could gather around and see our current status. We'd run past the turnoff to get the cache to hide in this room. If we left and took a left, we could backtrack down the hall to the dead end where the cache was marked. Or we could leave the room heading straight down the hall outside this door toward Isabel's marker.

"It doesn't look that far," Liam said, leaning in.

"About eighty feet, I think." My estimate was based on how long it'd taken to walk the other lengths of the revealed map.

"Bro, I could run that in under a minute." Liam gloated.

"Not alone," Gen corrected.

"We'll go with you."

"How many times do we have to have the 'let's not split the party' conversation?" Tre didn't hide his exasperation. If anything, he exaggerated it.

"I mean, good Christ on a crutch, is Maltheris erasing it from your brains?"

"We are…" Kane offered softly.

"I don't know how to say... Technisch gesehen sind wir nicht in einer Gruppe. Nicht, dass wir keine Bindung zu euch aufgebaut haben, sondern nur… naja, wegen der Spielmechanik." We turned to Gen to translate.

"We have made friends, but the system hasn't added us to your party." Tre's shoulders hunched.

"That's a technicality! I mean… you're not in the party, but you're still with our group, and we shouldn't split up!"

"M-maybe we c-can go with y-you." Brad's voice had taken on a meekness that made him sound pathetic. Or maybe I just didn't like people from Florida.

"No," Anabel quickly added.

"We're going after Isabel."

"You're okay with this?" Tre asked me.

"Splitting up?"

"We don't have—" Kane clutched his midsection and moaned, dropping into fetal position on the floor. Whatever was going on with him was getting worse. Gen reacted first, kneeling beside her fallen husband, scooping his head up into her hand.

"Kane?!" Tre was there next, wearing a long frown.

"Talk to me, buddy. Is this a game thing or…?" Kane waved off Tre and Gen, no longer sounding out in pain, still holding his belly." Nein, nein."

"Does he do that a lot?" Anabel asked.

"Nein, mir geht es bestens." The tremor in his voice said otherwise.

"I think maybe I had some reaction to the spray."

"Yeah?" Tre didn't sound convinced.

"And who is to say in this awful place where agony is distributed like penny sweets?" Back on his feet, Kane gave his two-foot green frame a shake like a wet dog, his long, pointed ears flapping against his cheeks.

"Or, maybe I am just an old man with belly issues." Gen wrinkled her nose.

"Are yeh about to let fly, then?"" Nein.""'Cause if you've got the wind, do it now before we're trapped in another bloody hall."

"I'm entirely grand." Kane put his palms together.

"But I beg of you, Pug, hör auf, meinen Hintern zum zentralen Gesprächsthema zu machen."

"Then stop keelin' over in agony," she snapped.

"Had me thinkin' yer heart was givin' out, so yeh did. Scared the ever-livin' piss outta me!"

"This is why we shouldn't split up," Tre said.

"If he's sick, this is the best reason." Gen stood back up, stretching her neck.

"Or didja forget we're all outta meds?"

"Liam, stay in touch via Mindbleed. We'll—""OH!" Tre cut me off, hopping up and down.

"The Mindbleed!" Liam eyed the door, anxious to leave.

"What about it?"

"Have we tried Isabel?!" There was a beat of panic between Tre and Liam. Neither of them had.

"Shit!" They yelled at the same time. ISABEL?! Tre's voice blasted across my brain. We stood there waiting for a response.

"Guessing you got nothin', huh?" Anabel asked after a full thirty seconds of silence. No one replied, which was answer enough.

"Okay, so, terms," I said, feeling ready to vibrate out of my skin.

"Liam's the link between groups. Check in on the Mindbleed every two minutes whether anything's happening or not."

"Every two minutes? What do I even say? How do I know when it's been two minutes?"

"Anything. Kendrick lyrics, I don't care, just something. If I don't hear your voice in my head, we have to double back to rescue you after we rescue Isabel, and by then we'll probably all be out of time." Kane shook his head.

"That would be a waste." I squared up with Gen, giving her another look at the map.

"Grab the cache and come straight back." She clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"Be nice if the big man gave my phone a map upgrade too." Liam laughed.

"Maltheris doesn't do nice."

"Only issue I see is, how do we find you after?" Kane's hands found his cheeks and slowly slid down the sides of his face.

"Dammit. Why do I open my big mouth?"

"Um…" Anabel raised one bare, ruined foot and set it back down, adding a fresh red print to the trail behind her.

"Follow the breadcrumbs," Kane said.

"The Brothers Grimm would love it." And that was how we formed a plan. No contingencies or backup plans because none of us thought that far ahead. Not yet. That strategy only came from trial and error, and so far we'd won. That wouldn't last forever. Or even until the end of this zone. As much as I hated splitting up, keeping Anabel and her demonic boyfriend with me was the safest play. Brad was a walking time bomb who had literally just tried to attack me, and sending those two wildcards off alone was a bad move.

If his demon co-pilot decided to take full control and slaughter people, I wanted to be there to put him down. That was a reasonable thing to think. I think. We opened the door back into the corridor with the care of a teen sneaking out of their bedroom late at night, into what was ultimately an empty hallway. I'd learned better than to point out when something felt too easy, even though it was what we were all thinking. A new quiet had fallen in the wake of the previous chase through this same hallway.

They walked away until I couldn't see them anymore. Gen took the lead, Liam filling the corridor behind her, with Kane on his back looking at us over his shoulder, his little green hand raised in a single wave, ear and a half flat against his head. Then the hall bent to the right, and they were gone. We turned toward Isabel's icon on the map and started walking. Testing, testing, Liam's voice filled my head. DJ Muddy Ballz, coming to you live from a death labyrinth. Loud and clear, Tre sent back.

I checked the clock and hoped two minutes would pass quickly.