Willow stumbles out of her room, already dressed for the Challenge in a black tactical suit and heavy boots, heading straight for the coffee pot. “This is going to suck,” she moans, “I can feel it.”
“There’s the cheery, positive attitude that takes you far in life!” I say with a big, fake smile.
“Yeah, those are attributes that count for exactly dick in this world,” she sneers, gratefully taking the mug from me. “Ah, the sacred caffeinated beverage of life. I can face anything with caffeine coursing through my veins.”
Just before we part to head for our teams, I grab her, hugging her hard. “Be safe, please fam. I have a really bad feeling about today.”
“You too,” she sighs.
Every college in the world probably spends an inordinate amount of time trying to keep their students safe. The unofficial motto of the Ares Academy is: If you get hurt, you’re an idiot. If you get killed, it’s just as well that you’re dead and no longer wasting the Academy’s time. This is not a nurturing place of education.
There are four majors at the Ares Academy. For the Challenge, each Leader - who is almost always the firstborn in their family - is required to pick three students from each of the other divisions; the Spies, like me, who handle intelligence andsurveillance for their families. There are the Warriors, who head up their organization’s soldiers and security, and the Assassins, who do most of the crime family’s dirty work.
When Dean Christie steps up to the podium in the giant stone courtyard, I groan quietly. She looks too happy.
“Welcome to the year’s first Leader’s Challenge!”
Professor Fukumoto tells us that we’re leaving the Academy grounds for the first task, which we rapidly discover is at the small airport on Inis Mor, where we will be jumping out of an airplane to discover - midair - which team member has a tampered parachute.
The first task is scary, but mainly because I’m worried about my teammates who’ve never skydived before. But we figure out who has the tampered parachute and make it safely back to the landing zone.
Lucca’s team is waiting for pickup too, and I hug Mariya in relief. “Everyone okay?”
“We made it,” she says, cracking her neck. “I barely managed to get Hanuel in a tandem rig before our chute deployed. Have you seen any of the other teams?”
“Manuel Sanchez washed out. One of his people panicked and pulled their canopy almost immediately,” I say, “I heard of a couple of other teams, but no names.”
“They do so love to keep us in suspense,” she agrees.
Liam pulls us in for a huddle before the next task. “Who’s done any rock climbing here?” Looking around, I’m grateful to see most of us nod. “These fuckers have tampered with a belay device and a team member’s climbing cams. Any one of us can get popped off the line like bad tuna from a can.”
I cock my head. Liam’s “Irish-isms” can be very confusing.
“We double rig, yeah?” Liam continues, “Ya’ keep your eyes on each other. Strongest teammates at top and bottom.”
The sheer, endlessly tall cliffs are the thing that the Aran Islands are the most famous for, and they’re fucking terrifying. I can skydive, no problem, but the vertigo I’m getting from looking down as we start the descent is making my vision blur.
Pull it together, you giant ninny. They’re all counting on you.
Hammering my climbing cams into the rock, I groan a little. The cliff face is brittle, we need more of the metal anchors to hold us. Looking up, I see Cormac, feet planted wide and watching every move. He looks at me directly and gives me the faintest of smiles, and it’s enough to make me smile into the cliff face and hammer another cam in harder.
Only a fool feels safe during a Challenge. Iknowthis and still, a cautious hope is rising in my chest that we’ll get through this task just fine, it’ll be-
There’s a huge popping sound, like a rain of bullets and then my stomach’s nearly torn up and out of my throat as I plummet fifteen feet. My rig catches me, snapping my back and head violently in a U shape. I dangle helplessly for a minute, trying to lift my head against the searing pain. My shoulder crashes painfully into the cliff face and my arms flail, trying to pull myself upright on the climbing line.
“MALA!” My eyes squint as I try to focus. It’s Cormac. “Steady on!” He’s pointing, what’s he pointing at? My brain is sluggish but I see, there’s a promising thread of granite to my left, much more solid. My shaking hands pull me upright and I pull out two metal cams, pounding them into the rock with all my strength.My head throbs with each strike of the hammer, but I get them in.
Six of us fell from the tampered climbing cams and belay, leaving the other four to frantically hold the line. I’m first to re-anchor and I brace my shaky legs against the rock for the guy underneath me. Merrill’s in the Warrior’s division, strong as hell but his spine got the same jolt mine did, but with more weight.
“Hey, Merrill!” I shout down, “See the vein of granite?”
He holds a bloody thumb up. “Got it. Fucking cliff. Fucking challenge…” he mutters as he fits a climbing cam into a crack, “motherfucking Academy!”
Konstantin, whose team is next to us, calls down to Liam. “Are you okay?”
Liam’s holding up Clara, one of the girls from the Assassins division as she struggles to right herself. “Aye, true grand!”
Liar.
