Or, maybe, the answer to my next step lies in the mistakes of my past. The times I tried to deal with my problems on my own and didn’t ask for her help.
I’ve worked through all the distrust that led me to make those choices. It took eight months of living with the assassins to deal with the walls I’d built around myself. I know I still have a way to go, but showing Peyton that I trust her is a step I need to take.
Lowering my guard, I allow my emotions to surge, but only enough that she will hear me.
I’d like your help if you’re willing to give it.
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. The press of her lips eases. “You can’t know what’s in that box,” she says. “Hoping it’s the bones won’t make it so. But you can choose the path you carry it on.”
It’s a cryptic response, but I don’t dismiss it. “My path through the maze.”
Slade warned me that everyone’s path through the labyrinth is different, even if they’re walking the same ground.
“I should take the box into the maze with me,” I say, more of a statement than a question.
“I believe you should,” she says.
Vanguard takes a quick step toward me as if he would object, but I’m not sure what else he thought might happen. Maybe he thought I’d choose to leave the bones out here with Slade, but I won’t put that kind of responsibility on my friend.
Nobody from the outside can come after us while we’re in the maze, so the only dangers I need to worry about are within it—the same dangers I was going to face anyway.
At that moment, a bright light grows to my left, the direction in which the real bridge sits.
Within seconds, it’s so bright that I have to raise my arm to shield my eyes, conscious of Vanguard, Jonah, and even Peyton doing the same.
Slade’s silhouette appears within the flood of light, and his voice sounds. “Walk directly forward. Don’t look back. The maze will only stay open for another five seconds. Good luck.”
Vanguard doesn’t delay, darting forward with Jonah close on his heels, both of them with hands cupped around their faces, their eyes squinted closed.
Peyton follows, and I step into her wake, only to be stunned by the memory of the first time I saw her.
She was standing with her back to me, her form lit up. Joseph was having a flicker fit, and every quick burst illuminated her body, pulsing around her head, shoulders, narrow waist, curvy hips, and down her long legs.
I thought she was some kind of fire angel.
So fucking perfect.
She still is. She always will be.
With my heart like a stone in my chest, I follow her into the light.
24. PEYTON PRICE
Beware of the maze. It will tamper with your mind and your power.
The moment I was transported to the forest, my sisters’ warnings rushed into my mind as if they had been repeating them over and over, hoping I might hear them before I entered the labyrinth.
Then, when Striker retrieved the box, they warned me again.
The runes on that box are ancient. So is the maze, and the creatures imprisoned within it. It is said that within the maze, you will find answers to questions that will change your fate, but the knowledge can cost you everything.
Walk carefully, sister, they warned.Above all, do not allow that box to fall into the wrong hands. Whether or not the bones are within it, that box is itself a powerful object.
I follow Jonah along the stone bridge, conscious of Striker walking at my back. Comforted by it, actually. I’m certain he won’t let anything come at me from that direction.
Our surroundings changed the moment we stepped through the light and onto the rock.
The river is gone, and so is the waterfall. Instead, there are only clouds all around us, making it impossible to see what is beneath the bridge or even above it.
