I turn to face her. “Better I die than live a life full of guilt that will kill me anyway.”
Aelia squeezes my hand, pulling my attention to her. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes. But I won’t blame you if you decide to go, too.”
She smiles, despite the situation we find ourselves in. “You’re my friend, now. I won’t leave your side. Tell me what to do.”
I mirror her smile, badly wishing this wasn’t the way we would share our friendship with one another. I nod toward the platform touching the top right corner of ours. “Perhaps if we trigger the ones around her, it’ll raise hers back up?”
Marcella is quiet. Sweeping her attention across every platform, every woman, the finish line, Stella, and then the spiked walls closing in. Based on their distance, we have less than ten jumps before they’re on us.
But when Marcella turns her face back to me, she nods. “Godspeed to us all.”
The four of us stretch for the one diagonal from ours. When we land, itshifts the platforms around ours. But the sunken one still doesn’t budge. The spiked walls only draw closer.
We hop left. Closer to the one Moe is lying and reaching for Stella on.
The sunken one still doesn’t budge.
We move for the platform Moe is on when Aelia stops us. “Wait, look!”
I take my eyes off the platform and follow her gaze. To the shining spikes on the walls. Two platforms away.
“This isn’t working. If we keep hopping around on these, they’ll only get closer. And it’s not raising it,” Aelia whispers quickly.
Marcella lets go of Beatrice’s hand, pushing her sleeves up her arms. “Hold my ankles, and I’ll try to pull her out.”
“What?”we all say in unison.
She looks at us over her shoulder before crouching down. “I said hold my ankles! I’m going to reach for her and see if I can get her out. And I’m easily the strongest one here.”
Aelia is the first to break through our shared shock, grabbing her ankles as Marcella hoists herself down grumbling some curses. I straddle the back of Aelia’s legs, just in case. And Beatrice grabs my shoulders. Moe on the platform diagonal from us leaps to the one north of ours.
“Reach for me!” Marcella shouts down into the sunken platform.
There’s hesitation. Quiet. Until the platforms click and shift again. The spiked wall is now one platform away.
“Now!” Marcella barks.
Skin claps against skin, Marcella puffing out a breath and her body tensing. “I got her!”
The three of us pull her back by her legs, dragging along with her Stella. The spiked wall slides over the sunken platform. The metal tips glaring at us from inches away.
“Move, move!” Aelia screams, pointing at the platform diagonal and farthest away.
We all scramble forward, grabbing hands where we can and leaping to the next one the same time Moe lands on it. With six of us, it’s a tight squeeze. Forcing us to steady each other as the platforms shift underneath our boots.
The right spiked wall is only five platforms away now. The left, only one.
“We have to movediagonally!” I screech.
We jump, again and again, with Stella and Moe at the back.
One more. Just one more?—
Both walls snap closer. On either side of our platform.
We leap. Stretching for freedom. As our feet touch the ground, the walls clamp shut behind us, followed by an ear-splitting scream.
