Nico sits to untie his boots, but his fingers slip off the laces. He makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, trying again, but the knot stays tied firmly.
He’s been acting more like his normal self since I let him down from the pole. Less like he wants to rip my throat out with his teeth, and more like the Nico who brought me soup and tattooed a stick figure on the inside of his pinky knuckle because he thought it was funny. What will the Game Master do if Nico can’t get his boots off in time?
I gently bat his hands out of the way and begin working his knots loose. Each lace requires me to wobble it for a couple of seconds before I can get a finger under the loop. I’m surprised he doesn’t fight me. I guess even he realizes he needs the help.
0:42
I wrench off his boots and peel his damp socks away, and he stands up as I untie my own. The concrete is so cold it feels like it’s burning my soles. I jam my socks into my pockets, mind racing as I try to come up with a strategy.
Nico is standing barefoot on the edge, studying the glass. I join him.
Am I really going to try to outrun him? I don’t want to watch him hang from his wrists again. One turn on the pole has already made his hands swell up. What if another means he can’t move them at all?
“Get ready to run,” Nico says, turning his head to rake his eyes up and down me. “Or the second that timer goes off, you’re eating glass.”
I snap my gaze forward again. What the hell?
Had he been pretending to be nice to me so that I’d help him untie his boots?
0:30
His switch must still be flipped. I can’t let the bad version of Nico string me up on the pole. I’d be completely at his mercy. He could do anything he wanted to me.
I’m not going to hang back and find out if he means it about throwing me into the glass. He cut me with that scalpel. His long legs are going to eat up ground way faster than mine.
I have no choice. I have to outrun him.
0:25
Nico hurls his boots one at a time to the other end of the hallway. The first one clears the finish line. The second lands in the glass, pushing some shards across the yellow line.
Hang on.
I shrug off Dad’s jacket, bunching it up and laying it flat on the ground. Nico casts a sidelong glance at me.
0:19
I drag the jacket back and forth, testing how much resistance the concrete gives. I’m going to have to give this some gas.
0:11
I slip one hand in each boot, bending over so I’m standing on my hands and feet, then put both boots on my jacket. The Game Master said I had to remove my boots from my feet. He didn’t say I couldn’t wear them on my hands.
0:05
I do Mom’s breathing exercise. I’ll have to compartmentalize the pain the way Dad taught me, the way I did when I ran to the neighbor’s house on my broken leg.
0:02
Nico’s not looking at the finish line. His eyes are firmly on me.
0:01
The timer hits zero, and a brand-new ten-minute timer starts counting down.
“You may begin.”
Nico lunges for me.
