Page 54 of The Wild Zone

I was terrified of what it showed me about myself. Even more, I was terrified that if I kept wearing the ring, I might start to like it.

“Are you lost?” said a man’s voice.

I scrambled backward into a crabwalk position. Standing over me was a hooded figure—unnaturally tall, broad-shouldered, and shrouded in a gray cloak. A bronze breastplate glinted underneath. Between the darkening sky and the shadow of his hood, I could barely make out the man’s scarred cheeks and thin-lipped smile.

I gulped. I hadn’t felt the cracking sensation of another vision, but I very much didn’t want this to be real.

And yet the man was staring right at me, waiting for a reply.

If he was real, the invisibility ring clearly didn’t work against him.

“Well, Katie Kim?” he asked.

I flinched—not just because he knew my name, but because it came out so sharp, like a knife cutting flesh.

I got to my feet, keeping my eyes on the man’s face. “Not lost,” I said. “Just looking for”—I glanced around—“something.”

The man made a rasping sound that might have been a laugh. “Is running through the woods and screaming part of your process?” The man circled me, stepping deftly over the fissure. “Or perhaps it’s a character defect?”

“I’m not…I’m not d-defective.”

What a perfect time to stumble over my words.

The man bared his teeth. “No? Perhaps your counselor is right. Perhaps you are a D-list demigod. Unimportant.”

“How did you—?”

“Wrong question,” he chided.

“Who—?”

“Also wrong question.” His lowered his gaze to the ring on my right index finger, which he apparently had no trouble seeing. “An interesting choice…that particular piece of jewelry.”

“I—I didn’t choose it,” I said. “We just randomly found it.”

I made the mistake of glancing at the fissure.

The man chuckled. “None of this is random, girl. You were chosen to be here. You know this in your violent, chaotic little heart. But you’ll have to go deeper into the Wild Zone for your answers. This…” He gestured to the rift in the forest floor. “This is just collateral damage. A mere scratch.”

A scratch. The words made my insides twist into knots. Go back. You’ve only scratched the surface.

I narrowed my eyes. A hard sphere of anger started to form from the jumble of emotions in my gut as I realized who this guy must be. “What are you doing here?”

He smirked. “Perhaps I’m not here at all. Perhaps I’ve decided to appear in your hallucinations because I’m having second thoughts about your abilities, Katie Kim. Show me why you’re a worthy choice.”

Clink, clink, clink.

Ohhh, that sounded so much worse than an incoming vision.

From the man’s right hand, a chain unspooled, until ten feet of serpentine metal trailed from his grip across the ground. The links were as thick as my fist and could no doubt hit much harder.

Without warning, he whipped the chain in my direction. I ducked just before it could decapitate me. The chain lashed a tree behind me, ripping a swath of bark into sawdust.

“Seriously?” I shouted. Then I did the only sensible thing one can do when faced with a giant chain-wielding, bloodthirsty brute: I ran.

This guy definitely meant business, but I didn’t see how killing me would help anybody. If he was trying to scare me, mission accomplished. If he was in my imagination, he deserved an Oscar for Most Realistic Performance by a Hallucination.

I hadn’t brought my scythe, because it wasn’t exactly practical for a footrace. That left me with a baton (not helpful) and my dad’s dagger, which was sheathed at my side.