Metamorphosis—Day 34, hour 5
None of my teammates said anything as John carried me off the lawn of the arena. Students and competitors gawked at us as we passed.
Everyone was staring.
They were obsessed with me.
“Impure slut,” an angel sneered behind John’s back. The angel winced and grabbed at his head.
I looked back at him with a saccharine smile. “I prefer whore.”
My smile fell.
As we walked forward, the crowd of judgmental stares made me rethink everything that had just happened with John. It morphed into something else.
My stomach tied into knots.
Had John really agreed or had I just wanted him to and pressured him into it?
The ringing sensation in my ears was making it hard to think, and my memories were a jumbled mess. I bit down on my lip and squeezed my eyes shut.
When we finally got back to the bedroom, John put me down, and I ran into the bathroom.
Threw the lock on the shower stall.
Turned the spray to scalding and stumbled in with my clothes still on. I was too tired to take them off.
I laid down on the chilled tile.
I’d planned to spend thirty minutes under the water while I pulled myself together.
That’d been the plan before.
Before the pain.
At first, I’d thought I was having your run-of-the-mill panic attack. I’d quickly realized that what I was experiencing was definitely not mental.
It was physical.
And it had come out of nowhere.
From the intensity of the suffering, I knew I’d never be the same.
Hours later, tears streamed down my face as I contorted on the shower floor to try to relieve the torment.
It felt like my spine was snapped in half and poking out of my skin. Like my bones, jagged and sharp, protruded from my flesh like gruesome spines.
But when I patted my skin desperately, all I felt were the gashes of a slur. Normal.
Yet things were cracking and shifting inside me.
Have I not suffered enough? What did I do to deserve this? I asked the sun god.
He didn’t answer.
Choking on a watery sob, I was too delirious to care that after twenty-four years of dry eyes, I was finally crying.
Tears fell like rain.
All I knew was anguish.
My brain was empty of thoughts as bright lights and colors twisted behind my eyelids.
Time didn’t exist.
At some point, John banged on the locked stall and shouted, “Aran, please get out of the shower. It’s time for lunch. We’re all worried about you.”
My back was arched, jaw cracked wide and throbbing from the force of my silent screams.
A part of me knew what was happening.
I was being punished for what I’d done to John. I should have refused to do it. I should have removed myself from the games and accepted the consequences.
I was a coward.
The pain quadrupled.
I shoved my knuckles between my teeth and bit down until the water ran red. Kicked my legs and convulsed, desperate to relieve the sensation.
Panting quietly, I garnered every ounce of strength I possessed to sound normal and yelled back to John, “No, just let me be. I need this.” My voice cracked. “Please leave.”
Silence.
Finally, footsteps echoed as John walked away.
I sobbed harder and gagged. How could I live with what I’d done?
I’d taken advantage of my friend.
I could have fought harder, but instead I’d violated him, and this was my penance.
I deserved it.
As if to punctuate my thoughts, a loud CRACK echoed through my skull, and my back bowed at an impossible angle.
Something snapped in my back, but only I could hear it.
I choked on water.
Everything went black.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
I woke up to the sensation of bones shifting in my back, and the crunchy noise echoed against the tiles.
My stomach churned and rolled until bile mixed with the tears that poured down my face.
I bawled.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
Yet again the world went dark.
Nonsensical words and situations spun through my head.
“You’re damned like me,” Mother whispered.
A towering man pressed on my eye.
Jinx screamed as she spasmed on my bed in the manor.
I shivered after Mother set me on fire. Lying on the floor of the fae palace, I hugged myself as my teeth chattered from the cold.
Hot spray pounded me.
Crack.
My back bowed.
I was free-falling through the air, arms spread wide with a pipe between my lips. It felt like freedom.
Crack.
I vomited.
Whimpered.
There was a loud bang and swearing.
A ringing sensation in my ears made it warp and echo.
“What is wrong with her?” Malum asked, his voice like whiskey and broken glass.
The ringing sensation intensified.
Orion’s lyrical voice said, “We have to help her.”
“Aran, what’s wrong?” John asked. “Is this pain from the challenge?”
Hands started to pick me up.
Scorpius’s cruel voice sneered, “Don’t touch Arabella. This is your fault. Why the hell would you let her run and hide afterward? We should have given her medical attention first, you fucking idiot.”
The hands pulled away.
Crash.
Grunts.
Swearing.
I tried to move, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate.
As I was paralyzed, splayed on my back, hot spray splattered across my skin. The grunts and slaps became more fervent like the violence was intensifying.
Somewhere far away, gods watched as men fought beside my broken figure.
Did the gods know how tired I was?
Did they care?
I opened my mouth to tell everyone to shut up, but my jaw cramped, and a spasm racked my body. I convulsed from the effort.
My eyes rolled back in my head.
I tasted copper.
Darkness swallowed me.
Whole.
