Under Zenith (18 page)

He failed to mention that ‘helping me along’ meant lying to me and practically throwing me over the ledge against my will.

“I stayed conscious long enough to explain what the third task was so that you’d have an idea of what you were supposed to do. Not to mention the fact that I had to endure your terrible hospitality and having an arrow shot through my shoulder.”

When he said everything back to back like that, I could almost understand his unsound logic. But then I’d remember how he’d discouraged me, lied to me, taunted me, and generally made me miserable.

“You really think you’ve been helping me?” I asked in disbelief.

“You really think I haven’t been?” he asked, equally shocked by my view.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Shaking my head I got to my feet, brushed off my dress, and began walking back in the direction of the task. I knew Hayden wouldn’t let me waiver from our strict self-imposed itinerary for long, but I’d hoped he would give me at least a few minutes to think things through.

“Arrogant, self-important, conceited man,” I mumbled under my breath, while Hayden walked by my side with a self-satisfied smile on his handsome face.

He was enjoying my anger way too much.

“You might want to stop for a second so I can tell you about the task,” he began, though I completely ignored h
im and continued walking toward the brightly colored pools in front of me.

“
I’m sure you have lots of ‘helpful’ things to tell me,” I shot back sarcastically, fuming at just how crazy Hayden made me.

I didn’t slow my pace at all, practically jogging down the hill until I was right in front of the rocky landscape.

“Hey!” Hayden shouted, grabbing me by my upper arm and pulling me backwards into his chest with a bit too much force.

“What?” I yelled back, spinning around to face him.

My intimidation factor was somewhat lessened by our height difference. Staring up at someone angrily while resisting the urge to stand on your tip toes wasn’t exactly terrifying. It was just a little sad.

His face quickly transitioned from urgently annoyed to cool and cocky once more.

“As much as you don’t like me, you’re going to need to listen to my instructions for this next one,” Hayden said disinterestedly.

He always sounded so
detached and above it all. It was infuriating.

“What’s the task,” I asked, turning away from him.

I tried to make my voice sound as annoyed as I possibly could, though I suspected the message still didn’t quite get through to him.

“Task five: Strategy.”

“Strategy. I can do strategy,” I said confidently. “Strategy usually doesn’t involved being chased, or killed, or eaten.”

“Not
usually
,” Hayden began with a gleeful expression.

“Seriously?” I asked. “What’s going to kill me this time?”

“A pool of acid,” he responded simply.

I took a few steps away from the brightly colored puddle in front of me and finally took a good l
ook around. The terrain ahead was rocky and desert like, despite the woods around the little valley. I could see the safe house in the distance at the top of a series of podium like structures made from rock.

It looked like after navigating the valley full of pools
, I’d need to jump from podium to podium until I got to the safe house, which resided on the tallest of the rocks.

“So the pools are acid?” I asked with a humorless laugh.

“This is why I need to explain it to you…to
help
you like I always do,” he said.

I thought his use of the word ‘help’ was a bit loose
, but didn’t say anything. I let my pride take a back seat for a moment so that I wouldn’t end up falling into a pool of acid. A fair trade off.

“First of all, you’ll need these,” he said, handing me five small glass vials, each with a different colored liquid inside.
“Each liquid does something different depending on the color. Now it doesn’t matter if you drink it or simply touch it with your skin, the effect will still work.”

Glancing out over the pools once more, things were beginning to make sense.

“Not all of the pools are acid,” I guessed.

“Only the orange ones,”
he confirmed.

“And I luckily don’t have an orange vial.”

“I resisted the temptation.”

“How very ‘helpful’ of you Hayden,” I said, making sure I emphasized the word he didn’t seem to understand.

“I’m nothing if not helpful.”

“I would never call you
‘nothing’,” I responded sweetly.

He shot me a fake
and short lived smile before continuing.

“I’m only going to say this once
, so I suggest you make a mental note of which colors do what,” he went on. “When you leave the grass you won’t have control over your own body anymore. You’ll begin walking and there’s no way to stop yourself until the task is complete. That’s very important to understand.”

“Got it,” I said with a wave of my hand.

“Once you start this task, you cannot stop it,” he emphasized, obviously not trusting that I really understood him.

“
Oh. Kay,” I said dramatically, matching his serious tone, though mine was completely sarcastic.

“You’ll use the liquid in the vials and the different pools to navigate yourself through the landscape. In fact, you should probably take your boots off so you can ensure the liquid touches your skin if you walk through it.
”

I gave him an odd look
, but followed his directions, taking my boots off and handing them over to him once more.

“The first two colors are pretty easy. The red liquid slows you down and the gre
en liquid speeds you up. Just like traffic lights.”

“That’s simple enough so far.”

“The blue liquid will allow you to go backwards, but only for a few seconds before you’ll automatically start moving forward again. But there’s no liquid that will change your backward movement. You just have to wait until the blue wears off if you want to move forward. The purple liquid will help you jump over gaps and obstacles, including pools, which might just save your life if that pool happens to be orange.”

“Which would make it acid,” I repeated, just to show that I was being a good little listener.

“Very good.”

“So what does the yellow vial do?” I asked.

“Turns the sun back on,” he explained, completely baffling me.

“Wait. What?”

“Every once in a while, the sun is going to go out on you. When that happens you’ll need to drink from the yellow vial to ignite it again. On that note, you may want to conserve that one if you can.”

“Somehow I missed the whole ‘sun going out’ thing on my trip to Yellowstone when I was little,” I deadpanned.

“Not sure how you could have,” Hayden responded.

“Must be because I’m an uneducated hick.”

“I was going to say it’s because you’re a woman. But it’s probably a combination of the two,” he agreed with a solemn nod.

I reached out to hit his arm
, but ended up dropping the yellow vial in the process. It shattered the second it hit the rocky ground and I gasped, bringing my hand up to my mouth in shock.

“Would you please at least begin the task before completely failing it?” Hayden asked with a raise of his eyebrow as he pulled another yellow vial from his pants pocket and handed it to me.

“Sorry,” I responded with a wince.

“I’ll forgive you this once. Now I’m sure it’s pretty obvious by this point, but your goal is to get to the safe house up there and avoid falling into the acid.”

“And the strategy comes in where?”

“You c
an only use one color at a time. Not only that, but you have a limited amount of each liquid so make sure you don’t use up all of the yellow in your vial if there’s a perfectly good yellow pool right in front of you. In fact, I’d avoid using the vials at all unless you absolutely have to. The pools are a much better option.”

“Got it. Is there anything else?”

“Just one thing,” Hayden said, looking like he had absolutely no faith in me. “Good luck.”

Chapter 17

“This isn’t so bad,” I called over to Hayden; and so far, it wasn’t.

Of course I hadn’t run into any pools of acid yet and I hadn’t really needed to use the vials.

“Would you stop talking and just focus please?” he said simply.

Hayden had been walking along the perimeter of the task, avoiding the pools and not offering any help. It seemed like he was hardly paying attention to me at all, though it was surprising that he was staying with me rather than meeting me at the safe house like he normally did.

I considered how close we were to reaching my Destination and I couldn’t help but think that
this made him nervous. This was the closest he’d gotten to successfully guiding someone and now he was taking extra precautions, as was evident by his refusal to leave while I completed the task.

“There’s a purple pool coming up which is…,” I let my words trail off as I racked my memory. Good thing I wasn’t in any danger yet since I seemed to forget what each color did almost instantly. “Jumping?” I guessed.

Hayden looked extremely put out by the cavalier manner in which I was treating this task, but his anxiety made me happy.

My legs continued to carry my forward of their own accord.

At first when I’d begun the task, the loss of control over my own legs had frightened me. Now, I wished I could turn this ability on whenever I wanted. It was like driving a car; I got to my destination, but I didn’t have to expel any energy to do it.

The second my bare foot touched the purple puddle in front of me I felt my knees bend and my legs flex. In the next
instant, I was being propelled through the air at an alarming rate; the wind whistling past my ears and my hair fanning out around me as I reached the peak of my arc.

The jump didn’t move me forward as much as I’d hoped. Instead it seemed to be a very vertical jump, and by the time my feet hit the ground once more, I had barely cleared the purple pool.

“Good to know my ‘jumping’ is so wimpy,” I said to Hayden, hoping I’d be able to clear the gaps between each podium on the way to the safe house.

“Think of the other colors,” he responded cryptically.

I knew he couldn’t help me outright, but it sure seemed like he wanted to. I didn’t think Hayden trusted me to complete this task at all.

“I can’t use two at a time,” I answered in confusion.

“True, but some of the effects last for at least a few seconds.”

I looked
down at the vials in my hands and suddenly wondered how long the green liquid would speed me up. Really, if it were any duration of time longer than a few seconds I’d have time to try some of the purple liquid and get a running jump as a result.

“Looks like you’ll have an opportunity to test it out up here,” Hayden told me and sure enough, a green pool sat only a few feet ahead of me.

The next pool, only a few more yards away, was orange.

“Acid,” I said to myself, noting that I should have a purple vial ready for when I reached the deadly pool.

With no way to stop it, my feet touched the green colored puddle and I instantly began running at a breakneck speed; faster than I ever would have been able to sprint on my own. I held the purple vial to my lips for just a moment, waiting until the very last second to take a sip.

Surprisingly, the liquid tasted just how it looked; like a
melted grape Popsicle. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. I’d figured that in this place where everything seemed like it was out to get me, the liquid in each vial would taste like rotten eggs.

In a split second, my body was forced to jump and I was propelled over the orange pool as well as a yellow pool.
Once my feet hit the ground again I continued to run for a good thirty seconds before slowing my pace once more.

“Wow,” I breathed.

I was surprised I had actually managed to clear the pool, and exhilarated by the feeling of flying I had just experienced.

“Guess it lasts for quite a while,” I called over to Hayden.

“You dropped the red vial,” he responded, his hand over his face as if he couldn’t bear to look at me and all of my failures.

“Uh oh,” I said, looking behind me at the smashed red vial.

I had dropped it behind the yellow pool and suddenly, I couldn’t remember which vial would take me backwards.

“I didn’t really need to slow down anyway, I’ve got this,” I told Hayden, sounding even less confident than I felt. “Besides, all of these vials are just weighing me do
wn and confusing me.”

With that, I dropped the
blue vial on the ground, remembering finally which color would take me backwards after deciding it wasn’t important.