Page 48 of Let Me Win You

I tried to orient myself in the new surroundings. “Just a minute, dearest. The maze is still moving.”

She glanced behind me over my shoulder.

“Um, Invi…” Her voice dropped to a half-whisper. “What the hell isthat?”

I whipped around to face a giant head rising from the ground. It had more horns than Avar. They spiked and curved in every direction. Two tusks grew out on each side of the monster’s snout, making his bovine head look more like that of a boar.

What the hell, indeed?

Instead of the shoulders, the shadows on the ground formed a pair of long, grimy tentacles. A few more sprouted, lashing against the floor and the walls with splatters of inky black mud.

The abomination’s mouth opened with a revolting, deafening screech, bearing two rows of sharp gray teeth.

“Oh, my God…” Nic whimpered, digging her fingers into my shoulder.

The maze was still moving, the screeching of its shifting walls echoed through the three passages in front of us. I scanned them again, listening for my senses to tell me which one would be the shortest way to the exit.

But there was no more time to wait.

The creature behind us lurched forward, its tentacles undulating under it like a giant ball of rolling mud.

Fuck it.

Uncoiling my tail to propel me forward, I leaped into the passage on the right.

The nightmare behind us screeched, groaned, and cried in a thousand voices, each more terrifying than the one before it.

“It’s after us,” Nic informed me, sounding tense but calmer than I would’ve expected.

Ifeltthe creature. Its presence scraped against my senses like a cold, foul claw. One of its tentacles slapped against my tail.The contact sent a paralyzing arrow of pain through my system, making me lurch to the side. I hit a wall with my shoulder.

Nic cried out in horror.

Shoving away from the wall, I kept going, unable to even think about what would happen to us both if that thing caught up with us.

The passage ended suddenly in a cliff, with a river running deep below. Without Nic in my arms, I could’ve possibly pushed off with my tail hard enough to leap onto the other side of the cliff. Then I could’ve stretched my tail for her to cross over too. But leaving her here alone, even for a moment, with the terrifying monster from hell was unthinkable.

“We’ll dive.” I moved to the edge.

“Are you sure?” Nic looked over her shoulder and into the gorge below.

“Hold your breath—” was all I managed to say to her.

The monster leaped, and so did I.

The dark water closed over us. And for one blissful moment, the repulsive sensation of the creature’s presence in my head eased. Then a splash rippled through the water, and the disturbing invasion slammed into me anew.

Holding Nicole to me with one arm, I used the other arm and the tail to propel us to the surface for her to draw a breath.

She blew the water out of her nose and gasped for air. I didn’t need her to speak to know she saw the creature swimming after us. Nic didn’t say a word, but her body remained tense and her eyes wide open as she stared over my shoulder.

A wall rose in the path of the stream. The river ran under it, with no more air for Nic to breathe.

“Take a deep breath and hold it,” I instructed.

She did as she was told, without questions. Not knowing how long the stream would remain underground, I drew in a full chest of air too.

As we dove then swam in the dark water underground, I counted the seconds in my head, but I couldn’t remember how long a human could live without air.

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