Page 129 of A Taste of Torment
Only an hour left before my meeting with fate.
I slip into the bathroom and hide in a stall. This is bad. All of it. I can’t tell Jarron what’s going on. One, because I’m a coward and not ready to face him. Two, because he’d stop me. And what then? We don’t have enough to go on yet, and this is my chance to get the answers I need.
But—but what happens if I go and I’m trapped? What happens if I don’t make it back out again? My parents will have lost another child to these games without knowing what happened or why. Jarron will never know the truth about my feelings or why I went to the games.
I swallow hard and turn to find my books.
I pick up my journal and write one more journal entry.
46
DEAR DIARY & EVERYONE ELSE,
I don’t knowwhat’s going to happen to me tonight, and that’s the only reason I’m writing this. I hope I can make it out. I hope I can get the revenge I’ve been craving, or at least the information I need to get it. But if not, if I get roped into the same terrible battle my sister waged and I don’t survive, I won’t let the mystery remain. I won’t let those that care about me live the rest of their lives not knowing.
I believe my sister was involved in the Akrasia Games, in which some mysterious, unknown parties manipulate weak supernaturals and convince them to enter a battle to the death—with the promise of immense power if they win.
I have become a target. That much I’m confident about, considering I got the invitation today.
I am a human, and it’s always bothered me that I am weaker than other supernaturals. It’s not just my lack of magic, though; it’s how we’re treated because of our lack of magic. My parents are influential but have still been the subject of threats and degrading comments my whole life.
After my sister died, and multiple investigators dropped the case because she wasn’t important enough to risk accusing someone powerful, I had a reason to rejoin the community. Revenge.
I am a weak human among beings a thousand times stronger. I hate it. But since coming to this school, I’ve also found true friendship and deep relationships. Some of the beings I thought to be so inhuman they’re irreconcilably wicked, I’ve learned are truly incredible, beautiful beings. I feel grateful to have had the chance to get to know them.
Despite what I’ve learned and how I’ve changed, this insecurity still apparently targeted me as the kind of person who would be willing to kill innocent people for someone else’s entertainment all to gain magic. While it’s true that I am willing—even eager—to kill, I won’t be killing innocents and it won’t be for anyone’s entertainment. It will be for justice.
So, even though I don’t want their magic and I’m not willing to play their games, I’m going to play along. I will walk through the gates to Minor Hall, where the instruction in my invitation told me to go. I’m going to figure out who’s behind these appalling games. Then, I will do what I can to escape.
I will do what I can to make those people pay.
I may not succeed. But I’m going to try.
Unfortunately, I know very little about the games so far, and that’s the exact reason I’m going. Because the only way for me to get the information I need is to put myself at risk. But here is what I know, in case I’m not around to keep fighting tomorrow.
Bea is the supernatural that set me up with an invitation to these games. I don’t know how involved she is, but she left hints that there are ways for me to gain power without Jarron, and the moment I asked for her help, she told me there was an event happening tonight. She ordered me food and told me to rest.
An hour later, I got an invitation to the Akrasia Games, identical to the one in my sister’s autopsy.
Jarron, I believe to be completely innocent and uninvolved. He cared for me in ways that shocked me, and I feel that I am the one undeserving of his friendship. He wouldn’t put me at risk, I believe that. Which is why it’s him I’ll deliver this journal to—I trust you, Jarron. I do. And I’m sorry.
I also suspect Mr. Vandozer of being involved, but I have no proof. He has made comments to me about ascending—a word used in my sister’s journal before she entered the games—and I wonder how the Akrasia Games could possibly take place inside the school without his involvement.
That’s it. That’s all I know.
I’ll know more soon; I may never get the chance to share the information with anyone else but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
With all my love,
Candice Montgomery
47
Friendship is the best comfort to a shattered heart
I leanagainst the marble staircase at the barren entrance to the school. There are portals to a dozen different worlds down the hall, only a hundred feet away. There was a time that thought would have made me shake in my boots. Now, it’s almost tempting.
To run away somewhere no one would ever find me.
