Page 126 of Rite of Unity

Escape.Sixty minutes to escape.

“You may remove your hood.”A click followed the tinny voice.

I dragged the hood over my head, peering around.

The room was large, but not overtly dangerous.In each of the other corners sat my competition.Sera narrowed her dark eyes at me before her gaze swept the rest of the room.

Trial Eight.

It looked like an old mill, similar to the building I had worked in before the Rite.A pang of homesickness swept through me.I laced my hands together, nails pressing into my palms.

“When the clock begins its countdown, you may start,” the voice called over the speaker.

A drone dropped from the ceiling, projecting large red numbers onto the wall.Sixty minutes.

I searched the room, attention snagging on a table filled with objects.Some I recognized, but others were unfamiliar.If they’d given us tools, we would likely need them, but everyone would have that idea.A distraction?

A buzzer sounded, and the numbers on the wall melted into a fifty-nine.

I was up and running before I had made up my mind.

Lydia reached the table first, snatching a knife.She tucked it into her pocket and grabbed two round metal balls.Rakel made it second, grabbing a biometric sensor, and I swore softly.

Sera veered from her path, intercepting me before I got there.She swung, and I ducked, stumbling backward, pulse skyrocketing.

The knife.I needed the knife.

My gaze darted to Lydia as she lifted a metal canister to her lips, smirking before she wiped her lips.Her fingers curled around the knife—myknife—turning toward us.

My breathing sped as I took another step back.

Lydia stopped, wrapping a hand around her throat.A muffled croak escaped her.

My eyes shot to the canister.Then back to Lydia crumpling to her knees.The canister.Something in it.Something she’d just—

Sera was already moving toward her.

I turned and ran.

Behind me, footsteps.Sera’s.

She'd changed directions, moving away from her cousin toward the door.She’d never let me through.On the opposite side of the room, an old exit sign, no longer lit up, had me racing toward it.

I stopped.A long metal bar slid across the door.It would be easy enough to lift it, but my senses screamed at me to look closer.A soft hum tickled my ears.Stretching my fingers toward it tentatively, the hairs on my arms rose.Electrified.

I glanced up, spying Sera in front of the other door, watching me.She was smarter than I’d given her credit for.

In the middle of the room, Lydia was on her back, and Rakel was beside her, digging through a bag.

I searched the room for some clue, my gaze raking over exposed pipes and old switches.Just like my old office building, ventilation ran along the ceiling.If I could get up there…

There.A ladder.

I moved, sweaty palms crashing into it as I hefted it off the floor and dragged it to the nearest exposed duct.

Feet pounded on cement behind me, and I scrambled up the steps, swallowing down a wave of dizziness as I made it to the top.I reached for something to grab onto just as a crash sounded below.

Under my feet, the ladder wobbled, and my nails scraped metal as I dug my elbows into the walls on either side of me and pulled myself up.