“Shit.”
“Let’s keep going. He obviously went this way for a reason,” Grace pointed out.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen if we get locked in those chutes,” Mel objected.
“We can’t be sure what will happen if we don’t wind up there either,” Grace retorted. “There’s still two more people we need to find.”
“Hold up, I want to find my girl more than anything, but are you suggesting we purposely try to be shoved in bull pens?” Dion questioned.
I was going to tell him if that’s where this city’s psychotic overseer wanted us, that would be exactly where we wound up. Like way back in the ballroom—Goetia too—running away wasn’t a favorable option.
As we slowly approached the pandas, a few tried to do that and were promptly assaulted and still forced to go right. A man tried to fight back.
He paid for it with a brutal hit to his face—hard enough that his striped mask cracked when he hit the ground.
Once he was down his body was swarmed by masked figures like flies to shit and then he was hauled off like a piece of garbage. I knew we’d be going right seconds before we were jostled that way.
Cries of panic and pleas for friends or family fell on deaf ears as other groups were forcibly divided. A panel in the chute was opened and I our group was swept along with a few random strangers.
We were shut inside and herded through a narrow passageway by obscured figures prodding from above. By my count there were approximately a dozen of us inside the chute. I could only describe it as suffocating. My chest nearly smashed against the woman in front of me every time I breathed.
My heel began to throb after Mel stepped on the back of it for the third or fourth time. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was relieved when we came to a standstill—momentarily at least.
“Can you see anything?” Grace asked.
She had her hands up to prevent the man in front of us from knocking into us. There was a fearful, nervous energy amongst the people we’d been put in the chute with. I rose on my tiptoes and stretched my neck, straining to see.
“There’s a bend up ahead and a small staircase,” Dion replied from somewhere behind us.
I lowered back down and tried to locate where exactly he was. “Can you see where they go?”
“Not yet.”
A taller woman beside the man in front of us slightly turned her head and answered me. “It’s a stage.”
“And there’s a screen,” someone else added.
Stage and screen.
I couldn’t tie those two things together unless we were going to a theater or concert. The announcer’s voice continued to rapid fire information. I tried listening to him for a clue as to what we should expect, but I didn’t understand much of what was being said until we were right on top of the bend.
“Ladies and gents, rookies and vets, get ready for a fresh batch of blood to grace the stage and prepare to enter Kink’s special place!”
“Who?” Grace asked me in a whisper.
I didn’t have that answer. As people began going up the stairs Dion had mentioned, the passage became far less congested.
“Here we go,” Mel’s exasperated voice carried from behind us.
I glanced down to make sure I didn’t miss a step before ascending them with Gracelyn still beside me. Like everyone before us, once we reached the top, we were handed a numbered lanyard to loop around our necks by a masked panda. These ones had guns too—real guns--the kind you didn’t fuck around with strapped across their chests.
“Stand shoulder to shoulder,” another commanded gruffly.
I accepted my number sixteen and took my place beside Grace, who’d been given six. Dion wound up on my other side with the number three. Standing to his immediate right was Mel with the number seven. I doubted this was a coincidence, but there was way too much to take in for me to stop and think how each digit correlated with us personally.
Like someone had mentioned, there was an actual theater sized screen behind the stage.
Displayed on it were each of our numbers along with glowing half circles that looked as if they were loading beneath them. Strings of lights were strewn overhead to illuminate us and the sea of people staring.
Only some had bothered to wear any kind of disguise. I didn’t dare call this crowd mundanely normal. Anyone standing around at a carnival like this one was far from that. Even children were peppered throughout, some that couldn’t have been much older than twelve.
The announcer continued speaking, but he was completely out of sight. Pandas were all that were visible. Two stood at each corner of the stage. There was no sign of Ciaran anywhere. I supposed Maverick or the twins could be lurking, I didn’t know which alias they were donning, though.