The Coven Games by Anna Pen-name (most read book in the world txt) 📕

My mother smiled weakly as I stepped out of the car, bag hung haphazardly from my shoulder. I was in kindergarten, trying to cling to my mother’s leg.

“Be here at three-thirty,” I asked, as a car horn from somewhere behind us wailed like a siren. I winced, and watched in horror as my mother shifted gears and nodded. I just barely heard her exclamation, ‘I love you, Gracie’, before she peeled out of the parking lot. Leaving me with the wolves clad in golden, glittering spandex and onlookers hoping for some drawn blood. I bit my lip and turned, letting a gasp of air escape from between my lips when I attempted to count the number of eyes on me.

Kelsey and Janet stared at me, openly shocked, their cheer hair and white, clean shoes mocking me.

Hannah Baker actually jumped when I caught her eye, suddenly skittering onto the grass like a spooked horse.

And James and Hunter…

I wanted to crawl under a rock when their gazes met mine, and their brows arched. She looks crazy, I could imagine them muttering later, gathered around Brandon’s locker and recalling the herd of black cats that slipped out of my open car door or the way lightning fizzled in the sky as I stepped onto the sidewalk.

I was thankful for the people who acted like I didn’t exist. I wanted to praise them with palm leaves and scatter rose petals at their feet. Without their stares- because only the people who were at the party knew what happened- I felt as though some weight had lifted off my chest.

I swallowed, forcing the bile to slither back down my throat, and raised my head, ignoring the stares as I made my way to the front door. Ten steps. Eight. Seven. Five. ThreeTwoOne. 

“Amusez-vous avec les loups,” I murmured to myself before pushing the looming doors opening and entering Prairie Meadows High School.

Have fun with the wolves.

‘How can you stand it here,’ Death asked, lounged lazily on the bench like a king. I froze at the sound of his voice, and let my eyes fly to the students walking by. I ignored him, continued shading the thorns that tore at the man’s flesh. Death, craning his neck, looked at the book in hand.

‘This dark side of you, I admit, is very intriguing. You really are a rose: sweet to look at, but touch and you pay a price,’ he chuckled, making me look up just for a nanosecond to see he was smiling.

The nightmare had haunted me all morning: as I stepped into the warm stream of the shower, as I slid liquid eyeliner along my lashline, as I picked at the blueberry pancakes my mom made- and burned- ritualistically on the first day of the school year. The lingering dream occurred almost every night: thorns erupting from my palms and tearing a faceless man to ribbons of flesh. My laughter echoing around the dark abyss we were trapped in. My laughter.

“You’re a monster,” I grumbled in his direction, rolling my eyes and turning back to my sketch. I was the monster, talking to shadows and drawing out my nightmares.

‘I am Death. What did you expect?’ His question made me pause, twirl the pencil between my fingertips. What did I expect? For Death, the one person who seemed to acknowledge my existence and was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, and I to become friends?

‘Everyone has a dark side, Grace, dear. You are not a murderous villain for indulging in those daydreams every once and a while.’

“Says Death, the Prince of the Undead, the Taker of Lives,” I deadpanned softly, and I swore for a moment his smirk slipped.

‘The difference,’ he said softly, his breath fanning across my cheek and reminding me of icicles, ‘between you and I, is  that I enjoy my gift, and you are terrified of yours.’

Gooseflesh erupting from my skin, I sat up, his black robe brushing against my forearm. It felt like a whisper, a shadow. I did not want to further question Death. He seemed to take pleasure in watching me squirm.

‘High school is interesting,’ he mused, still looking bored and licking his cold, white lips. If it weren’t for his constant talking and smirks, I would have thought he was a corpse. His skin was like ice, and even his light blue eyes had lost their sparkle. ‘You are a tithe, and yet they act as though you carry new age leprosy.’

“They don’t want to catch my crazy,” I offered weakly, as Jenna Remington and I made eye contact and all warmth drained from my body when I realized she was witnessing everything. Slamming my journal  shut, I stood abruptly from my spot, my legs suddenly aching to run, and looked over my shoulder to see nothing but my own shadow splayed across the bench. Typical. Sometimes, Death’s banter was the only thing that kept me anchored. Now, I was a stray boat, unsure of where to sail.

My first class, study hall, was nothing but goofing off on the first day. With no assignments and no ambition to read, my classmates just filtered in and out of the school, playing catch with a football, chattering about their summers by the fountain, ignoring me like the plague. I hadn’t minded; up until then, I had Death to irritate me.

Dr. Tucker insisted the delusions were caused by an imbalance of chemicals in my brain.

Grandmother Bea would have said it was because I was growing stronger, although I certainly didn’t feel it. Even if I did humor my grandmother, the Coven Games were a grim, twisted fate for anyone sucked into playing.

It wasn’t a game. It was a death sentence, a personalized noose fit to your liking.

The War Between Worlds, The Slaughter Games. Call it whatever you like, the gist is clear: Death has won for the past thousand years. They- whoever they are, game makers, gods- pinned us up against an immortal who’s only alive when his touch renders someone dead.

“Grace,” my grandmother would say, and although I don’t remember her face I could never forget the smell that cloaked her: incense and cinnamon gum. “Grace, how do you feel about this card?”

She held up the tarot card, the Prince of Death, draped on a steed with glowing eyes and steam filtering from his nostrils. Although flames engulfed him, although his expression was one of pure malice, Death rode alone, on a beach of black sand and curling smoke swirling into the grey sky.

“Sad,” I finally said, a gasp escaping my grandmother’s lips. Even at age seven, I knew that was the wrong answer.

“This man is a killer. W-… Why would his card make you feel sad?”

“Well,” I shrugged, my fingers curling the edges of his card, “he’s all alone. His horse looks sick. I…Am I doing something wrong?”

“Grace… In the Games, you put your pity aside. You have to be ruthless. You have to fulfill your destiny. You must kill Death.”

I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t now. To the empty space where Death once sat I murmured, “And to think I once pitied you. I’ll try not to make the same mistake twice.”

I could almost hear his humorless chuckle.

The sound of a roaring engine pulled me back to the present like a tide: my legs carrying me to the parking lot before I even realized I was moving. People tossed each other confused looks, their curiosity peeked. No one around here rode motorcycles; especially ones as beaten and bruised as this one. It’s whole frame was gleaming, black armor, but the once-silver body was tinged brown and gritty. I stood, frozen on the sidewalk, as the bike pulled into the closest spot, its rider rolling to a stop leisurely. 

Long, worn jeans and a thick torso that left my mouth dry. Taped, grease stained hands wrapped around the handles, and black biker boots on his feet.

Black hair. Ebony and messy and looking soft to the touch. A jawline dusted with dark stubble, and eyes that glittered with amber fire. His full, pink mouth was twisted into a self-satisfied smile as he swung one leg over the bike and stood to assess the crowd that pretended not to be interested in the newcomer. I swallowed at the sight, his thick arms crossed over his chest, his heavy brows arched as though he were challenging someone to say something.

Something about him was magnetizing. Enthralling. Pulled me closer without my foot ever lifting from the ground.

‘Who is he,’ Death asked, and I flinched at the sound of his voice. I looked to my left to see his ghostly form, his eyebrow ring glinting in the sunlight. Shaking my head, I turned back to the stranger.

“I-I don’t know.”

Amber eyes met mine through the throng of people staring and walking and talking; my mind reeled, as we stared each other down like animals. Finally, a slow wink greeted me, much to my surprise. The man, without a second glance, swung his black bag over his shoulder and began trekking to the front door, leaving whispers in his wake.

‘Well, ‘ Death mused, and I tried to pinpoint the weak amusement in his voice, ‘it seems as though he knows you.’

“No,” I thought, “I would have remembered someone like him.”

~~~

I stepped into my last classroom of the day and almost cried out in joy. I had survived seven whole class periods of social isolation and eating lunch in a bathroom stall.

It didn’t matter that Hannah Keller sat in the front row; it didn’t matter that Mr. Bartling was the most boring teacher in all of Louisiana; it didn’t matter-

I froze when, standing in the front of the classroom and hoping to find an empty seat, I saw him, sitting in the fourth row back next to Nick Jenner and Tatum Miller.

Hooded blue eyes that met mine almost instantaneously.

I should sit in the front.

A jawline I remembered kissing so many times I swore my lipstick was tattooed on his skin.

No, the back.

Blond hair that fell into his eyes frequently enough I threatened to cut it all off.

The middle. No one sits in the middle.

Brandon opened his mouth like he was going to say something.

Speak, I wanted to scream, slowly walking towards the middle of the classroom. My heeled boots clicked against the tile, and all I could focus on were his gaze until I realized he wasn’t the only person watching me.

The biker from the parking lot sat by the window, his eyes meeting mine and that magnetism pulling me closer. There’s any empty seat next to him, my brain sung. Before I could think twice, I set my things on the tabletop, sliding into the chair as inconspicuously as possible. When I peeked