The Awakening

Shady Jerk

Then, Piper offered idea that we play Truth or Dare, which immediately caught Keefe's attention. Piper continued to explain the game once she realized that we were interested. I, for one, had never seen Keefe so focused on something, except maybe his sketching and painting.

I hadn't played Truth or Dare many times because I didn't have any friends in the Forbidden Cities, due to my . . . uniqueness, so I listened carefully to the directions, like the others. Once we understood the basics of the simple game, we decided to amp things up.

If a player received a dare that they wanted everyone to do, they had to say Alicorn poop (thanks to Keefe).The player would still have to do the dare, like the rest of us, but they wouldn't be alone in doing it. A player could only use their Alicorn poop play once in the whole game.

No one could pass an Alicorn poop play, but everyone had two passes on a dare and two passes on a truth. We decided not to do an Alicorn poop truth play because it would take too long for everyone to answer the same question, unlike a dare, which everyone could complete at the same time.

Finally, we started the game. My nerves were getting to me because I could see my friends being ruthless in their truths and dares.

At least Keefe and I had payback in advance for anything that should happen in this game.

Keefe wanted to go first, but Percy suggested that he go first as an example. So, Percy picked me, of course.

Yay.

"Soph, truth or dare?" he asked from his place to my left, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. I didn't like the way he was looking at me, so I immediately chose truth, too scared of the dare.

"Who was your first kiss?" Percy queried.

Oh, gods.

I glanced across from me in the circle to peak at Dex who had paled significantly. This was one of the stories I had left out of the storytelling. I was pretty sure that only Keefe knew about our kiss by the looks of everyone else's curious expressions.

"Pass," I said weakly, avoiding eye contact with Dex. To my right, Keefe was holding back his laughter behind his hand. I nudged his side with my elbow.

"Ow," Keefe whined, rubbing his side. "Do you have knives as elbows?"

"No, you're just weak," I replied. Then, realizing it was now my turn, I looked around the circle for my victim. "Tam, truth or dare?"

"Dare," Tam said darkly.

I smiled evilly, resisting the urge to rub my hands together like an evil villain. "I dare you to smile the rest of the game."

Everyone burst into laughter as Tam's jaw dropped. Amidst my laughter, I gave him a look, and he reluctantly curved his mouth into a scary-looking smile.

He was smiling almost happily, but his eyes were conveying a message as he glared at me from his spot in between Nico and Linh; you're going down.

My eyes flamed in response; bring it.

I didn't know when we started to get this competitive, but it was probably from all of the training Mr. Forkle put us through as partners. He would make us run through training simulations designed by Dex and practice hand-to-hand combat in the meadow. I got the feeling that Mr. Forkle was preparing Tam and I for a mission together, but that never came to be.

I trained with Keefe for fun, but Tam and I were assigned to each other. Eventually, we started to grow comfortable with each other as a pair. Tam would help us sneak around, I would scan our surroundings, and then, we'd attacked the obstacles of the simulations together.