Perfumed Traps

2am

Marissa didn’t run, exactly, but she moved through the labyrinth like someone who had memorized every line of the floor plan and was determined to beat it at its own game. Her stride was crisp, aggressive, almost surgical, shoulders back and head up, eyes alert for any sign of movement among the dense, cloying leaves. Erin lagged three paces behind, all spring-loaded suspicion, her gaze flickering from Marissa’s calves to the shifting light ahead and back again.

They’d barely spoken since joining up. No need for words—each was locked in her own calculus, measuring the risk of being alone against the risk of being ambushed, the odds of working together versus the odds of being outplayed at the last second. They were friends, or at least Marissa thought so, but she also knew Erin was the kind of woman who, having found her way into Andy’s arms again, would do anything not to lose him once more. As for Marissa, she had denied herself for far too long, and she would not give up what she had just found. And neither of them had any intention of ending up as a cautionary tale.

The air in this part of the maze was thicker, humid in a way that made Marissa’s skin tingle under the sparse shade. She swiped sweat from her brow with the heel of her hand and moved on, hyper-aware of how exposed her bikini top left her—how the curve of her breasts jiggled, how the thin band of fabric chafed her underarm every time she moved too quickly. The ribbon tied at her bicep felt heavy, a trophy and a target.

She risked a look back. Erin’s face was unreadable, jaw tight, her own ribbon tied tight as a tourniquet. For a moment, Marissa thought she might say something—some warning, some cold-blooded threat—but instead Erin just nodded once, a fractional dip of her chin. Message received: Don’t slow down.

The hedge curved abruptly right, and Marissa took the turn at a jog, almost slamming into a patch of glittering, dew-soaked grass. She yanked her foot back in time, then, realizing it was just grass, stepped forward again.

That’s when the world erupted.

A puffball, round as a tennis ball and nearly invisible among the mulch, exploded under the pressure of Marissa’s sandal. It didn’t so much spray as detonate, unleashing a glittering cloud of spores that hit her square in the face, coating her in a fine, sparkling mist. The scent was immediate—cloying, sweet, like the inside of a perfume bottle shattered on the counter. Marissa recoiled, then sucked in a breath, which proved to be a catastrophic mistake.

The effect was instant. The heat started in her sinuses, then dropped into her chest, then lower. Her legs went soft at the knees and she reeled backward, bracing herself against the hedge. The roughness of the branches bit into her bare back, but it was nothing compared to the rush flooding through her: pure, liquid desire, everywhere at once, spiking and crashing in waves. Her fingers clawed reflexively at the branches, and she gasped, loud and ****.

“Oh—fuck,” Marissa heard herself say, the word torn out of her in a ragged gasp.

She tried to recover, to **** herself upright, but her muscles had other plans. Her hips jerked involuntarily, grinding against nothing, and her bikini bottoms twisted sideways on her hips, the elastic biting into the crease of her thigh. She moaned, high and sharp, utterly unable to stop herself.

A flicker of movement at the corner of her vision told her Erin had just rounded the bend. For a brief, excruciating second, Marissa saw her—arms crossed, lips parted, eyes wide as she watched Marissa writhe against the hedge, moaning and bucking like an animal.

Erin stopped dead in her tracks, eyes locked on Marissa. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, Erin’s gaze slid down Marissa’s body, lingering on the way her breasts strained against the tiny triangles of her suit, the way her legs trembled, the dampness darkening the narrow strip of fabric between her thighs.

Marissa tried to say something—anything—but all that came out was another moan, deeper this time, almost a growl. She tried to pull her hand away from the hedge, but it felt like her arm was glued in place by the weight of her own pleasure. Her vision blurred. She felt, more than saw, Erin take two slow steps closer, the sound of her bare feet scraping the mulch deafening in the hush of the maze.

“Jesus,” Erin muttered, voice low and husky.

She hovered, just out of reach, her hands balled into fists at her sides. For a moment, Marissa was sure she would just pluck the ribbon off Marissa’s arm and walk away. It would have been the smart play—the winning move. She could do it, and Marissa would be powerless to stop her.

Instead, Erin leaned in, grabbed Marissa by the shoulder, and hauled her upright. The contact was electric; Marissa sagged into her, unable to keep her legs from buckling. Erin’s grip tightened, bruising, but she didn’t let go.

“Get it together,” Erin hissed in her ear. “We don’t have time for this.”

Marissa tried to nod, but the spores were still making her whole body vibrate. Her head lolled, cheek pressed to Erin’s collarbone, and for a moment she just breathed, the scent of Erin’s sweat and sunblock weirdly grounding.

“Can’t,” she managed, her voice barely more than a whisper. “It’s too much.”

Erin rolled her eyes, muttered something under her breath (Marissa caught only the words “fucking Arabella”), then braced Marissa’s hips and shook her hard, once. The jolt snapped Marissa’s head back, and for a brief, dizzy instant, she felt the world tilt upright.

“Move,” Erin snapped, shoving Marissa forward.

The command worked. Marissa stumbled ahead, the motion breaking the spell just enough to get her feet under her. She wobbled, legs shaky as a newborn foal, but she moved, following Erin’s lead. Each step sent another aftershock through her, but the raw, overwhelming need faded quickly, leaving her just dizzy, flushed, and more than a little humiliated.

They made it to the next intersection before either spoke again. Marissa, breathing hard, wiped the glitter off her arms, her cheeks burning.

“Why didn’t you take my ribbon?” she asked, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice.

Erin didn’t look at her. “Not how I want to win,” she said, curt. “For Andy, right?”

Marissa snorted, the sound half-laugh, half-sob. “You’re a saint, Erin.”

Erin flashed her a glare, but there was a ghost of a smile at the edge of it. “Don’t push your luck.”

Marissa followed, not trusting herself to say anything else, but as she walked she found her steps growing steadier, her mind clearing. She glanced back at Erin—at the hard line of her jaw, at the tense set of her shoulders—and realized that she actually wanted to win together.

Not that Erin would say it out loud. Not yet.

Norah crept through the maze with a paranoia that, by any objective standard, bordered on clinical. Her feet moved silent and deliberate over the mulch, and every ten steps she paused to scan the path behind her, then above, then at every possible hiding place on either side. It was overkill, but she didn’t care. The last challenge had taught her that Arabella took special pleasure in punishing overconfident women, and Norah was damned if she’d play into that stereotype.

The trick, she’d decided, was to keep her expectations set to “worst possible outcome,” and then be pleasantly surprised if it only sucked a little bit.

So when she rounded a blind turn and found herself face-to-face with a wall of tangled, leafy vines, her first thought was not “pretty,” or even “obstacle.” It was: “How many seconds until this thing tries to eat me?”

She stepped closer, analyzing the geometry. The leaves were heart-shaped, the color of fresh spinach, and the vines wove a tight net across the gap—low enough to step over, but not low enough to ignore. At the base, they coiled in a thick, wet mass, glistening with dew or maybe something worse.

Norah hesitated, then poked the tangle. Nothing happened. She exhaled, almost disappointed.

“Cheap scare, Arabella,” she muttered, and started to slip past.

The first vine got her right above the ankle, curling around with a touch so light she barely registered it. The second, thicker, wrapped her left shin and pulled. Norah yelped, swatting at her legs, but the vines had leverage. They yanked hard, dragging her off balance. She managed not to scream—she refused to give Arabella the satisfaction—but a string of Arabic curses hissed out of her, quick and vicious.

The vines weren’t content to just trip her. As soon as Norah’s knees hit the mulch, two more snaked around her thighs and calves, locking her in place. The sensation was both cold and weirdly intimate; the vines pulsed against her skin, flexing and tightening, a slow-motion constriction that made Norah’s pulse rocket into her ears.

“Absolutely not,” Norah spat, and started clawing at the nearest tendril. Her nails dug in, breaking the surface, and a thin trickle of clear liquid oozed out. The vine recoiled, but three more shot up to take its place. They went for her wrists this time, and she nearly lost the fight not to shriek.

She kicked hard, then harder. The vines were fast, but Norah had spent her entire life fighting off what people tried to bind her with—family expectations, cultural bullshit, the relentless pressure to be someone else. If these things thought they could pin her down, they had another thing coming.

She braced her heels in the earth and pushed back, straining against the green ropes. Sweat prickled her hairline, but she didn’t give up. Inch by inch, she **** herself upright, dragging the vines with her. When she got enough leverage, she twisted, throwing all her weight to the left. The whole mass of vines tore free from the hedge in a wet, tearing rip, and Norah tumbled sideways, landing hard on her hip.

She lay there for a beat, chest heaving, the leafy bastards still clutching her ankles like dying hands. She glared at them, and for good measure, stomped them into the dirt. Satisfied, she sat up, brushing herself off.

Her cheeks were burning, not just from exertion but from the humiliation of having been tripped up by glorified spinach. She checked her ribbon—still there, miraculously, though the end was smudged with sap and mulch. She tightened it, and fuck it, if it cut off circulation, so be it.

Norah stood, planted her fists on her hips, and glared back at the wall of vines. “Nice try,” she said, and then, with a last scowl, set off down the path. Her legs still trembled, but her stride was ironclad.

If Arabella wanted to break her, it was going to take more than houseplants.

As if on cue, somewhere in the labyrinth a voice called, “MOOOOO!” Norah shivered. She really didn’t want to see what fucked-up sexual take on the Minotaur Arabella had conjured up.

The corridors of the labyrinth had the hush of a church, with only Dawn’s footsteps and the hush-rush of her own pulse echoing under the vault of branches. The path pressed close on either side, live walls of boxwood hemmed so tightly she could feel the coolness of the leaves on her bare arms. Every few yards the hedge shivered and spat out a startled finch, or else gave way to a starburst of foxglove and scarlet honeysuckle. But that wasn’t what made Dawn’s heart thrum in her chest as she pressed onward.

It was the memory of the gathering, that morning. The feeling of being in this together, as a group, rather than fighting each other for supremacy. They were friends now, or close enough for the word to sting.

And Andy. Dawn didn’t want to dwell on the morning, the way her chest still bloomed with warmth every time she remembered his hand on her wrist, the way he’d said, in so many words, “We’ll win this, okay? I need you here.” It didn’t matter that she’d been trembling; she knew he had spoken with all the other women too, and didn’t mind. He had kept the stub of that silly ticket, months ago, just because he had seen how happy she had been to be able to help. He loved her, and for the rest of the day, nothing else could shake her. Not the nerves, not the suspicion that Arabella was winding up for something cruel.

She rounded a corner and nearly smacked into a velvet curtain of flowers drooping from the arch above. Dawn hesitated. The petals looked thick, almost rubbery, and each one was streaked with deep gold veins, as if they’d been drawn by a child with a crayon. She didn’t trust them at all, but the only other option was to backtrack and risk running into someone else, so she ducked her head and barreled through.

The moment her cheek brushed the first petal, the world snapped.

The flowers clamped shut above her, not so much with **** as with hungry intent, and Dawn had just enough time to gasp before the air went hazy with gold. She felt it land on her skin—a thousand motes of pollen, sticking to the sweat on her neck, the slope of her bare shoulders, the fine hairs on her thighs. There was no time to process, no time to even flinch, before the effects hit.

It started as a little fizz under her skin, like the soda her father used to let her taste as a child. A bright, electric tickle that ran down her spine and up again. But then it doubled, tripled, ten-tupled. Dawn’s body jerked in a single, helpless shudder, and she let out a sound—something raw and guttural, almost an animal’s cry—before her knees buckled and she slumped to the path.

She would have been mortified, if she’d been able to think anything at all. But the pollen didn’t just make her body go haywire; it poured into her mind, filled every thought with slick, writhing need. Her breaths came quick and shallow, her face pressed to the cool, damp ground. For a second, she thought she might pass out, but then another wave hit, and she moaned, clutching her own thighs for stability.

Something brushed her arm. Not a petal this time, but fingers running along her wrist and the inner elbow. Dawn tried to lift her head, tried to twist away, but the pleasure blanked out her muscles. She could only squirm, fighting to keep her eyes open. The hand snaked down, wrapped deftly around her forearm, and she felt the soft, slow peel of her ribbon being untied from its place above her elbow. The knot she’d double-checked twice that morning yielded instantly, as if it had never been there at all.

Dawn whimpered, a high, keening sound, and tried to reach with her free hand, but the haze in her skull made even that impossible. In the blur, she thought she saw a shape—dark hair, a pale arm—but the air was thick with gold dust, and her vision had gone fizzy at the edges. The fingers vanished as soon as the ribbon slipped free, and then the flowers above let go, the petals springing open with a wet, satisfied pop.

Dawn slumped there for a count of three heartbeats, then **** herself upright. Her face was streaked with tears and pollen, her hands still shaking from aftershocks, but the emptiness on her arm hit her harder than any of it.

The ribbon was gone.

Dawn’s mind snapped back to the rules: you lost the ribbon, you had five minutes to find another or you were done. Gone. She staggered forward, her legs buckling on the first step, then caught herself on the hedge. The world spun, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out again.

“No, no, no, no—” The words tumbled out, her voice hoarse. Dawn staggered ahead, her whole body still humming with the memory of the trap. She wiped her face, her arm, anything she could, but the pollen clung to her, sticky and sweet and utterly inescapable.

She reached the next turn and almost collided with a mirrored wall. There was no reflection—just the shimmer of gold on her cheeks and the wild, **** look in her own eyes. Dawn took one breath, then another, and saw the sun glint off something yellow and familiar, moving just ahead, already ducking around a corner.

There was no time to process, to plan, or even to rage at whoever had taken her ribbon. Dawn **** herself into motion, legs trembling with each step, her whole body still jittering with unspent pleasure and adrenaline. Every nerve screamed for her to stop, to rest, to let the waves pass through her, but she didn’t dare. Not now. Not with everything at stake.

She sprinted—if it could be called that—down the path, cutting through another drooping curtain of flowers (these blue, and slightly less predatory), ignoring the sting as a few more petals grazed her skin. But all she found was a dead end.

Dawn let out a sob of her own, the weight of defeat crushing the breath from her chest. She slammed her fists into the dirt, then dragged herself up, every muscle screaming in protest.

She couldn’t let it end like this. Not after everything. Sure, Andy had a veto, but what if there was someone else who had been eliminated, too? What if Andy saved her, and the next woman to be eliminated could not be saved? What if Dawn herself was up on the chopping block next time, too?

Dawn pushed herself forward, back into the maze, her eyes swimming with tears and pollen. She didn’t know where to go, didn’t know if there were any ribbons left to steal, but she ran anyway, even as her legs threatened to buckle with every step.

Her only thought was to survive. To keep moving.

Somewhere, the clock was already counting down.