The Fall Gauntlet

The Fall Gauntlet has ended, but the Crown still wants their champion, and they won't stop until they get it.

Against all odds, Benji and Soren have escaped the Fall Gauntlet finals-together. Benji should consider himself lucky, blessed by the gods and goddesses, even. After all, he's broken free from the Crown's clutches and given people a reason to stand up and fight again. But Benji and Soren's actions have consequences.

Without a champion, the Harvest cycle has ended. The brother's parents are still being held prisoner by the Crown. And whispers that rebel totem groups are forming to bring the Crown down grow ever louder. Benji and Soren may have escaped the stadium, but getting out of the capital is a whole other beast.

Much to his horror, Benji has created a living nightmare in which the Fall Gauntlet does not end. And what shocks him even more is that his list of enemies seems to grow with every step. When a strange man and his "rat" followers offer to help the brothers leave the capital by sewer, the brother's escape plan takes a dark turn. If they can't rise above their own past hurts, and the lies that continue to haunt their family, Soren and Benji may indeed die at each other's hands.

The Fall Gauntlet continues . . .

J. A. Merkel's RAT is part of The Fall Gauntlet, a dystopian sci-fi novella collection about Benji and Soren's misadventures to outsmart the Crown and save a family lost to them, all while learning how to be brothers again.