If she played her card, she’d watch Levi die. If she did nothing and waited, she’d still watch Levi die.
Twenty-four seconds left.
She could... She could...
Seventeen seconds left.
She needed time to think. Just for a second. Just to get her bearings straight and stop the Game and tell Levi that she was sorry and—
Stop the song,whispered the presence in her head.Stop the song. Stop the song.
It was her own voice. Her own sense of self-preservation speaking. The threads hummed around her, binding everything but her. If she listened closely to the song, she could almost hear the notes skipping. Something was wrong with its tune. The Game wasn’t as it was before. The rules...the rules were broken in a way they weren’t before.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
She reached into her pocket.
Seven.
Six.
She pulled out the revolver.
Five.
She stood and pointed the gun at Malcolm Semper. Her chair screeched like the cries of someone waking in their coffin.
Four.
The women gasped. The man beside Enne leaped up to knock her over. But her finger was already on the trigger, and she fought to keep her balance.
Three.
STOP THE SONG,it screamed.
Two.
Enne obliged.
One.
The gun fired. The bullet smashed the timer into a hundred pieces of clockwork and, all at once, the threads silenced, the song cut off.
The man forced her down, and her chest slammed on the table. She gasped as his weight crushed the air out of her lungs. Someone ripped the gun from her hand.
It was Levi.
Semper reached to flip over his last card and win the Game.
“No!”Enne shouted.
Levi pointed the gun at Semper’s head and shot.
Screams. The sound of chairs scraping the wooden floor. Enne’s ears were ringing from the sound of the gunfire. She craned her neck, searching for Levi.
