Marne snorts and groans. “Stars, this game is getting to me, too. Okay, everyone spread out and search. Nose to the ground. Tessi must not be harmed.”
23: Tessi
One second, I’m about to be devoured by Zorin. The next, I’m being dragged into a pink cloud by human hands.
He grabs me by the back of the neck and walks me away from sunlight into a candlelit underground passage. But I’ve been in this position before.
I grab his wrist, snap myself forward, jabbing my hip into his crotch, then peel back a finger on his hand. He swears and releases me. But just as I’m about to run, he blazes to life in front of me, like his entire armored body is a cloak. And I immediately know who it is.
“Geist.”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he says behind his mask as he steps in front of me with a gun. “I’m only tasked with bringing you in alive.”
“To who and for what?”
“Nebs, and I don’t know what they’re going to do to you. Probably kill you like the others.”
The others? He’s been at this a while.“So you’re the reason they die.”
“I’m the reason I live.”
I’m not sticking around to find out what the Nebs want to kill me for and dart down an adjacent passageway. Geist appears before me in a puff of light. He reaches out to grab me, but I duck and take another rocky tunnel.
Again and again he tries. I keep running, but I can’t do it forever. I try to call over my wristband for Zorin or ABR or someone.Anyone!
“That won’t work, Tessi,” Geist calls after me, his voice echoing through the passages. “Coms are down. There might’ve been atinyexplosion in the junction box for the labyrinth.”
Geist picks up on my game. I know he does because he starts smiling when he steps out. And soon, he’s boxed me into a room filled with light and shiny red objects—a treasure room filled with gems and gold coins, like something out of a pirate movie on the holovids that students often watched in the dorms on campus.
The ruby egg is probably in here somewhere, but it’s no longer my concern as I back into the chamber and Geist stalks after me. His armor gleams in the bright room. His pale gray eyes cut into me.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my voice shaking. I scramble through the stuff, trying to find a way around him, some way I can escape and run back through the maze. “Money?”
“Credits mean food and supplies, ships and power, Tessi. You know the desperation.” He grabs me and jerks me back to him. Then he takes my wrists with painful force and pins them over my head, against the wall. Geist leans close to my face.
“But I’d never compromise my morals and hurt others just to survive.”
He tilts his head and gives me a dark smirk. “That’s why you never thrived in our world. You wouldn’t do what was necessary. But I see you’ve filled out nicely. ABR has been feeding you well.”
He licks his bottom lip as he slides his other hand up and around my throat. “Caden would be jealous if he knew.”
I scoff and rasp through his grip on my neck, “Of what, you?”
“I’m surrounded by high-ticket prizes. I’ve got you. I have the Myndrous’ balls in a vice. And I’ve got the ability to go anywhere in the literal universe with just a tap on my controls.”
I strain to look away. “You didn’t know Caden like I did. He wasn’t like that.”
“I know he chose to be a good boy and enlist because of you. He left our kind of life behind because he wanted to give you a better life, whatever that means.” Geist runs his mouth over my neck with sickening lust and draws in a deep breath. “It’s too bad he isn’t here to defend you.”
I close my eyes, exhausted from running from him and not getting enough air with his hand tightening around my windpipe. My body sloshes with heaviness, and my vision dims.
Deep thunder fills the cavern.
Geist looks back and around at the darkening room.
A shadow moves behind him.
Claws snake with eerie slowness around Geist’s throat.
