Page 4 of Vengeance of the Gods

Bridger groaned, spinning to face Halo. “We need to work on your anxiety. It’s going to get you killed.” He rested his hand gently on Halo’s bony shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Have you been training at all?”

“We’re really doing this right now?” Halo grumbled.

Halo had a lot of growing to do, mentally and physically, but Bridger wasn’t ready to give up on him. He saw something inside the young boy—not just the power he possessed.

“Take me to her,” Bridger said.

Halo didn’t have to ask who he was talking about—it was the same person every time.

Bridger was growing accustomed to the jarring sensation of traveling, the sinking and crushing feeling of moving through space and time under someone else’s control.

His feet met the stone floor of the Atrox prison. The cries of the tormented echoed through the halls, centering Bridger back to the real world. Halo deposited him and left, his black smoke floating to the low ceilings.

Standing outside her cell, Bridger tapped the hilt of his dagger against the iron bars with a reverberating ring. “Are you ready to tell me how I get to Vega?”

Arlet stared directly into his eyes from her seated position in the corner. Every bit of exposed skin covering her body was littered with bruises of varying degrees. “No.”

Bridger sighed, gripping the bars with his dagger still in his hand. “You’re wasting time, stealing from all of us.”

“I’d rather us all die than give you another chance to hurt Vega,” she spat, snarling at him like a rabid animal.

Bridger couldn’t help the eye roll. “You’re being very dramatic.” His hand hovered over the cell door’s lock. It clicked open, a tingle of power rushing up his arm from the prison’s recognition. He stepped inside and closed himself in with her. “I know you didn’t spend the last fifty-five years chasing Vega down to give up on her so easily.”

Arlet’s snarl grew larger. “You don’t know me, Dimico, and you certainly don’t know Vega either. She’s there because she wants to be this time. She’s not coming back until she breaks her curse.”

It was the same answer every. Single. Time. Bridger was getting close to breaking down, to resorting to torture, but that wouldn’t help. He needed to build Arlet’s trust, to make her see the man he’d once been.

The man I am. He wasn’t as good at convincing himself than he was others.

Bridger ran a hand through his hair, puffing a calming breath through his lips. “And what if she didn’t get it right? What if she has no memories? Who’s going to go get her if you’re locked up? I know where she is. I saw it. All I need is for you to tell me how I get to her when the portal is on the other side of the fucking world.”

Arlet’s sneer started to fall as she shrugged her shoulders. “You don’t. You let her die, just like you always have.”

His frustration got to him, the walls of the cell trembling from the surge in his mood. “Arlet, please. Please. I’m begging you. Tell me what I need to do to get her back here.”

Arlet meandered her gaze from Bridger’s head to his toes. “You don’t look like you’re begging. I’ve seen you beg for Vega’s life before, and this isn’t it.”

Through gritted teeth, Bridger stepped closer. Arlet had to crane her neck to look at him. “I will not get on my knees for you, Arlet Videri.” He reached out and twirled a matted curl between his fingers before she swatted him away. “You might have accepted your fate, but I haven’t. I will not let her be the death of me… and neither should you.”

Marlena had already taken enough.

Bridger stood tall, rolled his shoulders back, and was ready to take his leave when Arlet surprised him with a question. “Do you think it worked? That Vega is still the person she was when she left?”

He didn’t know how to answer that question, so he turned it around. “Do you?”

“I think Vega is going to fry everyone in her path to get the vengeance she craves, and if she doesn’t remember it now, she will eventually.”

Bridger closed the cell, the lock sliding into place. “And you’re going to take that from her, from the people you want to save. All because you want to keep her safe. The exact reason Vega went behind your back in the first place.”

Arlet chuffed a humorless laugh. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When are you going to see she doesn’t want to be protected?” Bridger cocked his head. “She’s sick of people making decisions for her.”

Her life had been planned out since the day she was born. Marry Khort, have dragon babies, and follow along like the perfect pawn.

He didn’t need to know this version of Vega to know how sick she was of the people in her life dictating her every move.

Silence followed his question. Arlet wasn’t going to budge.