Page 52 of Vengeance of the Gods

Bridger stared at her back until she turned around and he could see her face. Her eyes had that look she got when she was on to something, like she was seeing where all the answers hid. “What are you thinking?”

Vega opened her mouth and then immediately shut it, taking a second to collect her thoughts. “Chase told me only one of us could live.” Chills raced down Bridger’s spine when she paused, biting at the edge of her nail. “Bridger, what if the curse is inside him? The black eyes… the eerie voice and his strength. You made a good point about the broken portal.”

Gods, he was starting to get a headache.

Bridger ran a hand over his tired face. “If I killed it—killed him, wouldn’t that have broken it?”

Vega let out a sigh and sank into the chair Bridger had been in while he watched her sleep. “It’s my curse, not yours. Death curses, blood curses, they can’t be broken by anyone but the maker. I’m lucky enough to share blood with my maker, I guess. That much I’ve learned from my endless research. You killing him did nothing but reset him like it does to me when I die.”

Vega stood from the chair and grabbed her leggings folded on top of the dresser. “I have to be the one to kill him.” She stepped in one leg at a time, pulling them up her hips. “And I’m done waiting around for death to find me.”

21

They were on the road again in under ten minutes.

The curse knew where they were going, knew they would be headed to the one spot they could finally end this all.

Of course the curse wasn’t an object in an apartment—it was something keeping her tied to this world… and the only object that did that was the portal.

But then what the fuck was this whole thing with Chase?

He was being controlled by the curse? But now differently than he was before the portal cracked and the other was destroyed?

Nothing about Vega’s curse had ever been concrete, but it would be nice not to have so many unanswered questions.

The snow had let up enough to allow the roads to be cleared over the last several hours, so their little stop hadn’t been a complete waste.

The burgers he’d bought from the diner were cold, but they scarfed them down anyway. “Food kind of tastes like nothing here,” Bridger admitted, wiping his hands on a thin paper napkin.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was the burger from a crummy diner in the middle of nowhere not up to your elite standards?” She cut him a glance as she drove.

They were still about a day out from the portal, give or take, with stopping to refuel. Vega wouldn’t be able to drive twenty-four hours straight, not on what little sleep she was working with, and she’d refused to let Bridger help—not that he’d want to right now anyway.

He was nearing that stage of exhaustion where everything started to slow down. The food hit him, and he felt like he’d be a goner if he sat and did nothing.

Glancing behind his shoulder, Bridger noted the space he had to work with. “I’m assuming you’re not going to want to stop at any more roadside motels?”

Vega answered with an exaggerated shake of her head. “I think one was enough for this trip. I probably won’t sleep anymo—” Her head turned to glance at Bridger when the car beeped about his unbuckled seatbelt. “What are you doing?”

Bridger crawled his big ass over the center console and into the backseat. There wasn’t the most room for an almost six-and-a-half-foot man, but he’d consider himself lucky after seeing some of the smaller vehicles pass by. “There’s got to be a way to pull these seats down, right?” he asked, starting to slip his hands between the seats, feeling for a lever or handle of some sort.

“Why?” she asked, throwing her eyes up at the rearview mirror to glimpse at what he was doing.

“Do you always have to ask so many questions?” Bridger stopped, staring at her with an expression that said, Chill the fuck out. “We don’t need the backseat for anything, so it might as well be a bed for when you’re tired enough to sleep.” He pointed to the road. “Focus, Caelum.” Bridger saw her eyes roll before returning to the highway.

He really didn’t want to end up in another ditch.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asked, passing a slow-moving car.

“The plane,” Bridger told her, still trying to find a way these seats came down.

As if Vega could sense his agitation, she said, “Check behind each seat. There might be a little handle that brings the seat forward, but you need to be on the opposite side so it can fold down.”

Doing exactly that, Bridger reached across the seat, found a handle, and half the backseat folded in on itself slowly.

“Wooooow,” he marveled with sarcasm. “Fancyyyyy.” He let the second-row seats down next.

Bridger heard a puff of air leave Vega’s mouth, trying to suppress a laugh.