Page 29 of All Hallows Game

Just because Death wanted me didn’t mean Tor did. Miz certainly didn’t.

I jumped when a voice sounded close to my ear. “Did you do it?”

I whipped around with a glare, my shoulders dropping when I saw it was Justin, his clothes as rumpled and slouchy as ever and a cap backwards on his head. My heart didn’t get the memo and kept beating like crazy. “Yes. Your medical records are gone from their system.”

His green eyes sharpened, something desperate and hungry in his drawn face. “And the paper file?”

“Gone,” I lied. “I burned it.”

His grin was swift. He clapped me on the shoulder, all the tension leaving him until he returned to his regular slouchy self. “I knew you could do it, Cactus.”

“You could try calling me by my actual name. Cat. Wallison is acceptable too.”

“Sure, Wallis,” he agreed, leaning past me to put a latte glass under the espresso machine and filling it with a dangerous number of shots. “Right, come with me. I’ve got the phone plugged into my computer; you can watch me trace the photo. It won’t take long.”

“You do realise that amount of caffeine could give you a heart attack?” I drawled when he turned away, not even entertaining the breakfast buffet.

“Eh.” He shrugged. “It hasn't killed me yet.”

I shook my head and followed but fished my phone from my pocket to send a swift text to Honey. I hated to wake her, but needs must. I wasn’t following a veritable stranger into an unknown room without someone knowing my whereabouts.

Justin Merchant’s helping me get back into coursework. If I don’t message back in an hour, murder him for me.

Sharpening my axe as we speak.

I smiled and tucked my phone away. I already had Find My Friends switched on so she could track me down. Tor could too if he wanted to. I debated texting him too, but he’d only have the same questions Death did last night, and I hated lying. But Virgil needed me, and I wouldn’t let him down.

A subtle brush of my hand in my other pocket confirmed my knife was ready and waiting if Justin caused any trouble. So was a copy of his medical record. I’d come armed and ready.

“It’s just up here,” he said over his shoulder. “You always this quiet?”

“Yup,” I confirmed. With strangers, anyway. Just being near someone I wasn’t familiar with filled my mind with a dozen different scenarios, all of them ending in embarrassment, misery, mutilation, or death. I’d take making a fool of myself over murder any day.

I bit into my croissant for comfort, the flaky almonds giving me a moment’s distraction as I focused on the texture of them breaking between my teeth. What if he was a psychopath, and he was leading me away to cut me into tiny, little pieces? What if he slipped something into my latte while I wasn’t watching? What if his room was full of scalpels and blowtorches? Somehow worse—what if it was full of England flags and Swastikas? Elite schools like this were breeding grounds for far-right dickbags. What if—

“This is my room,” Justin said, unlocking a door that swung open on—a shithole. Huh. There were no scalpels, no flags, no knives, but that didn’t mean I’d be safe if I went in there. “Leave the door open if you want,” he added with a shrug, reading me far too clearly.

I absolutely left the door open, chanting for Virgil, for Virgil inside my head as I stepped into the room that stank of sweat and days-old fries, fighting the wrinkle that wanted to form in my nose. There were coffee cups everywhere, empty cans of Monster crushed on the floor, plates with half-eaten food on every surface, alongside takeaway containers with remnants of pizza, Chinese noodles, and a burrito.

“You have a very distinct style of décor,” I said, edging a pile of clothes out of the way with my foot and following Justin to the computer set up beside his bed. It was the only thing in the room he took any sort of pride in; strangely, it was immaculate.

“Yeah, it’s a pig sty, but I’ll get around to cleaning it eventually.”

Famous last words. I said them often. “I’m not judging.”

Justin shrugged, sinking into the gaming chair in front of his computers. Plural. Or was it screens plural and a single computer? I wasn’t techy enough to know what I was looking at. “I don’t need a clean room to do my job.”

I moved closer, hanging back a few feet but near enough to see the screens. “Your job not being coursework, I’m sensing.”

“Nah, this is just a cover to keep my parents for looking too closely. They expect me to become the next link in a chain of illustrious Merchant plastic surgeons.”

“Not your plan I take it?”

Justin gave me an arch look over his shoulder, amusement in bright green eyes. “Fuck no. Cutting bits off, adding it elsewhere, rearranging people’s faces so they look like whatever celebrity’s trending that day—no thanks.”

“Plastic surgery can do a lot of good,” I pointed out. “Especially reconstructive—”

“Yeah, yeah, you sound like every family gathering I’ve attended for the past five years. Do you want me to track this photo or not?”

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