Page 139 of Death Game: Supernatural Battle

Increasingly, I found myself yearning to hear his thoughts. Feeling his emotions was like not quite sneezing. That determination could mean anything. Did Kyros have his own plan? A point to negotiate?

Emotions were so subjective out of context.

Laurel looped the car down to the end of the runway and then circled back toward the entrance gates.

11:56 a.m.

My palms began to sweat. Kyros didn’t have enough time to stop me now. I’d trapped him in the meeting and thwarted his attempts to keep me safeagain. This time, I actually felt bad about it because after everything I’d done, I was walking into this battle by myselfagain. And there was every chance Kyros would hate me for itagain.

We could come back from some things. Not from others.

Doing it this way felt like it gave most respect to everyone hurt along the way.

As soon as Laurel left the airport gates, Kyros’s rage slammed into me. I gasped at the force of it, clutching my chest.

“He knows, huh?” Tommy asked drily.

Shit! Did he ever.

“Yep,” I choked. “Not happy.”

Tommy patted my knee. “Save his family. He’ll get over himself.”

Betrayal. Fury. Fear. The emotionsrolled through me in pulsing waves.

Laurel’s eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror. “Directions.”

I waded through Kyros’s reaction and focused on his location. “Head in the direction of Black. What’s there, do you know?”

“That’s where the kings roll the dice each night,” she said. “Kyros didn’t tell me the address of the negotiations. He didn’t trust that you’d board the plane quietly, or that I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Gotta give it to the punk, he knows you,” Tommy said, wrinkling her nose.

I smiled. He’d never mentioned me gaining the power to feel his location either, so I assumed he had no idea that was a two-way street.

The drive through Bluff City to Black was one hundred times worse than the wait in the hangar. I clasped my trembling hands together and closed my eyes, trying to regain my calm.

“Do you remember how straight Agatha’s back was?” Tommy asked.

Pretty sure I’d never seen it bend.

I straightened in my seat, her stern reprimand ringing in my ears.

Tommy continued. “She always kept her chin tilted, too. And her eyes. She had thatyou’re a piece of peasant verminlook down to a fine art.”

Taking a breath, I lifted my chin as though my grandmother had tapped her finger underneath it. I remembered the vermin look well. When people pissed me off, my topaz eyes held the same fire.

Tommy squeezed my knee, winking. “There you are.”

I tossed her as much of a smile as I was capable of.

“Don’t forget why you’re doing this, Basil,” she murmured.

For me.

For Tommy.

For my grandmother.

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