Page 163 of Deviant

I school my features to look just as impassive as Elias as I sit down next to him.

“The fuck is going on?” I hear David across the table when he sees Ruby sitting alone while Big Mike sits beside Lucy.

We are all at a loss as to what’s happening, and when neither Lucy nor Big Mike are forthcoming with their explanations, we turn to Henry for answers.

“Lady Wright, having lost her partner in the first game, was given a choice. She could either choose to sit out the following game, knowing that someone else would have to participate on her behalf, or she could choose a new partner and participate in this one.”

“And you let her choose you?” David blurts out incredulously at Big Mike.

“Hey, I was going in either way today. They didn’t offer me a get-out-of-jail card. They offered it to her. If she didn’t want to use it, then that’s her decision.”

“I’m fine with her decision, by the way. Not that anyone asked,” Ruby says smugly while waving her hand at the rest of us.

Of course she’s happy with the change of events. They only favor her because this means she doesn’t have to participate in the games yet.

“Lucy… why?” Harper asks what we’re all thinking.

“Because…” she says softly, sounding more like the Lucy we knew. “I love him. There is no life without Lucas in it. So why wait? Why suffer when I could be reunited with him now?”

I try to hold back my tears, feeling like someone just sucker-punched me in the gut. Her words resonate with me in such a way that I can almost feel her pain as if it were my own. I felt the same way when Nora died. I just wanted to end it all. To disappear from the face of the earth.

After I heard what had happened to Lucas, a part of me blamed her for his death and even criticized her actions that made him do such a thing. But maybe Lucy and I have more in common than I realized.

I must be shaking because the next thing I know, I feel Elias’s hand on mine, holding it tight, just enough to calm me.

He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even talk to me.

And yet, he still found it in his heart to comfort me just as I was on the verge of losing it.

It’s an act of mercy, but it’s one I’ll be forever grateful for.

However, I am pulled into the here and now when the familiar chime of our watches begins to echo throughout the room.

“Damn it,” Andy says with a worried frown while wrapping his arm around Harper.

Abbie’s eyes start to water as she stares at her watch, while Chris stares out the window like he’d rather be outside than inside this room.

“I knew it,” Big Mike grumbles, pissed.

Lucy closes her eyes and takes one deep breath. But when she opens them again, there is a new sparkle in her gaze. Her entire body seems to melt back into the chair as an immense sense of peace washes over her.

And that’s when I know my friends are safe.

None of them will die today.

Only Lucy.

Chapter 30

Elias

Lucy didn’t make it.

Not that it surprised me any. I saw the look in her eyes. It’s the same one Rowen gets from time to time—the desire to disappear and vanish from existence.

I knew she was a goner before she even left the room.

And by the way Big Mike returned with rope marks around his neck, she went out the way she wanted to.

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