Page 178 of Vying Girls
I stare at the coordinates following his message. Clicking on them takes me to a map.
‘The labyrinth.’ I run my eyes over the location, making sure, but it’s hard when my brain won’t focus. ‘He’s got her underground.’
My feet are moving before I’m thinking about it.
Beside me, Elly struggles to keep up. ‘Wait, you’re going there?’
‘Of course I’m going there!’
‘Well—shit, wait a minute.’ She pulls me until I stop. ‘Nic. Your cousin’s an absolute psycho, right?’
‘Well aware, Elly.’
‘So, maybe we should think a sec. Show us the message.’
I release an impatient breath, shoving my phone in their faces.
‘Okay. So, he won’t hurt her.’
Both Haz and I laugh. ‘He’ll do more than that, believe me.’
‘He just wants money.’ Elly’s still looking at my phone. ‘And he wants you to come alone.’
‘Fuck that,’ Haz spits. ‘No one’s going anywhere on their own.’ She growls, kicking a nearby tree. ‘Gonna fucking kill the fucker!’
Elly presses my phone back to me. ‘You should tell Tommy. Let him know. And your mates—Fina, Blakely. They sorted him last time, right? Call them.’
‘He said alone, Elly.’
‘No, I know, I just—’ She takes a breath, looking as on the verge of freaking out as me and Haz. ‘We don’t want this to get…messy. More people who know the better.’
She’s not entirely wrong. Tommy will want to know, Fina’s good at sourcing an underground sort of justice, and Blakely…well, she’s handy in any sort of situation that might require muscle.
‘Alright. But I’m going now, and I’m going alone. At least, he has to think that.’
Jesus, what is he doing with her? He’s not theeasy and simplesort, and he’s certainly not the type to not hurt a girl at his disposal, especially one he’s using against me.
I swallow thickly as I wait for Tommy to pick up. We’ve fucked up. We’ve fucked up so bad keeping her safe. We should have gone to her after the match, we shouldn’t have let the past few distracting weeks lull us into a false sense of security. I shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in the two of us. Everything about us is just fucking doomed. Always has been.
‘Do you even have anything on you?’ Haz says.
I remove a blade from my pocket, the one I’ve kept on me since buying it from the Vaults. The irony of maybe having to use it tosaveTilda isn’t lost on me. Haz glances at it, nodding in approval.
The call connects.
‘Tommy. I need you to do me a favour and track down some people.’
CHAPTER 31
Tilda
Blood trickles from my temple. There’s a nauseating whirlpool in my stomach that intensifies with each breath.
He knocked me out. Must have. I don’t remember the walk, or how I came to be here, clearly underground with my legs tied to a chair.
So out of it, it takes a while for the panic to come back. His head bobs as he works and I barely have it in me to lift a knee into his chin. He snaps his head up, eyes darkening when he sees I’m awake.
My stomach drops. This close, I see there’s something wrong with him. He looks how Nic did high at the Vaults.
