Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
The shape forms up into something recognizable when Donal Oslin steps directly under the exit sign.
He’s laughing now. Because he’s got me. Fool him once, fine. But not twice. There is no way I will get his balls again and he knows it. “It didn’t even occur to you that we would have sensors guarding this stairwell?” He tips his head up, smiling. I can’t afford to take my eyes off him, so I don’t look up, but I know he’s looking at a very faint glow of light that belongs to the top floor of the Extraction Tower. “Thanks, by the way.” He sneers these words at me. “For leaving the door open. I’ve been trying to break into that tower since I was fourteen.”
Then he lunges at me. And a moment later, he’s got a hold of my hair and he’s pushing me down to the ground.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
All Clara has to do is feed me along the way.
It’s not a stupid plan. It’s not even as sinister as it sounds because the guys down on Eight pack up spark into jumps all day, every day. It’s a thing.
I’m thinking this in my head, but in the same moment Clara is saying it out loud. “We can actually pull this off.”
“Clara.” I shoot her a look. But we haven’t known each long enough for her to catch my subtle side-eye that, to me, is screaming shut the fuck up.
Because she doesn’t shut the fuck up, she keeps talkin’. “Yeah. I mean”—she shrugs, looking me straight in the eye—“those guys downstairs package up jumps, right?”
I look at Anneeta and she’s beaming. I point at her. “You, go. Now. I need to talk to Clara.”
Anneeta narrows her eyes at me. And even though I don’t even have any lights on in here, the shadows flicker dark. Like I’m pissin’ this baby god off.
“Don’t.” I’m still pointin’ at her when I say this. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare threaten me. Because I’m gonna tell you something right now, I’m not afraid of you. If you’re so damn powerful, why can’t ya leave?”
She cowers a little. But I can’t tell if it’s genuine or if she’s just a really good little faker. If I was placing bets, I’d say faker.
“Tyse.” Clara walks over to me and takes my hands in hers, lookin’ me in the eyes. “We can’t leave her behind. We’re… kind of a team. Right? I mean, we can see other worlds. Well, we can’t, but you can. And she’s part of that. We don’t know what it means yet.”
“That’s exactly my point. Just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should. And maybe she’s tied to this tower for a reason, ya know?” I look at Anneeta now, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe baby gods are too dangerous to be let loose on the world.”
Anneeta cocks a hip and sneers at me. “How do you figure I’d be ‘loose?’ Because the way I see it, I need Clara to do anything.”
“Right. And that’s a very short-term solution. I don’t think there’s another fuckin’ tower in the whole damn world that sells jumps, Anneeta.”
“Right! Yes. That means it’s fate!”
“Fuck off. Fate, my ass! It’s luck, kid. Luck. And those jumps are heavy. How many can we realistically carry? Even by high-speed, non-stop train, Delta is fourteen hours away. Do you know how long one jump will last ya?”
She huffs. “No.”
“Exactly. You don’t know shit. You know less than Clara and she’s not even from here.”
“OK.” Clara steps between us, facing me. “Should I remind you of your little speech the other day? What happened to ‘If I were putting together a go team, and I had pick of all the people in that tower—’”
I put up a hand to stop her. “That was before, Clara. She’s a fuckin’ god. And she’s a little liar too. I don’t like liars. I can’t trust liars.”
“I didn’t lie about anything!” Anneeta is reverting back to her childish ways, which I’m OK with, because it proves my point.
“Nah? Well, leaving things out on purpose, important things like, ‘Hey, Tyse, I’m a baby god and I eat Spark Maidens for breakfast,’ is just as bad as lying.”
Oh, I get a look for this one. She is mad. Her arms come up, crossing in front of her, and her eyes are narrowed into slits. “Fine. But you left things out too. You killed all your team members. How do Clara and I know you won’t just kill us one day? Maybe you’re the one we can’t trust?”
I’m about to walk over there and choke her out, but Clara is in my way. “Tyse. Calm down.”
“She’s baitin’ me. And I don’t like it.”
“You’re baiting her.”
I scoff, looking down at Clara. “You’re joking, right? We have every reason not to trust her. She ate your friends!”