Deception | Sequel

Chapter Nineteen: Only One Will Live

"Fool!" In one swift move, Deception seizes the collar of my hoodie and holds me to my feet, pressing the barrel of her gun to my head. "Foolish traitor!"

The frantic spin of my thoughts freeze along with the rest of my shaking limbs, and I am left gasping as the world spins in a cascade of sparks. Edison is here! He's here and so is David and the rest of them and we are so close, but the gun is uncomfortably warm to my temple and winter burns so strongly I can hardly do anything but croak, "Edison, David."

Deception presses the gun harder against my head, the metal uncomfortably warm. "Quiet. Play along," she hisses. To the heroes she snaps, "Move and your beloved brother is dead!"

Wraith snorts. "As if. He's too useful." Glares. "Give it up, Viper. The game's had and your hand is played."

Deception laughs, bitter and biting. "Says who? No, your hand is played, Wraith, now that you've thrown your lot in with the heroes."

Wraith twitches but Edison cuts in, steel gaze and voice so full of iron that it cuts like a blade. "Enough. Deception, hand him over."

"And why would I do that?" Deception sneers, tightening her hold on my arm. "He's mine and I ain't giving him over to be brainwashed all over again!"

"You're the one brainwashing people!" David snaps, stepping up beside Edison, hands dripping acid that hisses with each glop that hits the floor. "And Elias isn't yours—he's his own person!"

Deception's lip curls and she jerks her chin, making her hair swing and brush my face. "If you think I brainwash people, then you heroes really don't know anything about me."

Edison interjects again, but I miss it as I clench my jaw so I don't flinch, holding myself tight against the shaking of my limbs that is fading with every moment I stand. Sweat rolls down my neck, cold against the warmth of Deception so close. I don't move, acutely aware of the gun pressed to my temple.

Words fly back and forth over my head, and some part of me listens with bated breath. The other spins and spins with dizzying white and ice and winter and it's all I can do to hold myself together enough to concentrate. Deception snarls something, more venom in her voice than I have ever heard before and it's so close to my ear I cringe, heart stuttering and tumbling into a serious of uncoordinated summersaults.

It lands in a puddle of acidic, sulfur-stretched fear. Fear that burns like the winter screaming through my arms and building in my hands, pushing for something, anything to blank. To escape. To get away as fast as possible. To survive.

But I don't move.

The last time I was this scared, I was captured then, too. Tied to a chair. Interrogated. Last time, I listened to the frantic cries of winter, to the ruthless storm inside, and blanked something. Someone. And where did that lead me?

My gaze slides between Edison to David, who's eyes blaze, to Galah who scowls, pink batons glowing in her tightly clenched fists, to Aben, scowl so fierce I almost look away, to Wraith, who meets my eyes with the look that says, fight.

A small spark, a tiny tongue of fire, flickers in my chest and I swallow.

I can't do nothing. I can't just stand here and let them negotiate over my head. I can't just let things happen, let Deception win. I am going to leave here today. With a slow breath, I inch my hand towards the gun.

"—What makes you Heroes think—"

My fingers are white, and my hand shakes, and I gather every scrap of control I have to make the burst small and controlled.