Rogue by Gina Damico

Author:Gina Damico
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

“I have your parents, Lex,” Knell continued in a voice-over, the image of the Bartlebys still on the screen. The room they were in was stark and dirty-looking—the lighting seemed vaguely familiar to Lex, but she couldn’t place it. “My proposition is simple: Their freedom for yours. Turn yourself in, and I’ll let them go.”

Lex and Cordy looked at each other, their faces mirrored in terror.

Knell’s self-satisfied grin filled the screen once again. “As for the rest of you, do have a glorious day!”

Lex felt sick. She grabbed the escalator’s railing, the heights and motion suddenly making her dizzy. The Juniors shot her scared glances, Driggs trying to hug her but not solid enough to do so.

“They’ll be okay.” Uncle Mort grabbed Lex’s shoulders, then glanced at Cordy, addressing them both. “She’s not going to hurt them. She needs them for—”

“Leverage,” Lex spat again, for the millionth time. “Yes, I know. I’m so fucking sick of that word. And how it’s constantly being used to describe my loved ones.”

“Hey,” Driggs said, “she protected them herself by putting them on the air. She can’t hurt them now, not with the city as witness, right?”

Uncle Mort nodded. “And if we needed an even better reason to storm her office, she just gave it to us.”

“But what happened to Lazlo?” Elysia said. “Wasn’t he guarding them?”

“We have to assume he’s been”—Uncle Mort paused to reword—“compromised.”

Lex was shaking her head. “I told them to get out of the house! God, if Knell doesn’t kill them, I’ll kill them myself!”

Driggs raised an eyebrow.

“Okay,” she said, cringing, “that was maybe the poorest choice of words ever.”

He smirked. “And you’ve made a lot of poor choices.”

“Cordy,” said Uncle Mort, “I need you to spread the word: Once we start to seal the portals, the Afterlife is going to feel the repercussions. Until every one of them is closed, things will probably get worse in there, so you souls are going to have to deal with the fallout. Patch up things where you can and just try to hold it together long enough for us to do our thing.”

“You got it,” Cordy said.

Kloo swooped in, breathless. “Now is probably a bad time to tell you this,” she said, “but there are guards coming. You need to get out of here.”

While the rest of the group scrambled to leave, Lex turned back to Cordy. “I’ll find them, okay?”

“I know you will.” Cordy gave her a pained smile. “You loathsome, heinous scourge on the planet.”

Lex grinned. If Knell intended to discourage them with her threats, the woman was stupider than she looked; all Lex could think about right now was kicking some serious Necropolitan ass.

Uncle Mort was doing some calculations. “We’re still a couple of floors away,” he told them. “And with the speed of the escalators versus the speed of the guards, I think the guards will reach us before we reach the door.”

“So we make a run for it,” Lex said.

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Go!” she commanded, bursting out of the bubble.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.