“Stealth Shank of Huitzilopochtli,” Malik answered her, his eyes widening.
“You know these names? The Sleeper said that in your heart of hearts, you still think of yourself as a thief, so you collect epic and legendary daggers, stealing them from the clan.” Tissa’s voice sounded harsh. Disdainful. “Here’s how it is, Malik. If you don’t do what Behemoth wants, then I’ll hand you over to the boys personally.”
After a long silence, my former friend asked in a shaky voice:
“What do I have to do?”
“There’s only one option that lets Alex win. The only way he has a chance is if we betray him…”
“What?!” Malik interrupted.
“We have to betray him. Believe me, I don’t like it one bit either!”
“What do you mean betray him?”
“From the very first minute at the Games, we have to show that we’re out for ourselves. That we fell out with him, stopped talking to him, that we hate him — whatever it takes, they can think whatever they want as long as they believe us. There’ll be journalists there. We’ll tell them that Sheppard is a fame-blind piece of shit. That he abandoned us. That we dream about ways to get back at him at night.”
“I don’t know…” Malik said doubtfully. “It’s going to be a big shock for Alex to hear all that. He’s always helped us. Risked his status. Remember when he gave up his only legendary for that bet with Big Po? In the sandbox!”
“I do remember, but do you? Listen, whatever happens, we need to make it so that Alex believes. That’s why…” Tissa sighed heavily. “The whole way here, I thought about how to convince him… We’re going to announce that you and I are together! A couple!”
“Listen, that sounds great to me, of course…” the boy babbled. “But… Can you imagine what that’ll do to him? After all he’s done for us…”
“Without Alex, the Dementors would be nothing!” Melissa hissed. “You don’t have to tell me that! We would have hung around our district our whole lives, happy for any epic. By age twenty we might have hit level one hundred, and kept our low citizenship status by the skin of our teeth. That would be our whole lives.”
“We have to warn him. Or he’ll hate us forever… He’ll throw us out of the clan, out of the followers of the Sleeping Gods…”
“We can’t! Alex can’t know anything! It’ll change the future!”
“Why? How the hell does the Sleeper know all this?”
“The betrayal has to be real. I don’t know what this means, but Behemoth said that only then would someone called Quetzal feel sympathy and use something called an aegis.”
“No waaay… The Sleeper’s AI has gone mad. Well, whatever. I just hope Alex doesn’t kill us right away, hope he gets why we did it when we tell him…”
Tissa said nothing. I heard her take a sip, then she said sadly:
“Honestly, I didn’t really believe Behemoth myself. But you just repeated everything the Sleeper said you’d say. Word for word. That means the rest is true too.”
“What?”
“Alex will never forgive us…”
Willy stopped the recording.
“That’s all the interesting parts,” he said, sitting back and studying my reaction carefully.
I sat with a stony face. If Tissa and Malik had started making excuses after the Demonic Games, I would have only laughed at them, but this…
“This recording was definitely made before the Games, not after?”
“That’s right. You know, Alex, I wanted to show it to you before the Games, but it was like something stopped me. I didn’t even show it to Hairo… But when I saw Quetzal cast that Aegis on you with my own eyes…” Willy’s voice shook. “Alex… What in the hell is that Behemoth of yours?”
End of Book 7
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Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1)
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The Destroying Plague (Disgardium Book #3)
Resistance (Disgardium Book #4)
Holy War (Disgardium Book #5)
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6)
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Blood of Fate (World 99 Book #1)
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