Page 129 of The Stone Initiation
I hold it close and open my senses to read the destination woven into it.
A return warping. The one I’d created for Evelyn but, if this orb is here then…
What orb do they have?
CHAPTER55
CAMERON
The speakerphone crackled in the silence that followed Ignus’s declaration that he was here for me and not for the omegas.
“I imagine that you’re all quite shocked,” he continued. “Believe me, so was I when I was given this most important task. I wish I could tell you more, but…Oh, who am I kidding, I don’t care about any of you enough to tell you much of anything. The only person I care about is the halfblood.”
This was bullshit. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want with me?”
“Ah, Miss Walker, so good of you to speak up. Like I said, my name is Ignus, I work for the graynites, and I’ve been tasked with bringing you in. As to why, that is something you’ll need to ask them. Now, here’s the deal—you come out and your friends get to live but if you refuse, then we’ll come in, kill everyone, and take you anyway.”
“You can’t get past the wards,” Jude said.
“Ah, about that. Your wards will be unraveled in about…twenty minutes. No, wait. I have an update. Make that ten. My people are good. So ticktock. I’m watching the door.”
He hung up.
“He’s bluffing,” Jude said. “These are high level wards provided by HQ.”
“We can’t simply assume he’s lying,” Evelyn said. “My obligation is to the girls. If they want the halfblood, then they can have her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sharniza said. “Wenevergive the graynites what they want.”
“She has a point,” Jude said. “If they want her, then she must be important in some way.”
They were discussing my fate as if I wasn’t here. As if I didn’t get a vote. “Enough.” Everyone turned their attention to me. “This isn’t your decision. It’s mine. If that message didn’t go through, then no one is coming to save us. If Ignus isn’t bluffing, then everyone in here will die and he’ll get me regardless. So we need to be smart. Is there any way for you to check if the wards are stable?”
Jude chewed on her cheeks. “I don’t know. Guardians installed them, said to activate them with human blood. Said they’d last for a day at least once activated. Enough time for back up to arrive, if need be, but nothing about checking if they’re stable.”
The phone rang again, and Jude went to answer, but I waved her off and grabbed the receiver.
“Hello?”
“You have five minutes left,” Ignus said.
“Wait. How do I know you’ll let them live.”
“You don’t,” he said simply. “But what other options do you have?”
“You could be bluffing.”
“I could be. But you can easily check that.”
“How?”
“The anchor symbol will be fading.” He hung up.
I set the phone down. “Where’s the anchor symbol?”
Jude pointed at the wall with the bloody handprint then frowned. Wait…the symbol…it’s faded.
“Fuck.”
