A Sinister Game (10 page)

With that, he let her go. And in another
forbidden display of
power, his form shimmered and disappeared into the dusty atmosphere of the TGB library.

Six hours… I have six hours before the sun goes down.

Victoria ran at breakneck speed through the halls of the TGB toward the transporters. Her thoughts were moving almost as fast. They blurred through her mind as she considered one idea, found a flaw in it, and tossed it out the proverbial window for the next one.

Her raging emotions didn’t help matters. There were so many different feelings
vying for control over her body
that she
felt a little like
oil on water – iridescent with different colors, soaked in a bucket load of trouble, floating directionless with her feet nowhere near the ground.

She was frustrated at the Game police for never being around when Black broke one of Game Control’s rules. She was astounded at how powerful the Gray leader had become. She was confused as to why he’d kept it secret this long and had chosen now, of all times, to come forward with
t
his challenge. She was curious as to why he’d chosen
her
to help him attempt an overthrow of Game Control. She was definitely angry
with
herself for falling so easily into his trap.

And most of all, she was afraid. She was afraid she wouldn’t find a place to hide in time. She was afraid that he would find her and overpower her and she would lose. She was afraid of what one night in Black’s bed would do to her, both physically and mentally…. And she was
certain, absolutely certain, that going up against Game Control would mean True Death
.

So she ran as fast as she could. She needed to get back to the Red tower and pack a few thing
s, just a few
essential
things.

She accidentally bumped into another Gamer as he was leaving one of the transporters, and in the midst of muttering a quick apology, she glanced up to find herself once more st
aring into Maxwell Blood’s piercing
blue eyes.

“Victoria!” He reached out and steadied her with a strong hand, pulling her to a stop as her momentum tried to carry her right past him. “What’s wrong
? What’s going on?” h
e asked, taking in her disheveled appearance, the flush to her cheeks, and the stark worry in her golden eyes.

She went still and stared up at him. Was it really him this time?

She couldn’t concentrate enough to send out the mental energy it would require to verify his identity. But there were small things
-
t
he mini
scule fleck of brown in one eye,
t
he tiny scar beneath his left ear that he’d go
tten before he’d become a Gamer, things like that.
Ther
e was the warmth of his touch; as a dark leader with ice abilities, B
lack was
almost always cold. There was
the scent of mint that always laced Max’s words and made her want to kiss him just to find out if he tasted as good as he smelled.
There were the little things.

It was him.

There was no way Black could have gotten all of those details right.

Sh
e tried to feign nonchalance. “Nothing,
”
s
he assured
him, but said it too quickly, a
nd t
oo loud.
He was no fool.

Max’s
blue gaze narrowed. “Uh-huh.” He didn’t release her.

“I’m just
–
I’m
late for something,” she lied. It hurt
lying to him. As far as she could recall, she’d never lied to Max
. She swiftly tried to console her conscience by telling herself that it wasn’t
exactly
a lie. She
was
late, in a manner of speaking. She was late in finding a place to hide from Victor Black.

But Max wasn’t buying it anyway. 

Without relinquishing the grip he had on her arm, he turned and pulled her back into the large metal cube of the transporter. There were others in there and they were watching Victoria and Max.

“Out!” Max ordered, gesturing
for the others to
leave the transporter.

Blood
was a tall, well-built man
who carried a
lot of authority
, and everyone knew his
nickname
, Bloody Max.

A
lmost as one
, the other Gamers filed out of the transporter cube
.

Victoria nervously watched them go. Her stomach was churning now. She knew what was coming
,
and she couldn’t make her mind think of a way out of it.

Max closed the doors behind them, locking them in alone. Then he punched in some destination that Victoria wasn’t familiar with and the transporter blurred around them.

Only then did he let her go. She straightened her jacket and looked at the floor, refusing to meet his blue gaze.

“What the hell is going on, Victoria?”
His
height towered
over her
, making her feel small. “I know damn well that something is wrong, and I want you to tell me what it
is.” He never called her “boss
” as the others did. It was always Victoria.

“
It isn’t your concern,” she told him.

“
If it has some bearing on the
t
eam or its
leader
, it very much
is
my concern.” His tone
was
just
soft enough that he wa
sn’t exactly yelling at her, but
hard enough that it wasn’t conversational either.

Victoria shoved her hands into the pockets of her uniform jacket. “It’s personal, Max.
I promise.
You
really
don’t need to be involved.” That much was true.

She looked up at him.
He gazed at her steadily as the blurred cube around them slowed, sw
irled, and then blurred in a different direction. It was all about i
nterspace travel at right angles and speeds shy of light, but fast enough that they still boggled the mind.

“I think I do.”

Victoria took her hands out of her pockets and put them on her hips. “Excuse me?”

“I think I
do
need to be involved. Because whatever it is that forced you to run down sixteen corridors in the TGB without slowing is the same thing that has been keeping you up at night. It’s affecting your health. And if
you
aren’t well, then our
t
eam
will suffer
,
”
h
e told her.

She blinked. “You saw me run through the entire building?”

He watched her for another tense moment and then sighed. He ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair and moved to lean back against the opposite wall, blurred as it was. The effect was strange enough
to be
disconcerting.

He crossed his arms over his chest
. “There are no transporters
in-between
the library win
g and the first corridor off
section one. You didn’t hear me calling after you and, frankly, you’re too fast for me to keep up with. So I hopped into the section one cube and met you in the main room.”

That was why he had run into her when she was stepping into the transporter. And that was also why he’d known something was wrong.

Victoria studied him closely. He raised a brow – waiting for her to respond.

She alternated her weight on her feet.

Finally, she caved
. “There
is
something keeping me up
,
Max, but I was telling you the truth when I swore it has nothing to do with you.”

“What is it?”
h
e asked. No pretense.

“I would rather not share.”

“I know
,
”
h
e acknowledged with a single nod. “But I can’t help you if you won’t let me in.”

Let me in…
.
He wanted her to let him in? In what way?

“You can’t help me anyway, Max. And it isn’t your
job
to help me.”
She
was
his
leader. He wasn’t supposed to help her; she was supposed to help
him
! She wasn’t supposed to show this kind of weakness in front of her
t
eam members. It was humiliating
and frustrating. It was also
pointless.

Time was speeding by almost as quickly as the transporter was sh
ooting them through space. S
he was wasting it here with Max.

She’d never felt the urge to run as strongly as she did in that moment.

“My job?”
Max asked
incredulously.
“It isn’t my
job
?”
With that he slammed his hand against the stop control on the transporter console. The blurring slowed and ceased
,
and the transporter
cube went still, solidifying
around them. The doors remained shut.

“Where are we?” She instinctively asked. Dangling somewhere above a precipice? Underwater?

It gave her a chill.

“Don’t change the subject, Victoria.” He left the wall and faced her again. “You just broke our relationship down into the base
st
comp
one
nts imaginable, and that’s insulting. You know damn well that I care about you as more than my leader.”

She gazed up at him, her heart suddenly beating a little bit faster than it had been a moment before.

He went on. “Whether your problems – whatever they are – aff
ect your abilities as leader is indeed
my
problem and, hence as you put it,
it’s my
job
to
help you overcome them
.
It’s
also April’s job and Ty’s job and Simon’s job.”
His tone was still hard, and his voice was rising in volume.
He motioned to the nothingness around him as he spoke. “But that
isn’t why we’re here right now
Victoria, in this transporter, in the middle of nowhere. We’re here because something is eating you up inside and I’ve never seen you this scared before – not in ten years.” He visibly tried to calm himself before he added
, finally, “And
I don’t want you to suffer. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

It was a wh
ile before Victoria could respond
. She conside
red telling him everything. For a second, s
he really did.

But then she remembered Victor’s
warning about True Death – and Max. She thought of Black’s
immense
, powerful
reach. Even her intermediate contact for dealing with Game Control had been switched.

No. There was no way she could involve her captain. Not in this.

When she did finally speak, her voice was no more than a whisper. “I’m sorry, Max. I can’t let you get involved.” She hoped her expression reflected even a fraction of the helplessness she felt at that moment.

Max gazed down at her for what felt like an eternity. She was about to apologize again, just to break the uncomfortable silence, when he at last straightened and turned away from her to face the console. She stared at
his broad back as,
he pressed a series of numbers into the transporter keypad, and the cube began to blur once more.

A few seconds later, they came to another stop and the doors slid open. They were in the Red tower.

Victoria didn’t wait. She stepped through the open doors and into the main meeting room of the Red
T
eam’s home base. When she turned to look back, it was to find Max watching her once more.

The doors slid shut, blocking him from sight.

* * * *

“There’s a possibility she told her captain about the Game.”

Victor turned away from the tall windows he’d been staring out of and faced his captain. “What makes you suggest this?” he asked.

John Storm shrugged. “Can’t know for sure; they got into a
transporter together and let’s just say
he didn’t look like he was gonna accept much from her but the truth. Shooed everyone e
lse off of the cube, apparently
.” Storm sat down on a couch and waited for his leader to mull over the information.