CHAPTER 74 GIGI
GIGI
Savannah. The third Candidate. It’s not Nora. It’s Savannah. Gigi was not okay. Gigi hadn’t been okay since she’d woken up to the news of who the Omega had chosen for the Crucible. She said she’d never forgive me if I left her, so I said no.
I said no, but Savannah didn’t.
Savannah left me.
She left me in St. Adelaide, and now, she—
“Savannah said yes.” Gigi’s voice echoed in the stairwell to the tower. After she’d found out about Savannah, Gigi had tried to go back up to the tower room to commune with the keys, but she’d only made it halfway up. Her body had simply refused to climb another step.
Gigi didn’t even remember sitting down. She wasn’t going to cry this time. She wasn’t. She was going to stand back up and climb the stairs, and figure out what the letters A, J, K, and Q were supposed to mean.
She’d just have to remember how to breathe first.
“You have three choices, sunshine.”
Gigi sucked in a breath when she realized with a start that she was no longer alone on the twisting staircase. Slate stopped a couple steps before he reached her.
“If you so much as think about saying easy there,” Gigi warned, “I swear by all that is good and holy in this world that you will wake up tomorrow covered in Jell-O. Except your wound. I’m not a monster—the wound stays clean. But the rest of you: Jell-O.”
“Three choices.” Slate folded his arms over that freakishly defined chest of his. The guy didn’t even have the decency to be wearing a shirt, like he’d come to find her as soon as he’d woken up and heard the news about Savannah. “The shower. The shooting range. Or the roof.”
Gigi swallowed. She was not going to cry. “Go away, Mattias.”
Slate quietly obliterated the last two steps between them and sat down beside her. “That wasn’t one of your choices.”
“Pretty sure she told you to go away.” And now Knox was on the scene, rounding the stairs and scowling at Slate.
Brady was gone, but Knox had stayed. Knox was here.
“You know what?” Gigi said, narrowing her eyes at her once-bodyguard. “Jell-O for you, too! I don’t need you to tell him to go away. I can take care of myself. Behold: Go away, Mattias.”
“He’s still here,” Knox pointed out.
“I’m not going,” Slate confirmed.
“I’m fine,” Gigi insisted. Savannah’s gone, and I’m useless, but I’m peachy keen. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t screaming. Any second now, she was going to get up off the stairs and fly back into action.
Any second.
“You’re not fine,” Slate said, “and you don’t take care of yourself. Ever. You’re too busy taking care of everyone else. But right now, so help me, you’re going to choose: the shower to cry, the shooting range for a lesson in aim and control, or the roof to scream.”
“What if I want to scream in the shower?” Gigi said.
“That can probably be arranged.”
“Not by you,” Knox practically growled at Slate.
“Look, Landry, when your team was eliminated from the Grandest Game, you went back for her. You picked her up and carried her down to that dock, and that makes me dislike you a little less than I dislike most people. But I have been there with her. More nights than you could imagine. In the shadows, watching silently as she sold damn near everything she had just so she could give away the cash. I have been there, so you’re going to want to take a big step back.
” Slate turned back to Gigi and held up three fingers.
Three choices.
“You can’t carry her anywhere, dumbass,” Knox grumbled. “You have a damn bullet hole in your side.”
“Just a nick,” Slate replied. He gave Gigi a look. “What’s it going to be, sunshine?”
The shower to cry, the shooting range for a lesson, or the roof to scream?
“Go away,” Gigi said, and then with no ado whatsoever, Knox picked up her and tossed her over his shoulder, the way he had back in the bar.
“Answer the question,” Knox said gruffly. “And please don’t pick the shower.”
Savannah’s gone, and I’m here. I’m still here, and she might never be again. Gigi could hear the beating of Knox’s heart through his T-shirt. Slate stood, arms still folded over his bare chest, his dark eyes utterly uncompromising and yet somehow almost… gentle.
And Gigi realized: I am still here, and I am not alone.
She had three choices: the shower, the shooting range, or the roof. Gigi looked at Slate, listened to Knox’s heart, and breathed. “Can I pick all three?”