Page 193 of The Games Gods Play
Because it’s Meike, I realize.
He should have come for me, not her. Not the sweetest and gentlest of us.
I let Dex go.
Just minutes before this in the maze. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t try to kill him. I let him go, and now…
The watching immortals whip one another into a frenzy. I’m guessing only the Daemones are keeping them from doing anything to Dex, who stands on the glass top to the maze, in the center of the entire stadium, hands dangling at his sides, shock frozen on his features as the throng batters him with their screams for justice and blood.
Dex turns his head, looking at Meike, and I think maybe he says her name as he frowns in confusion. Then he raises his gaze past her, landing on me, and the feral rage that overtakes his features sends terror barreling through me.
“Oh, fuck,” I think Trinica says.
And then he’s on top of me so fast I don’t even have a chance to get to my feet. Just like with Meike, he lifts me by the neck, his grip so tight spots dance before my eyes. I’m clawing at him, beating my feet in the air. But he’s too strong. I try to let go with one hand and get to my vest, but he’s jerking me around so violently, I can’t get a grip on any of the zippers.
Trinica launches herself onto his back. It doesn’t even seem to slow him down.
And the violence of his eyes is like he’s possessed.
I catch a flash of Zai, who runs closer and stabs his sword into Dex’s leg. But it doesn’t stop him, like he’s not even human.
Then, Dex jerks me closer to his face. “Time to die, Keres.”
Trinica suddenly jumps at Dex from the side. She hits hard enough that he stumbles with all three of us.
Right into Zai’s sword.
I hear the sick slide of it as it enters his body, feel him take the hit. Holding me in the air, Dex sways for a second before all three of us drop to the ground with a hollow thud of glass. I claw his hands away from my neck and scramble back in case he’s still on the rampage.
But he’s already gone.
Zai’s sword must’ve hit something vital, because the life has already drained from Dex’s face, his eyes cloudy.
I turn away on all fours, reaction making my stomach heave. I retch but manage to not vomit.
“Lyra?” Zai’s voice reaches me. He sounds…small.
Controlling myself, I look over my shoulder to find him standing not far away, the Harpe of Perseus now limp in his grip as he stares in dawning horror at Dex. Then he starts shaking his head. Hard. Then harder. And his entire body starts to shake.
I can’t watch him fall apart.
Part of me expects Hades to appear and take me away, like he did when Boone died, but he doesn’t. I lift my head, searching for him, but he’s not even among the other gods and goddesses, who are all seated up on the platform with the spikes with the heads of our dead.
The Olympian gods are, all of them, on their feet. My gaze lands on Athena.
Hades’ blood is still inside me, still part of me. Maybe the rabid wrath that tears me apart at the sight of her is him. I don’t care.
I jump up and point at Dex. “What’d you do? Drug him? Curse him to be more aggressive today?” I scream at her. “Well, he’s dead now, and that is fucking karma, you monster.” Dex was her champion. “You won’t be Queen of the Gods now, will you?”
The four Daemones, still standing at their posts in the four corners of the platform where the gods and goddesses watch, all suddenly extend their wings with sharp, militaristic precision.
That is when Charon appears in front of me and takes me away, kicking and screaming.
95
Cool It
The second we blink back into being, I’m vaguely aware that Charon and I are in Hades’ Olympus home, but not much more than that. Fury is still eating me alive. Fury that Dex killed Meike. Fury that someone got to him and altered him somehow. That we couldn’t stop him. That our hands were forced. Fury that Athena put those heads on spikes. Fury about the entire cursed Crucible.
