The Gender End (The Gender Game #7)

One of the boys moved again, really just a blur, and I dove to the right. I was too slow, and he caught me midair, slamming my legs down. The roof whirled around me, and I slid to the ground.

My hip throbbed, and I groaned, managing to somehow climb into a sitting position, but I found myself leaning against a cobblestone chimney. I grabbed the edge, hauling myself up.

I barely had my feet under me when a strong hand gripped the back of my neck, squeezing hard and hauling me the rest of the way up.

Roughly, the hand pushed me forward between the two boys, barely keeping me steady as I tripped over my own feet, reeling.

“Stop playing with her and bring her over!” Elena shouted.

Immediately I was pushed forward. I glanced over my shoulder to see the tall boy behind me, his eyes dark and unreadable through the holes of the mask. He propelled me closer to Elena, and I used the momentum to weaken his hold, my hand going for my gun while I distracted him with my struggling.

I didn’t have to shoot the boys anywhere lethal—I just had to disable them so I could get close to the queen. Provided I didn’t miss and hit a major artery…

It didn’t matter. As soon as the gun was in my hand and coming around, another of the boys to the side blurred over, and I felt my weapon ripped violently from me, my fingers going numb and then burning as I realized it had scraped the skin. The gun skittered across the roof and came to a stop some distance away, and I stared at it as I was shoved forward.

Elena was within spitting distance, and, with no other resources left, I lunged for her, rage coursing through me, trying to swing. The boy holding me hauled me back and kept me from striking at her, and then threw me forward onto my knees. I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out, and reared back to look up at her.

Elena stared down at me, her face implacable. Then she smiled.

“You had every opportunity to let it go, Violet. I’m confounded as to why you couldn’t, but frankly, I won’t even try to understand your reasoning. I’m sure it is something sentimental, but I really just don’t care.” She simultaneously shrugged and nodded, before pulling her gun up, aiming directly for my head. “It’ll be better this way. It’ll be faster, and you’ll finally, finally get to have a little peace and quiet. Just give up.”

I glared at her.

“Never,” I whispered, looking up at her only to see the end of a barrel, a bullet inside with my name on it. “I’ll never stop trying to stop you. You don’t care whose life you ruin in your mad quest to do… whatever it is. As long as there is breath in my lungs, as long as you use people to hurt others against their will, I will fight you.”

Elena’s smile deepened. “Well you certainly won’t have that breath in your lungs for long,” she breathed, pulling back the hammer. “The boys are now mine, thanks to the Benuxupane sample you got us, and they will be forever. You’ve lost, and I get to sleep tonight knowing I pulled the trigger.” She began to tense her finger, and then stopped. “You know… I think I might actually come to miss the chaotic element you added to my life, Violet. Without you, all this would’ve seemed so… boring. Easy. Not a victory worthy of my talents. I suppose I should thank you for that, but… I have a heloship to catch.”

Viggo’s face appeared in my mind as Elena’s finger tightened on the trigger. I closed my eyes.

Viggo, I love you.

Just then, an explosion rocked the night, and the rooftop beneath us shuddered.

My eyes jolted open, my heart beating wildly as I instinctively threw myself to the ground at the noise. In front of me, Elena still held the gun, but she was looking to one side—the side from which the lower rooftop extended beneath us—as the noises of shouts and gunshots filtered up from below.

“What was that?” she snapped, her voice low and dangerous.

In that moment, when her guard was down, I struggled to find the energy in my legs to move, to crawl backward, to attack her—and then a dark figure blurred into motion in front of me, the queen’s face snapping forward again with a gasp just as the gun was knocked from her hand, clattering metallically onto the roof beyond.

Elena took one step back, and then another.

The blur stilled, resolving into the boy who had been roughly shoving me moments ago, his body positioned between me and the queen. Elena held her wrist gingerly, squinting at the boy in front of her.

“Stand down,” she ordered.

The boy cocked his head at her and then shook his head.

As soon as he did, some of the other boys began shaking their heads, turning toward her as well. They broke rank, reaching up in unison and pulling the masks off, and I looked at my savior, my mouth falling open as his mask came off too.

Tim was standing there, protecting me from Elena.

Elena took another slow step back, and another. She looked at the group of mask-less boys, seeming to latch onto the ones who still wore their masks… who were now behaving oddly too. They looked around, tapped their ears, stepped back out of their neat ranks, looking around as though they’d just woken up.

Elena, in turn, muttered something into a comm unit on her neck. She tapped it twice, then shouted, “Don’t just stand there! Apprehend her!”

The ranks of boys did nothing. The unmasked ones continued to advance, and the ones in the masks stared at her, some of them swaying on their feet. I found myself watching from the roof as if spellbound, transfixed by the scene.

Elena stood where she was a heartbeat more. Then she turned and broke into a run, racing for the heloship—and everything seemed to move at normal speed again. Some of the masked boys scrambled away, while the rest were already on their feet, moving to stop her. I started to haul up my aching body to go after her, but my brother held out an arm to stop me.

“Revenge,” he said, watching as she began climbing the ramp to get into the heloship—only to come to a complete stop halfway as the boys at the foot of the ramp began to move up it.

As I watched, I realized there were more black-clad figures at the top of the ramp—clearly what had made her pause—and she turned around, warily looking at the oncoming boys.

Tim turned and looked at me, his face apologetic.

“Sorry for hurt. Played part. Had to trick her.”

I turned to him, still baffled by the sudden shift in events. I had expected to be dead by now, but I was alive, watching as the boys Elena had exploited slowly converge on her.

“They’re not going to—”

“No,” Tim said, shaking his head and smiling. “I know. We need alive. More valuable.”

“More legiti—” I stopped, my blood running cold, when I saw Elena reach into her pocket and pull something out. Her hand went to her mouth and back down again. “Wait. Tim, call them ba—”

Then Elena fell to her knees, screaming. She clapped her hands over her ears, her mouth gaping wide, her voice coming out in an agonized screech. There was a ripple of uncertainty in the boys as they watched her scream, and they hesitated, looking around.