The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)

Another boy wearing a black mask and black clothes stood only twenty feet away from me. My fingers twitched as I stared at his small form. He was breathing heavily, his shoulders and chest heaving, and I could see, even in the sparse light, that his black outfit was soaked with sweat.

I watched as the boy pointed at his ear, and then looked at me expectantly. I stared, baffled, and the boy slowly lowered his arm and then waited. After several long heartbeats, he repeated the gesture.

“Maybe he wants us to put the earpiece in,” Owen whispered behind me.

Seeing no better option before me, I cautiously moved toward the trunk of Ms. Dale’s car, keeping a careful eye on the boy. He didn’t move, making no sound but that of his labored breathing, even as I opened up the trunk and pulled out the box, grabbed the earpiece, and slid it into my ear.

“Hello, Mr. Croft,” a feminine voice crooned from the other side.

I balled my hand into a fist, my response scraping out through gritted teeth. “Hello, Desmond.”





25





Viggo





“There’s no need for that tone, my dear boy. After all, I’m just here to congratulate you on revealing which of our frequencies you had that dear, sweet moron Thomas monitoring.”

My eyes flicked over to Thomas, and I pointed at the earbud, shooting him a pointed, questioning glance. “What do you want, Desmond?” I asked.

Nodding sharply, Thomas moved over to the car, and I stepped aside to give him access to the trunk. I heard him moving items around behind me, but I didn’t look, turning my full attention to the boy standing in the clearing. He hadn’t moved, but I knew he was listening in. I could only hope nothing Desmond said now could be interpreted as a command on his part.

Desmond chuckled through the line. “You know, I really do have to congratulate you,” she said. “You were clever not to return to your secret base. I’m surprised to see you had that much common sense. Is my failed protégé with you?”

“Which one?” I retorted. “I seem to be collecting a set of them.”

“I see you still have that clever mouth… and zero insight about when best to use it,” the woman chided. She clucked her tongue in disapproval, and I resisted the urge to add something else incendiary. “The failed protégé I was referring to is the industrious Melissa Dale. Tell me, is she there with you?”

I cast a look at Ms. Dale, who was watching me closely, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “She’s here. She says you should go take a dive into Veil River.”

“I’m sure she did. Ah, well, she never really was up to my standards. I won’t miss her after I kill her.”

I clenched my teeth together, refusing to rise to the bait. “What do you want, Desmond?” I repeated.

“Patience, patience, Mr. Croft. You’re ruining all my fun… Now, where was I? Ah yes. It is a shame you haven’t led me straight to your base, but no matter. I’ll find it soon. Are you sure you don’t want to help me out a little bit? Give me a direction?”

“How about down? Just stop when you see flames.”

“Hmmm, color me unsurprised. You always were a stubborn little thing.”

“Well, that’s just part of my charm,” I said.

Behind me, I heard Thomas muttering to himself. I looked back just in time to catch his eye: the small man motioned to his wrist as though he was tapping a watch, then flapped his hand in a circular motion as though to say, ‘Come on!’ More time, I realized. He wants more time.

Meanwhile, Desmond’s predatory voice continued in the earbud, “I see Ms. Bates has encouraged your overinflated opinion of yourself. No matter. Even though you haven’t led me back to your camp, there is still a reason I have approached you today. There’s still a lesson you need to learn.”

I took a few cautious steps away, not wanting Desmond to hear Thomas tinkering around. I also avoided Ms. Dale and Owen. We needed to be more spread out in case the boy flew into action. And I needed to keep her talking.

It wasn’t hard, because I already had more questions than I could hold in. “A lesson? Was that what all this was about? The empty file cabinets? The rows of murdered corpses in tents? Did you just… put all this out here so you could teach us ‘a lesson’? Is that what all these deaths were for?”

Desmond’s voice grew, if possible, even more gleeful. “Why, Viggo, of course not. The Matrians already had an accumulation of bodies that had very little to do with you, all things considered. And the camp was here before. Since the Matrians don’t care particularly how these men are disposed of, I just used the resources available to me. Then it was simply a matter of waiting for your merry band to sniff out injustice and come swooping in to save the day… I’m actually kind of glad that you ended up there, of all places. It’s by far the best of the surprises I’ve left for you.”

“There are more places like this?” I felt my mouth actually hanging open. The sheer scale of Desmond’s plan was devastating. “There are more… traps?”

“Telling you would spoil all the fun, wouldn’t it?”

I took that as a yes to my question. Had Thomas figured out how to listen in on this yet? This conversation was growing more and more infuriating.

“All right,” I said through my teeth. “Since it’s clear you’re not going to stop on this train of thought, what was that about a lesson?”

“A lesson. One of endurance. You see, you and your little Violet have merely been a nuisance up until this point. A fly in the proverbial ointment—disgusting, buzzing pathetically around, but ultimately ignorable.”

I shook my head—was that an echo?—only to realize I was hearing Desmond’s voice piping through something behind me. I shot a glance at Thomas, who grinned. He’d managed to hack the frequency, like I’d hoped he would. I noticed Ms. Dale and Owen moving closer, eager to hear the other half of the conversation they had been missing out on.