Page 69 of Off the Rails

Duh.

“Fuck,” I kept running, hoping there was somehere to turn at the last second, a path the Freaks couldn’t foresee.

But their footsteps were coming too quickly. I slammed into the wrought iron fence, desperate for some illusion of shelter. Maybe I could fight back, maybe I could⁠—

All hopes of defending myself vanished the second I saw Cyrus’ mask appear around the corner, several steps ahead of the others. She gripped the machete tight in her fist as her feet pounded into the cobblestone, and I knew with bonedeep certainty that she wouldn’t let me go this time.

Fate might, though

Before she could close the gap between us by hurdling over the ticket booth, green lights washed over the park. All the carnival music died down. As the screeching rides grinded to a halt, so did Blade and Nash.

The game is over. I won.

But Cyrus played by her own rules.

Unable to slow her own momentum, Cyrus crashed into me hard enough to steal the air from my lungs. One fist was tangled in my shirt, lifting me against the fence while the other held the machete to my neck.

I might have won Fright Night. But that wouldn’t stop Cyrus from trying to do as she pleased anyway.

40

BLADE

My hands were on Cyrus’s tshirt before I could think about it. The lights flashed. Fright Night was over.

She won. My Trinket won.

Nash clearly had the same thought as me, grabbing Cyrus’s muscular arms and pulling her off of Tess.

Cyrus kept her grip on Tess’s shoulders, pressing her into the wrought iron fence of the front gate. Her jaw was tense as Nash and I used whatever leverage we could to rip her off our toy.

Nash was fuming, her face flushed and her nose lifted in a snarl. With one heavy twist, Nash and I freed Tess from Cyrus’s sharp talons.

“Enough! She’s free. Stop.” Nash slammed her hand into Cyrus’s chest, the inked-out fingertip resting right above Cyrus’s heart.

Cyrus met Nash’s gray eyes, anger swelling. She tossed us off with one easy shift of her shoulders. Shaking her head, her chest heaved.

Checking in on Tess, I met her blue eyes. A twinge of sadness passed over my toy’s face.

“Nice work, Trinket.” I was still catching my breath, trying to be happy for her.

She would leave us now, take her money and run. Maybe we’d been kind enough to her to get visitation sometimes.

Cyrus growled. “Stay.”

“What?” Nash and I whipped our heads around as the words left Cyrus’ lips.

Without bothering to look at us, Cyrus kept her near-black eyes on Tess. “We’ll hunt again. Every hunt you stay, we’ll double the prize. Win or lose.”

“We will?” My brows were scrunched together like a wrung-out fucking washcloth.

Tess’s mouth fell open, shock washing over her too as she tried to figure out why this mean bastard wanted to keep her around.

But Nash and I knew why. Meeting each other’s gaze, we knew that Cyrus wouldn’t let Tess walk away without doling out her punishment. And she was willing to pay for more chances to win.

Nodding, Cyrus gritted her teeth. “I’ll double it, up to $600,000. You win every hunt and you walk away with $1.2 million.”

Holy fuck.