Lost King Piper Lennox (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

eyebrow lifts. Briefly, he sweeps his gaze down her body. “No?”

“No.” I hear her draw a deep breath. “There’s nothing for you to be ‘in’ on, anymore. It’s over.”

“Not until I say so.” He presses the gun against my chest again.

Nausea rolls through me. I don’t know if it’s the scent of blood growing stronger, or the feeling of the gun against my sternum. It fits too perfectly.

“Money?” I venture. I nod at the backdoor. “Take anything you want.”

“I don’t want your money, asshole.” Callum staggers back, but the gun stays against me. “Typical. Think you can buy anybody off. Get whatever you want. What the fuck do you see in him, Ru?”

“I’m not with Theo,” she says sharply, but I hear another break in her words. “And I never will be. He hates me for what I did.”

I move my eyes, not my head, to try and look at her. I can’t see much.

But I see exactly what I heard: that break, that hopelessness. Acceptance.

Suddenly, all I want is to tell her she’s wrong.

Wrong about me hating her.

Wrong for using the word “never.”

I know I can’t, though. As much as it hurts, I have to follow the script.

“She’s right,” I tell Callum. As subtly as possible, I eye the shrinking distance between his foot and the pool’s edge. Four inches. Maybe five. “We’re not together. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Callum leans close. I smell rum and cigarettes on his breath. “You think I’m worried?”

I look at the gun again, then his foot. “I just meant....”

“Is that it, Call?” Ruby blurts, stepping out of our arrangement, over to his side. “You want to be with me? Okay. You win. I’m yours.” Tears fill her eyes as she places her hand on his shoulder. I hold still.

I pray to God she knows what she’s doing.

“You said you don’t love me.” He smirks again, but I see tears gather in his eyes as he turns his head, almost looking at her.

Steadily, the gun lowers, now pointed at my stomach.

“Forget what I said before. Listen to what I’m telling you now, okay?” She takes another breath. It sounds like a hurricane shaking windows in a long, empty hallway.

For just one second, her eyes flicker to mine.

“I love you,” she whispers. “And...and I’m done trying to be someone I’m not. No matter what the rest of the world sees...you know the real me. You know exactly who I am, even when I forget. If I could take it all back, I would. In a heartbeat.”

She swallows, and I see a tear skate down her cheek as she reaches to touch his face. It’s so gentle. So kind.

“But I can’t,” she whispers. “We can’t go back in time. We just have to start over. And we can’t do that unless you decide to do something I know I don’t deserve.”

A little at a time, Callum’s stance relaxes. He lets her guide his chin, turning his face toward her.

“You have to trust me again,” she says.

As soon as he looks away, I grab his wrist in one hand and knock the gun out of his grip with the other.

Motions blur. I see the gun sink to the bottom of the pool. I watch his feet shift, sliding on a patch of ice when he lunges forward and grabs my throat.

I throw him off. He stumbles back, only a few feet away from me. But a safe enough distance from her.

“Ruby,” I cough, “go.”

She doesn’t listen to me. She’s already moving towards him.

She grabs his arm when he rears back to punch me, pulling him down and screaming at him to stop. “Go,” she orders me.

Like her, I don’t listen.

Because as soon as she speaks, he turns and grabs her by the throat, throwing her to the ground.

I shout her name. My legs bolt me closer, but Callum tackles me before I can reach her.

He gets his palm against my temple, pinning my head against the boards. His other hand twists my right arm behind my back, while the left is stuck under my own weight.

She’s two feet away. Eyes closed, motionless. A small trickle of blood runs down her forehead and onto the wood.

“Ruby.” My windpipe feels crushed, and I can hardly breathe. Her name drips out of my mouth like a prayer. Let her open her eyes.

Callum’s knee digs into my back. I go still.

When his free hand moves to my neck, fingers digging in to close my throat again, I feel his leg shift exactly like I knew it would: just a little off-center. Just enough to redistribute his weight from directly overtop me, to my side.

With strength I don’t think I actually have anymore, I push up on my left arm.

Callum falls off me. I hear him curse.

I hear the tiled edge of the pool crack when his head makes contact.

He goes in. I turn just in time to see him sink into the glowing water. A plume of red rises to the surface.

“Ruby.” I slip my way towards her. “Ruby. Ruby, wake up. Stay with me, okay?”

I shake her. My hands leave streaks of blood on her face when I push back her hair.

Her eyelids flutter.

“Oh, my God.” I laugh. It’s mangled and choked, but it’s the realest one I’ve given in days.

I kiss her forehead and rest my lips there. I don’t care about the blood.

I don’t care who she was, or pretended to be. I know who she is.

And I can’t believe I almost let myself lose her.

“Theo?” She blinks hard,