With maybe twenty-five minutes left until sundown, Gigi looped around the eastern shore of Hawthorne Island, where there were no cliffs, no trees, just island and ocean and thick, thorn-ridden brush separating the two. She jogged—by a generous definition of the word jog—along the interior side of the brush, her brain sorting through everything that had happened in the past few hours: Manga. Ra. Odette with her opera glasses. Brady and another player… and a dead girl.
That was assuming, of course, that Odette hadn’t been lying. Savannah’s warning still rung in Gigi’s mind: It would be a mistake to trust anyone in this game.
Gigi slowed—then backtracked, her eyes on the ground. There was something beneath the brush. A glint of metal. Gigi knelt for a better look. “A buckle?”
Reaching for it, she pulled on what looked to be some kind of strap, but whatever she’d found, it was really lodged back there under the brush. Gigi pulled harder. When that didn’t work, she pushed her hands elbow-deep into the brambles, thorns catching at the map on her skin. Gigi ignored the pain, her mind going to Odette’s opera glasses once more.
This could be it. My chance at an Object with a capital O. Finally, Gigi’s strength and persistence (but mostly persistence) prevailed, as a large black bag came loose from the brush. She unzipped it. Inside, the first thing she saw was more metal.
“An oxygen tank?” And beneath it, something dark. And damp. “A wetsuit,” Gigi breathed. She could picture one of the Hawthorne brothers donning it to hide a key part of the game to come somewhere beneath the ocean’s surface, then stashing the diving supplies for one lucky player to find.
Me, Gigi thought fiercely. She pushed the wetsuit to the side, digging beneath it to reveal two more objects.
A necklace, Gigi marveled. And a knife.
She picked the necklace up first. A delicate gold chain held a stone the exact deep blue-green as the ocean. The pendant was the size of a quarter, thin and curved. Gold wiring wrapped the jewel, attaching it to the chain and visually bisecting it down the middle.
Unlatching the clasp and fixing the gold chain around her neck, Gigi turned her attention to the knife. It was sheathed. She unsheathed it.
The knife’s blade was silver and slightly curved, its handle short. The sheath was made of battered leather and marked with a series of scratches that looked almost like claw marks.
Thirteen of them, Gigi counted. Her brain organized the details of her bounty. Eventually, there would be a payoff to everything she’d found. That was how Hawthorne games worked. Everything mattered. The number thirteen. The knife blade. The handle. The sheath. The gold chain. The jewel. The diving equipment. Manga. Ra.
Did Gigi have even the faintest idea what any of it meant or how the Grandest Game was going to play out? No. No, she did not. But one thing was clear: This was the find of the game. The motherlode of all motherlodes.
This. Was. Everything.
Among her many and varied talents, Gigi was a rather innovative victory dancer—and then she heard footsteps behind her. With the knife in one hand, she zipped up the bag with the other.
“What have we here?” The voice that posed that not-really-a-question was unmistakably male and a little flat.
Gigi slung the bag over her shoulder, stood, and turned. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Gigi. I like your eyebrows.”
In her defense, they were impressive eyebrows, dark and thick and angled, a key part of an equally impressive scowl on the stranger’s face.
“Knox.” His introduction was curt. So was that scowl. Almost…
Honey-badger-esque, Gigi thought. She remembered Odette’s assessment of the man Brady had been talking to earlier: The one on the right likes to eat ponies. And then there was the other thing that Odette had said.
About the dead girl.
“I’ll be taking that.” Knox nodded toward the bag on Gigi’s shoulder. He looked a few years older than Brady, far enough into his twenties that Gigi didn’t feel quite so compelled to assess his jawline.
Besides, right now, she had bigger issues.
Gigi’s hand tightened around the strap on her shoulder. “Over my cold, dead body,” she said cheerfully. And yes, given the context, that was probably not the most prudent or appropriate statement, but that didn’t stop Gigi from continuing, “And not just like an I’ve been dead a couple of days, so I’m not warm anymore kind of cold. I’m talking drawer in the morgue, I’ve been refrigerated, and steps have been taken to prevent me from resurrecting myself cold, dead body.”
Knox was not impressed. “I don’t like your chances here, half-pint.” “No one ever does,” Gigi replied. Her heart was beating like a bongo
drum in her chest, but luckily, Gigi was an expert at ignoring both her hindbrain animal instincts and her frontal lobe common sense. “Granted, this would be easier if I had a cat. But, as you can see, I’m armed with both duct tape and a knife.” Gigi smiled hopefully. “And you don’t want to hurt me?”
Gigi hadn’t meant to make that a question per se. Deep down, she didn’t believe Avery and the Hawthornes would have let anyone truly dangerous into the Grandest Game. But they didn’t choose the wild cards, her good sense whispered. Gigi dismissed it. Besides, when Odette had mentioned the dead girl, she hadn’t said anything to suggest that it was a particularly nefarious death. More likely, it was tragic, and Gigi had a soft spot for tragic.
“I’m not going to hurt you, pipsqueak.” Knox’s voice was still flat. “I’m not going to lay a finger on you, because I’m smart enough to know that this isn’t that kind of game. What I will do, however, is get in your way.” Knox let that sink in. “Until you hand over that bag—and the knife and duct tape, for good measure—anywhere you try to go, there I’ll be, blocking
your path. Step. By step. By step.”
Given that he hadn’t mentioned the necklace, Gigi could only assume that Knox either hadn’t noticed it or had assumed it was hers and that she’d worn it to the island. Summoning up an impressive Death Glare, Gigi folded her arms over her chest. “I take back my appreciation of your eyebrows.”
“Tick-tock, little girl.” Knox stared her down. “Sunset’s coming, and you’re on the wrong side of the island. I run a five-minute mile. I’m betting you don’t, which means that I have time to waste right now…”
And Gigi didn’t.
