Page 71 of Tested

“Oh, I know you’re going to want to hear it, but I have a favor to ask, first.”

He scoffs at me, his sidekick Dash laughing out loud.

I raise my hands, showing them my palms. “Okay, don’t believe me, and when the person who hired me to find the princess unleashes Armageddon on you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Who is this Armageddon person?” Jacques asks.

I smile and reach for my knife. “Here,” I say, making a shallow slice across my palm. “I swear on my own blood that I’ll tell you who wants you dead, but only after you tell me where the princess is.”

Betancourt is staring at my palm like he wants to drain me dry. “I don’t know where she is.”

“Liar.” I curl my palm into a fist. “So I guess you’ll figure out who’s going to unleash Armageddon when it happens.”

“You’re bluffing,” he says.

“Try me.”

With that, I shove between them, heading for the back door. I almost make it, too, when he calls my name.

“You’re a dead man, Connor MacPherson. If I were you, I’d start running now.”

“That’s why you’re you and I’m me.”

I don’t breathe until I hit sunshine. The women must have gone inside, because the pool is empty. I fight my way through the foliage at a jog and don’t stop moving till I’m safe in the Taurus. “Mission accomplished,” I whisper. I might not have found the princess, but now I know where to look.She’s gone beyond our everyday existence, Dash said, but at the same time, she’s not someplace a necromancer could find her.

Which means she’s in the netherworld between life and death, the place Catholics would call Purgatory. It’ll take some work to reach her, and probably some help from the Securitas. Difficult, but not impossible.

As long as I’m around to try.