Page 44

Odessa

I tumbled over my own feet as Dex pushed me down. My body hit the ground hard and then I heard a sickening sound that struck fear into my very soul.

“Dex!” I cried out.

But when I sat up, I saw with sickening certainty that he had been crushed.

My hands reached out and shook his arm that was sticking out at an odd angle.

“Dex?” I didn’t know why I was shaking him like he would wake up. Logically, I knew he was gone. He’d pushed me out of the way to save me, and by doing so, he’d sacrificed himself. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe.

Tears spilled over my eyes. Snot gathered at the tip of my nose dripping down my lips and chin.

“Dex, wake up,” I pleaded.

We were going to make it. The end was right fucking there. All red and gleaming and happy. After everything we went through to get here, how could it end up like this?

I had just began to allow myself to believe we would make it out together.

I’d decided to end it with Theo. When Dex had asked me what’s the first thing I wanted to do, that’s what came to my mind.

To run into the arms of my family, save my maman, and tell Theo that it was over.

But I’d deflected, not wanting Dex to know how much I was feeling for him. And now he’d never know.

I don’t know how long I sat there. It was long enough that his skin had gone cold and his muscles went rigid.

It took everything in me to pick myself off the floor.

I was the only contestant left, and it was time to go home.

Feet feeling unsteady, I dragged myself step by step until those gleaming letters were right in front of me.

I’d made it, but I wasn’t the same person I’d been before this game began.

I felt broken and I didn’t know if I’d ever feel alright again.

I may have won the games, but at what cost?

My hand pressed firmly against the glowing letters while Dex’s lifeless body laid mere feet away from me.

Tears clung to my cheeks as a large crack formed in the wall.

The letters marking the end split in half and the crack continued to climb up to the ceiling before the stone wall turned to ash right in front of me.

As the debris settled, I saw a dark pair of black boots appear, staggering towards me. A guard perhaps. I blinked hard, feeling the grit of dirt against my eyes and fell to my knees at what I saw.

It was Dex.

No, he was far too resplendent to be Dex. This man resembled him but somehow was more.

More heartbreakingly handsome. More powerful. More everything. I glanced back where Dex’s body lay, but there was nothing. Just a big rock where his broken body should have been.

“If I knew this was what it took to have you on your knees for me, I would have brought you here much sooner.” The voice was nearly the same too, but deeper and more commanding.

This was the voice of a god.

My breath stilled in my chest. A god.

“Don’t you recognize me, Odessa?”

I took in his tailored form. His shined boots and black pleated pants.

He had a silver chain draping from his pocket to his buttons, and his black coat draped effortlessly across his broad shoulders and cascaded to his knees.

He was painfully beautiful to look at, but there was no denying that I knew who he was intimately as soon as I looked into those icy blue eyes.

I told you not to trust him… Kage said inside my head.

“How is this possible?” I breathed out feeling my heart twist in confusion and anger. “I saw you die!” I yelled out, but Dex didn’t even flinch at my ire. “I fucking mourned you!”

But he wasn’t Dex, not really. In this moment of winning the games of Nocturne, I was now staring at The God of Death, creator of these wretched games. And my world turned on its head.

… To be continued.