Endgame Novella #2 Read Free Page A

he and Aisling duck into a drugstore. He buys a pink stuffed bunny nearly as big as her head for her and a cheap burner phone for himself.
    It’s a risk, but it’s one he has to take.
    He dials Lorelei’s number.
    â€œDeclan.” She breathes his name into the phone, as if she’s afraid to scare him away. “Declan, what have you done?”
    â€œI’m sorry.” He swallows hard, fights back the tears, presses his lips to Aisling’s forehead, reminding himself why he’s doing this, why he must. “I’m so sorry.”
    â€œIs she okay?” Lorelei asks. “Please, just tell me that.”
    â€œShe’s fine. Of course she’s fine. You know I would never let anyone hurt her.”
    â€œI don’t know anything anymore.”
    â€œI can’t come home, Lorelei. I can’t bring her back. It’s too dangerous.”
    â€œThen tell me where you are.”
    â€œSo you can send the cops for me? Or Pop?”
    â€œSo I can come to you,” Lorelei says. “I know you, Declan. If you want to take Aisling away, hide her where no one will ever find her, you can do it. So you win, okay? I can’t be away from her. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come with you. Wherever you want to go, whatever you need to do. I’ll go. I’ll do it. Just tell me. Trust me.”
    Her voice is full of pain—and love.
    â€œWhat do you think?” Declan whispers to Aisling, ruffling her redhair. “Can we trust Mommy?”
    At the word, Aisling bursts into tears. It’s the only answer he needs.
    â€œOkay,” Declan tells Lorelei, hoping he’s not making the biggest mistake of his life. “Get a pen and paper, and I’ll tell you where to find us.”
    He trusts his wife.
    But he also knows his wife.
    â€œStay quiet, little girl,” he murmurs to Aisling as he nestles her carrier beneath a tree. She sucks at her pacifier and, he hopes, dreams of happier days. Declan has stationed them on an overlook that gives him a perfect sight line into the valley. Down there, in a deserted stretch of field in the heart of the Ozarks, Lorelei will come for her daughter. He lies flat on his stomach, camouflaged by the weeds, and raises the binoculars.
    He’s been careful.
    He chose a place he knows like the back of his hand, an open field easily surveilled from the surrounding hillside.
    This oasis of wilderness is special to him; it’s where Le Fond first made face-to-face contact with him. Le Fond is his own name for the network of shadow warriors, a small joke with himself: La Tène means “the shallows,” so he thinks of these strange messages from the dark as “the deep.” With few exceptions, they exist for him as whispers, anonymous texts, faces hidden by cloaks and masks.
    The young woman who met him here wouldn’t reveal her name or background, wouldn’t explain how she’d come to know about Endgame or why she’d chosen Declan to recruit. “We watch all the Players,” she said. “We saw something in you.”
    At the time, he’d taken it as an insult. Had Le Fond seen some fault in him that he didn’t even know was there, some evidence that his faith was weak, that he would be willing to betray his cause?
    It’s only slowly, as he follows the bread-crumb trail around the world, that he begins to see. As he searches through artifacts, discovers long-lost documents by long-dead Players of the La Tène line, as he follows their questioning and their clues back and back through the ages, as he finds, finally, the secret cave with its astonishing paintings, he understands. What Le Fond saw in him wasn’t weakness; it was strength—the strength of loyalty and conviction that would drive him straight back to Queens, send him marching into the High Council chambers, desperate to share what he learned. To open their eyes to the truth: that Endgame is a cruel