“I’m a card in this scenario, right?” I said, seriously contemplating breaking Loki’s nose.
“Would you prefer the term pawn?” he said. “I struggle to stay abreast of what’s politically correct.”
“Anything other than chum is fine with me,” Tuck murmured unhelpfully.
“Screw politically correct,” I said, frustration threatening to overflow the confines of my self-control. “Let’s focus on honest. How do I get to Valhalla? How do I get to Graham?”
“You need to be a full-blooded Valkyrie first,” he said, surprising me by looking me straight in the eye and actually answering my question. “Then you can access their power. The energy that flows between them. Surely you can feel it.”
“Aren’t I a Valkyrie already?”
“Not until you’ve defeated one of your own kind. Either kill one of them or make her yield. That’s the only way to enter Valhalla. Valkyries get stronger the more they fight, and this is day one, little Elsa, compared to Astrid’s two thousand years. You need all the practice you can get before you face her again.” His smile faded, and he took a step forward and curled one hand under my chin. “Fortunately, fate keeps throwing you test after test. Time to sharpen those talons, pet.”
Loki’s features shifted as he stepped backward, disappearing into the crowd. Try as I might, I couldn’t latch my eyes onto him. It was the creepiest kind of camouflage. He could be anywhere. Anyone. My hand reached out, involuntarily, and found Tuck’s. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate this reminder of Grandmother’s note. I had to defeat one of them to join them.
The people milling about had gathered into clusters of three or four and were looking less friendly by the millisecond. Angry mutters and narrow-eyed glares were an unmistakable sign that we’d outstayed our welcome. From across the street, a group of kids about Graham’s age was studying us warily. Tuck took a few casual steps, as if we were just strolling slowly along the waterfront.
“They’re following us,” I said. It was too obvious, the way those boys had taken a step to the side all at once, mirroring us. They wanted to confront us. I could sense their building anger, mingling with fear and self-doubt.
I tried to seem disoriented too, like Tuck and I were just two more lost, confused souls, tangled up in Astrid’s web. A blond boy standing in front of the group clutched a small electronic device against his chest. It looked exactly like Margit’s weird transponder. A personal locator beacon. And it was blinking steadily, like the flashing lights on an airplane’s wing, guiding it home.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was on the other end of it.
“The car is ten feet up ahead,” Tuck said. “When we get right behind it, I’ll run to the driver’s seat and you run to the other door, okay?” Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the group of boys keeping pace with us. Conferring in whispers, nudging one another into being the first to act.
“Stop!” one of them shouted, finally breaking ranks and running forward, faster than all the rest. But it was a domino effect. The others slipped into a sprint, following.
Without even thinking, I spun around. The leader was close, within five feet, so it wasn’t hard to use his momentum against him. I waited until he closed the distance, then grabbed his arm and flipped him onto the hood of a parked car. My Valkyrie instincts howled for me to shove his head right through the windshield, but I pushed the urge out of my mind. He was panting hard, nostrils flared. He reminded me too much of myself moments ago, being pulverized by Astrid. The strained, determined look on his face mirrored my own desperation to find Graham.
Maybe this boy had lost someone he loved to Astrid, too.
I had him by the collar, so I looked straight into his wide brown eyes. “I’m going after them,” I said, my voice firm and steady, deliberately steering clear of my tone of power. “I know who you are. Who your friends are. And what you’re trying to do. And I’m your best bet if you want to accomplish it. I’m going to save my brother and all the rest of them. Now back off and let me finish what I came to do.”
The boy lifted his hands in surrender, but his pupils were wild, darting around like minnows. His pulse raged beneath my fingertips. I doubted he’d processed a single word. He was useless, still cycling through the fight-or-flight instinct. I sighed and released his shirt.
“Graham is gone a few hours and suddenly you’re brawling in the streets,” Tuck said, pulling on my shoulder. Politely not pointing out the rest of what I’d just done. He had to notice how I struggled to control myself lately. “Now get in the car before I pick you up and carry you there.”
I looked up. The boy’s friends had frozen in place, watching, but at about the same time Tuck spoke, they shifted back into gear. Charging headlong at us.
“Get in the car.” Tuck started to make good on his threat. But I wiggled free, diving for the passenger-side door as he jumped the curb and slid into the driver’s seat. Who knew he could move that fast? The engine was running by the time I managed to haul myself into the car. Pounding footsteps echoed behind us. I glanced back as a glass bottle struck the rear windshield, sending spider veins across the window. No sooner had we locked the car doors than we were surrounded. A boy shouted in wobbly English, “You can’t go until you tell us what happened—what your friend did to us.”
“Sorry, dude,” Tuck muttered. “But she’s no friend of mine.” Then he slammed his fist into the horn. The shrill blast pierced the night, and he used the distraction to whip the car up onto the curb in reverse, the only way to avoid hitting someone. Then he lurched forward, barely missing a sneakered foot. Three of the kids chased our car for six blocks, shouting things I couldn’t quite catch, until Tuck’s crazy driving finally shook them loose.
We drove in silence for a while, the car nosing through the deserted streets of Bergen like a shark in search of a nice fat seal. Only we were hunting predators—and they clearly weren’t loitering around Bergen waiting for sunrise to give them a chance to strike again. Especially as most of the city had quieted down and gone to sleep.
“I think that’s enough excitement for one night.” Tuck was making a valiant effort not to sound discouraged. “We need to get some sleep. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”
“No, Tuck,” I said. “We already know what we need to do. There’s only one way. You heard what Loki said.”
He was quiet, so quiet I knew he was preparing the winning argument. “Loki also said the more you fight, the stronger you’ll get,” he said. “Maybe we should make sure if it comes down to it, you can win. And I mean as a last resort. Because Loki also said you’re not ready yet.”
His reply was such a surprise that it took me a moment to realize we’d stopped driving. Tuck parked in front of a dimly lit hotel.
“What are we doing here?”
“Getting some sleep,” he replied. “We can’t just drive around all night hoping Astrid will give us a third shot at her. It’s four in the morning.” Without giving me a chance to protest, Tuck reached across me and pushed my car door open. “Even if we find her, it’s not like we can do anything about it. Fighting her isn’t exactly working. And you’re in no shape for round three tonight.”
I had to admit, he had a point.
Inside, an elderly clerk with beady eyes answered the bell at the front desk. “One room?” He asked, never taking his eyes off me. My cheeks were on fire—until I realized he was probably more curious about the blood on my face than the fact that I was checking into a hotel with Tucker Halloway in the middle of the night.
I nodded. “One room.” The last thing I wanted was to be by myself in a strange hotel in a strange town. But at the same time, my stomach flipped as I realized how very truly alone Tuck and I would be.
The room was minuscule, but at least there were two twin beds pressed against the walls, separated by a narrow nightstand and an old lamp. I collapsed onto the comforter, grateful for the plush feather duvet.
“How do you propose I g
et ready to face Astrid?” I asked, closing my eyes and savoring the feeling of my muscles uncoiling one by one.
“I have an idea, but we’ll talk it through tomorrow.” His voice was faraway and garbled, like he was talking underwater.
“Tell me now,” I whispered, and even though I heard Tuck’s voice, murmuring something important, the words were meaningless, floating past in random order. All I could think about was Graham and how fully I’d failed him.
“You’re not even listening,” Tuck said, his voice suddenly coming from somewhere above me. It was the only thing that penetrated the fog in my brain. Then he laughed and ran his fingers through my hair. “Just sleep, then.”
The last thing I remember before lapsing into sleep was Tuck sliding the blanket out from underneath my legs and tucking it securely around me. It might have been just wishful thinking, but I thought I felt something brush my lips ever so lightly before sleep pulled me under for good.
10
When I opened my eyes the next morning, Tuck was sound asleep in the other bed. He was sprawled on top of the blankets with both feet hanging over the edge. I took a moment to smooth down my hair in the mirror. It was a wasted effort, but at least I looked marginally less mangled. I reached over and poked Tuck in the ribs. After three failed attempts to wake him like that, I shoved his shoulder—hard.
He sat up at once, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. If I needed any reminder that Tuck was quite possibly the best-looking guy on the planet, it was delivered on a silver platter when he smiled at me. It had my blood racing faster than any double espresso ever could. It wasn’t a bad way to wake up.
“Ready to start training?” he asked.
“This isn’t soccer camp, Tuck,” I said. “Remember? Graham is missing. We’ve got less than twenty-four hours to find him.”
“That’s exactly what we’ll be training for,” he said. “Did I ever tell you that my dad didn’t just take me fishing? I mean, I hated hunting. Never could bring myself to kill anything. But I’m a pretty awesome shot.”
My jaw fell slack at that. Tucker Halloway in a hunting jacket, tiptoeing through the forest. It was either hilarious or a little bit hot. Even to a city girl like me.
“And you think you can teach me?” I said slowly. “So that I’ll be able to shoot one of the Valkyries in cold blood?”
“Well, let’s just see what happens—what I can teach you. You might not necessarily have to kill anyone. You just have to get Astrid to surrender, remember? From what I’ve seen of your new and improved reflexes, I think we can get pretty far in a few hours. Then it’s happy hunting. I hear Valkyrie is in season.”
IN LESS THAN an hour Tucker and I were standing in a worn-down, deserted park just outside of Bergen. Weeds surrounded the soccer nets at either end of the field, threatening to devour them. An empty brown paper bag tumbled slowly across the overgrown grass, coaxed along by a light breeze. A stray, half-deflated soccer ball was the only sign the field had ever been put to use.
Tuck walked into the middle of the soccer field and pulled a handgun from the waistband of his jeans.
“Where did you get that?” I wished my voice hadn’t squeaked.
“Hilda’s house,” he answered, not meeting my eyes. “I didn’t want to freak you out. Thought I’d need to be able to protect us. Of course, that was before I figured out it would probably be the other way around.” He gave me a sheepish smile. “Here,” Tuck said, motioning me closer. “Hold it like this.” He pulled me against his side, propping one arm against my rib cage as he guided my finger around the trigger. “Then just imagine it’s an extension of your index finger as you guide it toward a target and pull.”
A disturbing rush of exhilaration shimmied its way down my spine. Not just because Tucker Halloway was so close I could feel his heart beating in every single one of my vertebrae. It was also the gun, the force of the bullet fleeing the chamber. Feeding the stream of violence bubbling within me until it was threatening to overflow.
WE SPENT THE whole morning at the park, and I was amazed at how much stronger I felt after just a few hours of practice. It was getting clearer and clearer that whatever I was, I was built to crush any opponent. More than once, I caught Tuck watching me out of the corner of his eye, a weird smile that could have been either pride or admiration or a bit of both.
When the sun approached the middle of the sky, we drove back into downtown Bergen. We wound through the narrow cobblestone streets until we stumbled across a row of sidewalk cafés. Once I’d stopped moving long enough to catch my breath, I realized I was starving. We parked in front of a café, and while I grabbed an outdoor table, Tuck disappeared inside to order sandwiches.
When he walked back out to join me, Tucker was smiling like the Cheshire cat. He slid a newspaper across the table. The Bergen Tidende. It was folded in half to highlight the lead article.
“Look.” He stood right behind me as he pointed at a photo of four uniformed soldiers standing in a row, one balancing a soccer ball in his hand. A shiny, important-looking medal was pinned to his chest.
“Seems the military has a soccer team. Playing a match at one against the local team.” He pointed at the bolded text at the end of the article.
“What, so now you read Norwegian?” I demanded, even as I realized it wouldn’t be that hard to guess what was going on, given the photograph of the Bergen stadium directly underneath.
“Course not.” He smirked. “But I ran into a charming waitress who does.”
He was trying to get under my skin, so I carefully schooled my face into a neutral expression.
“It would seem like a logical target for Astrid,” I murmured. “Unless you’re biased because you wanna watch a soccer game?” I looked up. Tuck grinned down at me, his face closer than I expected.
“Side perks never hurt.”
“It’s not the worst idea in the world,” I said slowly.
“Tough crowd,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear your plan. Must be so much better. Here I thought you’d throw yourself into my arms in gratitude.”
I hoped he couldn’t tell how very appealing that option sounded just then, especially when they were draped so close along the back of my chair. Instead I picked a sugar packet and spun it on the table. “It’s a great idea,” I said, feeling a tingle of curiosity about these soccer stars that I hoped came from the Valkyrie part of me. My common link to Astrid. It was still hard for me to sort out which of my thoughts still belonged to me and which part was Valkyrie.
“See, it’s not so bad admitting you’re wrong.” He reached across the table and put his hand over mine, bringing my fidgeting to an abrupt end. “And you don’t even have to thank me—I’m happy do all that tricky thinking for both of us.” Judging by his smirk, the words were intended to annoy me every bit as much as they did. But for some reason they also gave me the same thrill as when he touched my hand. It was as if the sweet side he’d been showing me in flashes and glimpses wasn’t a game but rather Tucker unearthing one more layer to what we already had. A layer that in no way meant there wasn’t room for me to smile and tease him right back
“Since most of your ideas end in potential felonies, I think I’ll do my own thinking, thank you.”
Tuck’s answering smile was excruciatingly adorable. “There’s my Ells. Feel better now that you’ve knocked me around?” He shoved my plate closer. “Now eat. If we run into Astrid again, we both need to be ready.”
THE PARKING LOT outside the soccer stadium was packed. Families and groups of kids were arriving in cars and buses, on foot, and piled onto the handlebars or luggage racks of bicycles. I watched as a father lifted a young girl up onto his shoulders, just like my dad used to do with me. Two boys ran past our car, shrieking.
After circling the lot, Tuck found a spot just outside the main doors. It blocked a service entrance, making me question its legitimacy, but I decided to overlook this typically Tuckish approach to parking. I just crossed my fingers that we wo
uldn’t get towed.
Inside, the arena was smaller than I’d expected, with only one tier of seats and a narrow ribbon of field along the outside for the benches. It was a far cry from Dodger Stadium back home. I went to the railing and looked down at the players scattered around the goal, warming up. Fans pushed past, making their way between the loiterers in the aisles toward their seats. Tuck and I scanned each and every face, hypervigilant for any sign of Valkyrie activity.
Thirty minutes into the first half, I started to worry we were wasting our precious time. It was almost two in the afternoon, and who knew what Loki was planning at dawn the next morning if we didn’t find a way to rescue Graham and the others. Still, I hung in there, praying our risk would pay off. I couldn’t be the only one who felt the allure of those players, how very right they would be for Astrid’s purposes. Still, my watch was burning on my wrist as minutes fused into an hour—an hour we’d lost forever. An hour that took me that much farther away from Graham.
A strange heat crept up the back of my neck, the way it does when you know you’re being watched. Only this time I recognized the feeling at once. It was the approach of one of us, the bond we shared tugging us closer. Astrid was drawing near.
Before I could warn him, Tuck inhaled sharply at my side and his hand curled around my wrist. “Don’t forget your promise,” he said. “No fighting. We follow her.”
I caught a flash of brilliant blond, shining like a beacon. A tall, graceful someone was cutting a determined path toward the field. My eyes chased that bombshell head, trying to catch a glimpse of the face half concealed by artfully tousled locks. I didn’t get my chance until Astrid had reached the edge of the field right by the army team’s bench. She leaned over the railing, gazing down on the players below. Her hair dropped around her face like a curtain falling at the end of a play.
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