Read Online Into the Abyss by Stefanie Gaither - Free Book Online Page A

and watching me with decidedly grim, less-than-amused expressions.
    Beep, beep, beep.
    I pop the earpiece from the screen’s edge and slip it into my ear, then tap the answer button—which responds only to my individual fingerprint—on the device’s other side. But I don’t lift it to my mouth to say anything. Not even hello.
    I don’t have to, though, because Seth is quick to speak first: “Are you alone now?”
    Why does it matter? I want to ask. But then I glance up and meet Jaxon’s eyes, and think of his earlier frustration when Seth wouldn’t answer him. Clearly, for whatever reason, Seth doesn’t want his brother to be able to contact him. If he knows I am still this close to Jaxon, he is likely to hang up on me.
    â€œYes,” I lie. “I’m in my room.”
    â€œGood.” Silence, then the sound of his breathing, quickening as if he’s suddenly started walking fast. “Stay away from Jaxon. And Cate, too.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYou need to get out of the CCA headquarters.”
    I spin around in the chair, hoping once more for the empty motion to lift emptiness into my thoughts—thistime so I can be sure to sound as detached as I want to when I answer him. “You know, I was hoping you would have something more interesting to say this time.”
    I don’t hear his reply to this, because at that moment I sense movement. I jerk around just as Jaxon reaches for the earpiece. I twist so fiercely up and away from his touch that the chair skids out from under me and hurtles into him.
    â€œThat’s Seth,” he says, knocking the chair away and ignoring it as it totters on half its wheels for a few seconds before crashing to the floor. “Let me talk to him.” His voice is even, but loud. Loud enough that Seth hears him.
    â€œLiar,” he breathes into my ear, sounding almost amused.
    â€œGiven that you haven’t been exactly forthcoming with me,” I say, backing away from Jaxon, “I assumed lying was just part of the game.”
    He laughs darkly on the other side. A tiny black hole of sound, one that feels like it is swallowing up everything between us until he says, “We’re not playing a game here—we could call it that if you like, but I’m not sure it’s possible for either of us to win. Just so you know.”
    I don’t know if he is trying to intimidate me with this last part, but if he is, he is wasting his time. “Impossible games are my favorite kind,” I say. And then I mean to hang up, because I am finished with his evasiveness and with trying to carry on a conversation while both Jaxon and Cate are trying to wrestle me away from it. My hand is slow to find the end button, though, slow enough that Seth manages to leave me with a few last words:
    â€œPerfect. Then you should meet me downtown, at the statue in the center of Market Square, around dawn.”
    Click.
    Found the end button, finally.
    I pull the earpiece out and snap it back into its place. “I seem to have lost the connection,” I say in response to Jaxon’s incredulous look.
    â€œCall him back,” he says. “Give me that earpiece, and call him back.”
    Catelyn sighs in a way that clearly tells me she is too tired for this argument. I can’t do what Jaxon asks, though. I won’t. Not even for a second do I want Seth thinking I am calling him back, or that he has any of that sort of control over me. I have to maintain some sort of command over whatever is happening tonight.
    â€œYou know he’s alive at least,” I say, picking up the chair and pushing it back under the desk.
    â€œWhy is he answering you and ignoring me?” Jaxon’s face seems perfectly impassive when he says it. But Catelyn must see something in his eyes that I don’t; her body language and expressions are more familiar and easy to read, and I’ve memorized that look she is giving