About the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

They—”
    “Ev,” Fox called out in a voice that told me
he knew what I was doing, “don’t wander off. Not today.”
    Guiltily, I nodded, promised to be on my best
behavior, and focused on the last tinkling notes of the alarm and
on the guards’ loud stomping through the mall. All of our guards
were gifted in godliness, which meant they could grow up to eight
feet and twice their width in a blink of an eye. Not that they
particularly needed any of that, in my opinion—those dicks were
mountains of muscles to begin with.
    In a minute, I heard a key grinding against
the steel innards of our lock. Two turns. Then a sharp click of the
bolt retracting. I glanced through the eyes of a god out there in
the mall and saw how two of his comrades, already grown to their
divine proportions, pressed their shoulders against the behemoth of
our door and began pushing. The door crawled an inch. The hinges
shrilled and groaned, and the bottom of the steel slab grated
against the floor. The gods cursed.
    When the door was half-open, they entered,
six giants dressed in black polyester tracksuits stretched to the
breaking point. Their handguns, ridiculously miniscule in their
cabbage-sized fists, were pointed at our heads. No, I wasn’t
looking at them through anyone’s eyes—I’d seen all of this enough
times before—and my mind itched to slip back into the library, but
I willed it to stay, because today, tonight, we were doing the
craziest thing possible: we were trying to break out of here.
Without having come into our gifts. Or in Sinna’s case, without
having mastered his gift. I didn’t believe we had a chance in hell,
but Fox had decided we would try, and so we were going to. And now,
as per our escape plan—or rather Escape Plan, because the way Fox
and Demi talked about it, even blind, I was practically able to see
capital Es and Ps coming out of their mouths every time they’d said
those words—anyway, according to the Plan, I had to chat up Rig,
one of our guards who was also a vile animal that liked to hit me.
The very thought of talking to him filled me with dread and
disgust, but Fox coughed, and I forced my lips into the coquettish
smile he had taught me. I raised my eyebrows to seem lighthearted,
the way Demi had instructed me. From Fox’s sideways glance, I knew
that instead of cute and carefree, I looked like I was suffering
from a rabid toothache, but my muscles seized up. Well then, here
goes.
    “Rig,” I said sweetly, making sure he could
see at least half of my smile since I didn’t dare to turn around
all the way, “how—”
    I stumbled in my speech, because a series of
elephantine steps echoed through the mall. My arms dropped. Who on
earth could be tromping out there when all of our guards were
inside this store?
    “Keep your friggin’ arms up,” Rig growled at
me.
    I flinched at being ordered around like a
dog, but with a few guns aimed at me, I didn’t have much choice. I
could follow his command slowly, though. Pausing every second, I
was still lifting my arms when our door screeched again, crawling
open a bit wider, and in marched four more gods. These ones were
dressed way fancier than our regular guards—no tacky polyester
tracksuits there, but expensive leather coats, crisp white shirts,
and silk ties. One guy even had a hat, a black fedora, pushed deep
onto his fleshy forehead. Their guns were not the usual Sig 220s
either, but some special affairs, big and sleek, with triggers that
were actually enlarged for gods’ massive fingers. To top it all,
two of the newcomers had flamethrowers slung over their
shoulders.
    My heart felt like a lump of ice that was too
big for its niche in my chest. Had our guards somehow learned that
we were going for a breakout tonight? Was this the
reinforcement?
    Before I could freak out any more, two
normal-sized people walked in on nearly silent feet. A man and a
woman. Or, to be precise, the other way around: first, a
middle-aged, medium-height woman