The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

He felt Tristan shift.

“Blakely hates me, of course. Wants me dead. Wiped out like the plague. Loves you,” he added, shifting to look at Tristan. “If I were you, I’d start wondering why.”

“What did it say—” Tristan swallowed. He could speak normally by then, but probably didn’t want to. “What did it say about—”

“This? The elimination?”

No answer.

“I know we’ve only been left alone this long because they are waiting for you to do it,” Callum said. “I know you chose the dining room because, not long ago, you slid a knife into your pocket. I even know,” he added, glancing down to where Tristan’s hand had disappeared from sight, “that your fingers have wrapped themselves around the handle of that knife right now, and that the distance from there to my ribs is premeditated, carefully measured.”

Tristan stiffened. The hand around the knife was strained, though it had paused.

“I also know it’s insurmountable,” Callum said.

Silence.

“Put the knife down,” Callum told him. “You won’t kill me. It was a good idea,” he added. “Whoever decided it would have to be you—Rhodes, probably,” he answered himself on second thought, and when Tristan didn’t deny it, he shrugged. “It was a good idea,” he said again. “But so deeply unlikely.”

Tristan braced, and Callum waited.

“I could kill you,” Tristan said. “You might deserve to die.”

“Oh, surely,” Callum said. “But will I?”

Silence.

Elsewhere, a clock ticked.

Tristan swallowed.

Then he shoved Callum away and slid the knife from where he’d concealed it in his pocket, tossing it into the space between them.

“You can’t kill Rhodes,” said Tristan hoarsely.

“Fine,” Callum agreed.

“Or Parisa.”

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“Fine.”

Tristan’s mouth tightened. “And you’re wrong.”

“About what?” It didn’t matter. He wasn’t wrong.

“Everything.”

Things fell silent between them again. Exhausted, emptied, and probably in need of more healing than he realized, Tristan summoned his glass from the table, draining it in one motion of his head. Callum watched the sheen of wine lingering on Tristan’s lips, slick when they parted.

“So who dies?” Tristan asked.

Finally. For once, he was asking the right questions. Callum reached over to pick up the knife with one hand, observing it in silence. The flicker of the dining room flames danced along its edge.

“As it turns out,” he said quietly, and glanced up, meeting Tristan’s eye. “I kill you.”

Within moments, the silence was punctured by a scream.