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Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2)

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“There’s--.”

“Where’s Mo?” Dion interjected, stepping out from behind her.

Grace looked at him and frowned. “She isn’t with you?”

I checked my expression before it could give away my surprise at her question.

“No! She took off with you two,” he insisted.

“Lower your voice,” Mel hissed. “We didn’t see her but for a second after Jason took an arrow to the face. That girl was so out of it she could’ve run off anywhere.”

“She really wasn’t with you?” he asked again, looking at me directly.

I was well and prepared to tell him his girl had been snatched away by some masked goons. Grace must have come to a different conclusion in her mind for why that would be a bad idea. I didn’t want to lie to him, but Grace and Mel had my loyalty before anyone else.

“I’m sorry,” I consoled. “Could she have fallen behind?”

“Why would she follow me or go her own way and not say something?”

“Helios does that. It makes you act irrationally,” the brown -haired man spoke up. His dark eyes met mine and he further explained.

“It’s a drug developed by the I-S. All those people you saw at Vesania? They played this game before too, after they got that. It fucked them up really bad.” He tapped the side of his head to emphasize his point.

Dion shut his eyes for a minute, exhaling a heavy breath. “She’ll be okay. Morrigan’s smart. Maybe she’s waiting for us at Legion’s Buff.”

Wow. It was true what they said. Love makes one blind. No way would someone as smart as Dion call Morrigan intelligent otherwise. Or maybe she really was screwed up from whatever this Helios drug was. Regardless, she was gone either way, and we needed to keep moving before we wound up joining her.

“Legion’s Buff?” I questioned.

“We found a map back there.” Mel hitched a finger over her shoulder.

“Wherever we need to go is supposed to be that way,” she pointed past me this time, in the general direction Grace and I had just come from.

“Are you sure?” Grace asked. “I didn’t see anything with that name back there.”

“You didn’t know what it was called so you wouldn’t have been looking for it.”

“Touché.”

“We can double back and everything but we’re pretty sure we’ve been being followed,” I warned.

“Let them follow then. They’ll just end up like everyone else that tried to take us out,” Mel touted confidently, sidling past Grace and me to take the lead.

The man with brown hair? His name was Chip. I’m sure that was a nickname or an alias versus his actual government identity, but that’s how he introduced himself.

And as it turned out, I’d already seen this Legion’s Buff place before. So had Dion. It was the exact same building we’d witnessed a woman begging for her life in, which meant we’d essentially gone in a giant circle.

Like the Devil’s Inn, the lower half of the tall building didn’t reflect what was inside.

Once the others were filled in on our earlier endeavor, Mel decided she had to be the first to enter.

She pulled open the solid glass door and peered in before stepping over the threshold. It had to be some lucky fucking fluke that I was standing so close, or her head would’ve been decapitated. It was the metal that flashed in my peripheral that alerted me to the person waiting just inside the doorway.

I used both hands and shoved Mel from behind, sending her flying forward. At the same time, I jumped backward to avoid the blade as it came back at me, air whizzing from the force of the swing. Dion grabbed hold of me from behind and all but lifted me out of harm’s way. As we stumbled outside, the complex’s door started to shut.

Grace ran for it, grabbing hold of the handle before it could close.

No one was going to risk Mel being locked inside with some machete wielding savage.

“No!” I yelled as the man aimed for Grace next.

Mel ran up and shoved him. When he whirled on her again, me and Dion jumped him from behind. He grabbed one side and I took another, working together to take him down. Grace came fully inside and worked with Mel to pry the machete from his hand. It hit the ground with a clatter, the guy fighting like mad to get us off him.

Gracelyn grabbed the large weapon off the floor and wrapped both her hands around its thick handle.

“Watch yourselves,” she warned.

Mel scampered out of the way and Dion and I leaned as far back as we could, maintaining our hold on the man’s arms. Winding up like she used to for softball, Grace swung.

The machete cut through the man’s neck like it would have Mel’s. His head flopped to the right, blood spurting everywhere. Grace swung again, a determined “oomph,” coming from her mouth this time. The machete’s blade met with what was left of the man’s attached flesh and tendons, sending his head skimming across the black marble flooring.



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