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The two men also grinned, while the woman smirked at me and twirled her sword around in her hand, as if she just couldn’t wait to cut me down with the sharp, silver blade.
Gwen shook her head. “You need to get out of here, Gin. Assassin or not, you’ve never dealt with Reapers before.”
“Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. I can take care of myself. Been doing it for a long time now.”
I crooked my index finger at Brayden. “What are you waiting for? If you’re such a badass, then come on over here and try to kill me with that fancy sword. I’ll be more than happy to take it away and gut you with your own weapon.”
Perhaps it was my confident purr, but for the first time, a bit of doubt flickered across his face. “There are four of us and one of you.”
“First of all, I can count just fine, sugar,” I drawled. “And second, those are terrible odds—for you and your friends.”
A flush swept up his neck, and anger bloomed like ugly red roses in his cheeks. Brayden opened his mouth, probably to snarl some insult right back at me, but a voice cut him off.
“What’s going on in here?”
I glanced to the left. Winifred, the conductor, strode into the storage area, an odd look on her face. She stopped about ten feet away from me, Gwen, and the Reapers, or whatever weird term these people were calling themselves.
Brayden flashed her a wide smile. “Nothing’s wrong. We were just having a little private chat with our new friends. That’s all.”
Winifred’s forehead crinkled in confusion, and her gaze flicked from one person’s sword to the next. She stepped forward, as if to get a better view of everyone, and I did the same thing, putting myself in between her and the Reapers.
Winifred stopped and gave me a puzzled look. “Are you . . . trying to protect me?”
“Something like that,” I replied. “Stay behind me, Winifred.”
She frowned and shifted backward. A soft skitter-skitter sounded, and my gaze dropped to her feet. The laces on her right boot were loose and dragging along the floor, hence the odd noise.
I started to lift my gaze, but once again, I noticed how her scuffed brown boots didn’t match the rest of her sleek black uniform. Not only that, but her pants were also too long, as were the sleeves of her jacket, almost like . . . she was wearing someone else’s clothes.
Like she had killed the real conductor, donned their uniform, and taken their place on the train.
As soon as the thought popped into my mind, I opened my mouth to shout a warning to Gwen, but Winifred was quicker than me—much, much quicker, as though she had some sort of supernatural speed.
Winifred yanked a gun out of her pants pocket, aimed it at me, and pulled the trigger.
Crack!
The bullet punched straight into my chest, and I dropped to the floor.
Chapter Four
Gwen
“No!” I yelled. “No! No! No!”
I started to rush over to Gin, who was crumpled on the floor, but Brayden stepped up and brandished his sword at me.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “You stay right there, Gwen.”
I had no choice but to freeze. How had things gone so terribly wrong so quickly? Ten minutes ago, I’d slipped away from the luncheon and the displays in the main lobby and snuck into this storage area to have some privacy while I texted Logan for an update. He hadn’t answered me, so I’d texted Daphne next and then Carson, but no one was responding, not even Oliver or Alexei. I’d been so worried and focused on my phone that I hadn’t heard Brayden creep up behind me until it was too late. I hadn’t even had a chance to grab Vic to try to cut down any of the Reapers.
My gaze dropped to Gin, who was sprawled across the floor like a broken doll, and my heart squeezed tight with worry, dread, and a heaping dose of guilt. Now a woman was dead because of my lack of awareness. And Logan, Daphne, and the rest of my friends might be dead too, if Brayden was telling the truth about the rest of the Reapers causing that rockslide to steal the artifacts that Nickamedes, Professor Metis, and Coach Ajax had loaded into the SUVs.
Winifred, the fake conductor, kept her gun trained on Gin. I glanced back over my shoulder, but no one came to investigate the commotion. The documentary blaring in the nearby room must have drowned out the sound of the shot.
After a few seconds, when Gin didn’t move, Winifred lowered the weapon to her side and glared at Brayden.
“I thought you idiots were going to grab the girl quietly,” she hissed. “Not make a scene and let one of the passengers sneak up on you.”
