Games Untold (The Inheritance Games #5)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

B y December fourteenth, I was ready to make my move against Nash. Finding the perfect gift for our resident cowboy had proved to be the easier part of the equation. Getting close to the garage again without getting tinsel-bombed or eggnogged was harder. Luckily, I had an accomplice.

Nash had a history of finding Libby very distracting , and now that she was out of the game, my sister had a lot of time on her hands. I let her know when I was done and left one of my “holiday drones” in Nash’s garage to observe his reaction when he found my present.

Conveniently, the rules in this game specified that each base had to be large enough to hold a motorcycle .

On the drone’s video feed, Nash looked up at the broken-down, beat-up, literally-in-pieces motorcycle I’d bought him. “Needs some work,” he murmured, but I knew: For Nash, the work was part of the appeal. “But,” he continued, “she has promise.”

He hadn’t deemed it a perfect present yet, but he also hadn’t found the helmet yet. The moment he did, I sent Libby a text: NOW .

She stepped into the room wearing a blue flannel shirt. “I believe,” my sister told Nash, “that helmet’s for me.”

Nash executed an impressive vertical leap, grabbed the edge of the wooden platform, and managed to get the helmet in question down without disturbing the motorcycle he’d need to rebuild, practically from scratch.

I saw the exact moment he realized: “The motorcycle’s not for me.”

It was for Libby. “I thought you might like restoring it together,” I said over the drone’s audio feed.

Nash looked at Libby, looked back at his present overhead, and then raised the helmet toward the drone in salute. “Well played, kid.”

I took that as an admission that my gift was perfect . As soon as I could manage it, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” was blaring through the House.

In the aftermath, Nash informed me of my next target, the name that he had drawn. Jameson .

I had Jameson. Jameson had Grayson. Nash and Libby were out of the game. That meant that either Grayson had me and Xander had drawn his own name—in which case, I could only assume that we would have had to re-draw names, right at the start—or…

Xander had me, and Grayson had Xander.

Assuming that was true, I now had four tasks:

Finding the perfect present for Jameson.

Preventing him from discovering that I now had his name and taking me out.

Finding Jameson’s base.

And taking out Xander before he could find mine.

On December sixteenth, scones proved to be the youngest Hawthorne brother’s downfall. I shot him in the forehead mid-midnight snack. That bought me three days, after which, Xander was nowhere to be seen. Becoming increasingly paranoid—on all fronts—I decided to make use of the secret passageways and lay in wait for Xander near the vault, which was exactly what I was doing when I caught sight of Grayson moving silently and swiftly through the halls.

Toward his base? I wondered.

Grayson was Jameson’s target, but if I succeeded at taking Jameson out, he’d be mine, and I’d need every advantage I could get. Flipping into stealth mode, I followed Grayson, all the way to the top floor—and upward still.

The roof? I hung back enough to make sure I was safe, then started the climb. The moment I did, Grayson stepped out of the shadows behind me.

“You doubled back,” I said.

Grayson took another step toward me, then stopped, like there was an invisible wall between us. “You don’t have me,” he declared—not even a hint of a question mark in his tone. “Jameson does.” He held open his suit jacket and glanced pointedly down at the pistol-sized squirt gun he’d holstered there. “No need for me to draw this, I suppose.”

I pulled out my own gun and twirled it around my finger. No sense in letting Grayson Hawthorne get too comfortable in his own knowledge—or his presumed supremacy in this game.

“You seem pretty confident that I’m not distracting you for Jameson,” I noted.

Grayson’s silvery eyes locked on to mine. “I am not so easily distracted.”

I glanced up at the ceiling and what I knew to be one of many trap doors to the roof. “I don’t want to go up there, do I?”

If I’d learned one thing about Hawthorne Secret Santa so far, it was that Grayson Davenport Hawthorne was merciless. Booby-trapped was probably an understatement for what he’d done to his base.

“I assure you,” Grayson replied austerely, “you do not.”

I could hear the barest hint of humor hiding beneath that tone—and then I realized, belatedly, that there was something else in his tone, too.

Something… suspect . I thought about the way I’d spied Grayson, and then I realized…

“Are you distracting me for Xander?”

Grayson’s expression gave away nothing until he spoke. “It is possible that the brother in question is unaware that he is my target.”

It didn’t take me long to connect the dots there. “You’re distracting me to distract him,” I accused.

“Would I do a thing like that?” Grayson rightened his suit jacket without so much as cracking a smile, but his eyes said it all.

Xander’s sneaking a present onto my base.

I bolted, practically flying back toward the vault. When I got there, I found Xander tangled in garland and covered from head to toe in tinsel.

“I commend your use of tinsel bombs,” he said solemnly.

“I have a friend who’s taught me a lot about explosives.” I smiled, and then, for good measure, I took advantage of the fact that my squirt gun was still in my hand and shot him with green eggnog.

“Betrayed by the Nog of Egg,” Xander said mournfully. “So creamy. So violent.”

I nodded to a present that seemed to have fallen at his feet. “Is that for me?” I asked. The wrapping paper was red and green and… donut themed?

“Indeed it is,” Xander confirmed, smiling beneath all that tinsel. “But you can’t have it yet. Rules are rules. I have to try again. On the bright side, if I survive the next three days as a sitting duck, I’ll owe you two presents.”

I thought about Grayson, who’d distracted me for the sole purpose of keeping Xander occupied. “I don’t like your chances of survival, Xan.”

Xander cocked his head to the side and then snapped his fingers. “Grayson?”

“Grayson,” I confirmed.

“There is a reason,” Xander sighed, “that he wins Secret Santa almost every year, and it’s not just that he is very hard to shop for.”

Without bothering to rid himself of the tinsel, Xander stood up. “I should probably go check out my base, but fair warning, Avery of My Platonic Heart, the moment a certain song signals what I am sure is my at-this-point-inevitable demise, Grayson’s target will officially be… you .”