He Pushed Me Into the Void, So This Time I Said No novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Forty Names
I let the forty in.
Dee opened the gap herself and counted them through with her ladle, and every one of them got a bowl and a log before they got a word.
They sat down in the amber light with their blankets around their shoulders.
Their silver rings shone in the dark.
I saw frostbite on four sets of fingers and a girl who could not have been twenty.
They all kept their eyes on the planks, waiting for Brett to walk out of the cold.
"He can't get you here," I said.
"He can," said a voice behind me. "He can pull them back."
TinyTurnip came out of the dark with his scarf over his mouth.
He had been Brett's first teammate, freed at the price of my six hundred logs, and he had spent Day 8 and Day 9 hiding in the far corner of our street.
"Tell it plain," Gabe said.
"There's a command in the proposer's tab. Recall." TinyTurnip pulled the scarf down. "He taps it, and the bonded player lands on his patch, wherever they are. He Recalled me twice on Day 4 to make me carry his logs."
Nobody moved.
The girl who could not have been twenty put down her bowl.
"So he can take any of us," she said.
"Anytime. That's how he keeps the ledger."
Dee looked at me, and I looked at the sky.
Exhibit 1 was glowing in the corner of my panel.
It was one page.
The Tribunal needed more, and I knew where more was.
"Everybody here has a bond log," I said. "Page three, with the time you signed. Would you read it out? Aloud, in the chat. All of it."
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