He steps around me back to the other side of Zoey, his face a mask of controlled fury that’s somehow more terrifying than if he were yelling.
“Why Donny?” DJ asks. “If the Game Master was after Eden and Griffin, why not grab them?”
“Cut off the head, and the body follows,” I say. “It would’ve been too hard for one person to break in here and take both of us, but he can control us by taking Donny.”
“Morrow likes to play games,” Nico confirms. “He knows we’re going to come after Donny. He’s setting a trap.”
Morrow didn’t waste any time. It was only five days ago that Griffin and I cornered him in the apartment, and Morrow has already figured out (a) ghost hunters exist, (b) Donny is leading us, (c) how to get through our defenses, and (d) that we all care enough about Donny to come after him.
“I know he had an above-average IQ, but he has to be really smart to have figured us out so quickly,” I say.
Nico nods, as if he’s thinking the same thing.
“Zo, can you track the GPS on his watch?” Nico asks.
“On it.” Zoey pulls up new windows.
“I’m hoping he wouldn’t have thought to turn off the GPS,” Nico says, glancing at me, like he’s explaining it for me. “He’s smart, but he was also alive before modern technology. He might not know.”
Please let him be right. Please let Donny’s watch still be transmitting.
“I got a signal,” Zoey says.
Nico moves so fast he’s practically a blur, appearing behind Zoey’s chair to peer at her screen. “Where is he?”
“On the highway,” Zoey says. “Heading toward Pittsburgh.”
“Could the Game Master have left the watch on purpose?” I ask. “As part of the trap?”
Nico pauses, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Radke and his clumsy interest in modern technology, because I am, too. “There’s no way to know. If it is a trap, we still have to walk into it, so we’ll go in assuming it is.” Nico spins his finger, addressing the team. “Gear up. We move out in ten.”
“Should I come?” I ask. “My last field mission didn’t go well, and since he’s hunting me, it’s probably a bad idea for Griffin and me to both go.”
“I second that,” Griffin says.
Nico is still. I can almost see the gears moving in his head.
“What if the Game Master wants you to stay home, get us all out of the house so he can come in and get you?” DJ asks.
Nico nods. Slowly. “We stay together,” he says.
“Or Eden could stay with Zoey, and I come,” Griffin says, and I bristle at the idea of being left behind. “She’s barely started her training. She shouldn’t be in the field. I can’t afford to be paired with her when I should be focused on Donny.”
“Good thing she won’t be paired with you then.” Nico pushes past him. “She’ll be with me.”
A numbing feeling comes over me, like I’ve been dipped in a jar of Novocain and I’m watching this happen to somebody else.
Griffin steps in front of Nico. “Are you insane?”
“I need her to sense the energy,” Nico says, his voice maddeningly calm. “To lead us to Morrow.”
“She’s not ready,” Griffin says.
Nico fixes Griffin with a glare I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. “As I remember it, Eden was the one who saved you in Mathis’s apartment. So she’s more ready than you are.”
Oh shit.
Griffin flexes his hand, and the light from the monitors catches on the discoloration on his knuckles.
