Still, his finger twitched over the button. But a small flicker of hope played in the back of his mind. That somehow, Abaddon would offer him an advantage. Or some way of getting his friends back home.

“See this red line?” Abaddon said, pointing the little girl’s finger at the line that bisected the leaderboard. “When you fall below it, your world ends. What if I told you that red line didn’t need to be there?”

The girl paused again and flashed them a bright smile.

“Keep talking,” Yoshi said.

The smile slowly turned into a grin. “I knew you’d be interested. So if you all stayed, Romans included of course, we could remove the red line for … oh, I don’t know. Ten thousand years?”

Silence.

By now, the Romans had gathered, standing some distance away. To them, the moderns were communing with the gods. Some had even knelt in awe. Marius, however, stood with his arms crossed, listening closely.

“So what do you say?” Abaddon said. “Shall I leave you to discuss it?”

The little girl didn’t wait for an answer. She disappeared, along with the leaderboard, leaving the Codex hanging in the air.

“Well … shit,” Scott said.

CHAPTER

62

“We have to do it, right?” Yoshi said.

They were in the courtyard, sitting around the campfire. Marius was there too, joining them as soon as Abaddon left. Nobody had asked him to leave.

“For the Earth’s guaranteed safety?” Amber said. “What are our lives, in the face of that? We might just live if we stayed here.”

“You can’t be serious,” Grace snapped. “You think we’d be dying in our sleep at a grand old age out here? We choose to stay, we’ll be killed. Violently. And soon.”

Amber kicked at the fire, then shrugged. “So be it,” she said.

“And how can we even trust Abaddon to keep his word?” Grace demanded.

“He’s never lied to us before,” Cade said quietly.

“Well, I’d do it,” Bea said. “I’d stay.”

Trix shook her head. “No, Bea. We’re going home.”

Grace threw up her arms. “After all this, we’re playing right into his hands!” she said. “Maybe he wouldn’t destroy Earth anyway! Maybe it’s just a lie to keep us fighting. Is he really willing to wipe us out and start all over again?”

“You think so?” Bea asked. “There’s a thought.”

Amber laughed bitterly. “Say you’re wrong,” she said. “Say he is willing to destroy Earth. What happens when we go back home? Can you live your life knowing that some other poor souls will be out here, fighting to keep above that red line? Who knows if we’d even live a full life before they fail and we disappear in a flash of white light?”

“And say we’re right?” Grace retorted. “We have to choose to believe one way or another. Can’t we choose to believe the one where we get to go home?”

“To what?” Amber asked. “If my parents are alive, they’ll be almost ninety years old. And can you imagine their reaction when their teenage daughter shows up? Would they even recognize me? People will think we’re insane.”