James Frey - Reap

First published in ebook in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Endgame: The Zero Line Chronicles: Reap © 2016 by Third Floor Fun, LLC

Cover design and logo by Rodrigo Corral Design

Additional logo and icon design by John Dismukes

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780062332721

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007585304

Version: 2016-05-11

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Copyright Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Keep Reading for Endgame the Calling Keep Reading for Endgame the Complete Training Diaries Endgame series About the Publisher First published in ebook in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Endgame: The Zero Line Chronicles: Reap © 2016 by Third Floor Fun, LLC Cover design and logo by Rodrigo Corral Design Additional logo and icon design by John Dismukes A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780062332721 Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007585304 Version: 2016-05-11

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Keep Reading for Endgame the Calling

Keep Reading for Endgame the Complete Training Diaries

Endgame series

About the Publisher

“It’s time,” I said to Kat.

We double-checked our guns, made sure they were loaded, flicked off the safeties, and headed down the hall. We stopped at room 412. It was five in the morning.

Ready? Kat mouthed.

I nodded.

I knocked on the door.

This was it—what we had been preparing for all summer. We—just Kat and I—were knocking on the door of a Player. Raakel, the Minoan. Last week, Kat and I had planted a bomb next to her house in Istanbul, “inviting” her to come to Zero line’s fake Calling. We thought she might have died in the explosion—the bomb was supposed to imitate a sign from the heavens, a message from the alien Makers.

And now we were supposed to reason with her, with this Player who was trained to be a killing machine. That’s what a Calling was meant to be: the starting point of a bloodbath in which twelve killing machines, representatives of their civilizations, would each try to be the last one standing in a global fight that would decide the fate of the world.

And we needed to stop it.

My M1911 pistol was tucked into the back of my pants, covered by a long Munich Olympics T-shirt. Kat was carrying a Beretta in the front pocket of her sweatshirt. I had my backpack for our walkie-talkie and a few other supplies we might need.

There was the sound of the deadbolt being unlocked, and I tensed up, wishing my gun were in my hand. But no. We were here to talk to her, not to kill her.

Kat and I already had blood on our hands, and we didn’t want more. The door opened.

Raakel stood there, fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a loose blouse. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. There was a smirk on her face. Despite the early hour, she looked fully awake and ready for the Calling.

“I was wondering when you would show up,” she said with very little accent. “You followed me with all the stealth of stampeding bulls.

You’re staying in a house with sixteen or seventeen others?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. We were supposed to be surprising her, not the other way around.

“We’re here to talk to you,” Kat said.

“How do you know who I am?” Raakel asked. “For that matter, who do you think I am?”

Kat answered. “You’re the Player for the Minoans.”

“How do you know this?” she asked. “What line are you from?”

“Zero line,” I said, finally getting my voice back. “We have important things to talk to you about.”

“There is no such line.” She opened the door an inch or two wider, just enough to let us pass. With her eyes trained carefully on us the whole time, she motioned us into her room. I caught a flash of metal at her side, and I realized she was carrying a blade that looked like a sword of some kind. My pulse was pounding so loud I was sure she could hear it.

“Consider us a group of concerned citizens,” Kat said. I noticed the shake in her voice, and I wondered if Raakel could tell how nervous we were.

Raakel laughed as she closed the door. I walked to the table in the corner of the room, and when we sat, I got a better look at the weapon she was holding: a long, skinny machete. My heart jumped into my throat at the look of the sword.

“Oh, this?” she said with a cold smile, sitting on the foot of the bed and laying the sword across her lap. “It’s called a yatağan. I assume you’re both armed. I wanted to even things out. Now: talk.”

Kat and I gave each other a look. Her tanned face was pale, or maybe it was just an effect of the lamplight. She was scared. I wondered if she could see the same fear on me.

I turned to Raakel. “We’re here to tell you to give this up. Our group is talking to all twelve lines this morning. We want you to ignore the Calling, and to stop Playing.”

Raakel laughed. “I am a Player. I’ve trained for this for seventeen years. My whole life. It’s not just something I do; it’s who I am . Why on earth would I give it up just because two strangers ask me to?”

“The Makers shouldn’t be running the world. They shouldn’t be toying with humanity like this. It’s just a game they’re playing.”

“It’s a game I’m Playing,” she said.