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“Troublesome thing, aren’t you, Adrian Summers?”
Selene Whitlock’s voice carries across the vast space, smooth and amused, threading itself through the steady hiss of rain. A cold gust suddenly sweeps across my face, so sharp and unexpected that for a second, I wonder if I’m imagining it.
“I’d be lying if I said I’m surprised you're still standing,” she continues.
I raise a hand against the blinding white floodlights, squinting through the glare until her silhouette takes shape high above me on a raised podium; she seems to be wearing a plain black rabbit mask, and at her side stands a woman with a matching mask but in black, looking like two halves of the same nightmare.
I lower my hand and finally look around.
I’m standing on a broad platform surrounded by shallow water, rain pouring through what appears to be an open triangle glass ceiling overhead. The surface ripples beneath the downpour, reflecting fractured streaks of white light across the arena.
“I must say, I am absolutely thrilled,” Selene adds, her voice carrying effortlessly across the arena, theatrical without ever becoming strained.
“I was beginning to wonder whether I had placed too much faith in you. There were moments when I thought perhaps I had miscalculated, and I assure you, I hate being wrong.”
She rests her hands against the railing and leans forward. “But, as always, I was right.”
I curl my fingers into my palms. “What the fuck is the point of all this?” My voice echoes across the water. “If you want me dead, why go through all this trouble?”
Selene gives a soft laugh. “Want you dead? Oh no, darling, I’m a game master. I’m required to put on a show.”
She gestures toward the darkness beyond the arena, toward the cameras I can’t see but know are there. “My watchers don’t pay to see someone simply just waltz into a room and get shot. They want a story. Suspense. Betrayal. Bloodshed…”
Her head tilts. “They want entertainment.”
My jaw tightens at that. This is exactly everything I fucking hate.
“And Dante?” I ask, working my jaw.
“Ah.” Something delighted slips into her voice. “Your precious Dante made things rather difficult for me. He was so wonderfully desperate to keep you away from Kill Feed that I simply couldn’t resist putting you right in the middle of it.”
She taps one finger against the railing, shifting her weight. “And fortunately, I didn’t have to work very hard.”
A ripple of tension rolls through me, leaving my insides knotted.
“Your friend wanted in so badly that all I had to do was give him a door,” she articulates. “And he led you straight to me.”
Her words linger, sinking into the pause until it becomes crowded and my jaw tightens further. “If all you wanted was me, why the fuck did you drag Amani into this?”
Selene’s laugh rings light, unforced—too sincere to be cruel and all the more disarming. “Because, Adrian, surely you don’t think I would waste an opportunity to make things more—”
“Don’t.” The word tears out of me before she can finish. “I don’t give a fuck what else you have to say.” Whatever she’s trying to pull out of me, she isn’t getting it.
“This is a game, after all. So, whatever you have planned next, I’m going to win,” I continue despite it all. As long as she keeps the cameras rolling and the gears of Kill Feed moving, I still have a say in whether I walk out of here alive. That is all that matters right now.
Winning comes first.
“Oh, darling. I’m counting on it.” Those are the last words she says before the floodlights die in an instant, plunging the arena into darkness along with where Selene stands with her guard dog.
A heartbeat later, neon ignites across the space in vivid hues of blue, pink, and purple, bathing everything in the unmistakable spectacle of Kill Feed.
Spray-painted murals stretch across the towering walls, distorted faces and watching eyes staring down from every surface, while the rain glitters beneath the colored lights.
A voice suddenly cuts through the arena, and my eyes flare before I even turn.
Shit, I know that voice. I spin toward the entrance, and there he is.
Fucking Mason stands across the platform, wrapped in bandages from throat to wrist, with fresh layers of gauze peeking beneath torn clothing and bruising darkening every patch of exposed skin, like someone stitched a corpse back together.
