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A small, irrational part of me is annoyed that he promised to follow right behind me and then apparently decided that was optional. I dismiss the thought before it can settle.
I step across the boundary, but when I turn around, Leo is still standing on the other side.
My brows draw together.
“Waiting on someone?” I ask, staring straight into his soul.
He’s standing just beyond the boundary of the safe zone, watching me with an expression I can’t quite place.
“I’m not going in,” he states, hands flexing at his sides. “I’m not continuing the game, Adrian.”
What the fuck is he even saying right now?
Leo gestures vaguely toward the ceiling, toward the cameras that are still watching us from every angle.
“The cameras are still rolling. That means the game is still on, and it’ll stay on as long as somebody is watching.” His voice is steadier than I expect, considering everything we've just survived. “You should win it.”
“Hours ago you would’ve done anything to win,” I claim, curiosity threading through my tone, “what changed?”
He glances toward the corridor behind him. “Marcos offered me a way out.”
“He did?” I ask, cocking a brow.
He nods. Then he looks down at his hands, rubbing his thumb against his knuckles as though trying to find the right words.
“I always thought winning this would fix… something.” His gaze returns to mine. “I thought if I could get into Kill Feed, survive it, actually win it, I’d finally have a reason for all the shit that goes through my head. Something I could point at and say, there, that’s what all of this was for, and I’m fixed.”
A brittle chuckle slips out, hollow at the edges. “Turns out I was wrong.”
“This is… unexpected,” I state. If Leo follows this up with some heartfelt revelation about how the answer was sitting right in front of him all along and his great fix turned out to be Marcos, I might actually fucking throw up.
Not that I have much room to judge him.
Because, unfortunately, I understand it.
The person I spent half this game trying to kill turned out to be the one person I can’t imagine losing anymore. Dante is my answer, apparently, which is fucking irritating on several levels.
Still, I’ve made peace with it.
“I don’t need to win this fucking game to give myself a purpose,” Leo continues. “And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to prove that I can.”
“I get it,” I say, and the tension finally begins to drain from my shoulders, leaving them strangely light.
It’s probably for the best. If Leo stays in the game, sooner or later we’d end up on opposite sides of the same room, and one of us would have to kill the other.
Not that I have many people left to care about.
Amani and Lucas are dead, and whatever place those two once occupied in my life has been reduced to something I don’t particularly want to look at too closely.
And somehow, through all of this, Leo is still here.
So, as much as it frustrates me that he’ll get to walk away while I stay behind to deal with the consequences of being dragged into a livestreamed death game I never wanted any part of, I’m relieved we won’t have to turn on each other.
For once, losing doesn’t feel like the worst possible outcome.
“Do me a favor,” Leo says lastly. “Don’t fucking die.”
The doors slide shut between us, sealing with a heavy metallic clang, and for a moment I simply stand there, staring at them as the silence settles over the room. After everything that has happened, the stillness almost feels like an ending.
