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Chapter 1
Dead eyes.
Wide open and lifeless, staring endlessly without seeing anything.
That’s the first thing I see when I blink my own eyes open. The sunlight seems too bright, and my eyelids scratch against my eyes as if there are a million grains of sand trapped behind them. A dull, throbbing ache fills my head, and I can’t keep my lids open for more than a second.
Blackness tugs at me, and part of me wants to sink back down into its depths.
It’s peaceful there.
Quiet.
Nothing hurts.
But I can’t, and there’s a reason I can’t. Something I need to see or do. Something important.
I can’t remember what it is. I don’t know where I am, or why dead eyes stare at me from just a few inches in front of my face.
Blink.
The scratch of my eyelids makes me wince, and I try to keep my eyes open longer this time, but a heavy weight tugs them closed.
Blink.
The eyes in front of me never blink. I can’t keep my eyes open, and those will never close again.
Blink.
The blackness in my head is fading away, consciousness slowly returning. Memories start to filter through my head, and with each flashing image that plays in my mind’s eye, my heartbeat begins to pound harder and harder.
My abduction. My rescue. Marcus, Theo, and Ryland explaining to me that they’re part of a deadly game.
We left the safe house. We were going to go somewhere else. And then…
A car collided with ours. They boxed us in, shooting at us—Dominic Roth and Carson Purcell. We split up, Theo and Ryland staying behind and Marcus pulling me through the network of warehouses at a dead sprint.
Marcus.
Oh god. Marcus.
We were cornered by Carson. He hunted us down and had a gun trained on Marcus. I tried to move, tried to stop it, to do something… but Marcus didn’t let me.
My body jerks as if it can still feel the impact of the three bullets as they hit his body. His arms were wrapped so tightly around me that I could feel each one hit him.
Then we fell.
Blood. There was so much blood.
Fear floods me like a shot of adrenaline, forcing my mind fully awake before it’s ready. My eyelids fly open again, and it feels like shards of glass prick my eyeballs as too much light fills my vision. I don’t let them close though, sucking in a gasping breath as I refocus on the dead eyes in front of me, forcing myself to really look at them.
Blue.
Just blue.
A sort of slate blue, darkened by death.
No brown anywhere. Both irises are the same color, unlike the earth and air of Marcus’s right eye.
It’s not him.
Relief makes my limbs feel cool and tingly, and I draw in another shaking breath. Now that I’ve been shocked awake, I feel like I might vomit at any second. My head hurts so bad that it’s hard to see—a strange halo of light seems to surround everything I look at, and when I roll over onto my side, the world spins around me.
The man lying beside me has short ash-brown hair. His slightly parted lips reveal a small gap between his front teeth, which are stained red with blood.
Carson.
He’s… dead?
I force myself to sit up, but the second I’m upright, my body rebels. I shift onto my hand and knees, balanced precariously as I retch painfully. I’m covered in blood, and the smell of it is overtaking my senses, coppery and sharp. I’ve been lying in a pool of it, and it soaks my clothes and sticks to my skin, matting my hair as it thickens and dries.
“Marcus…”
My voice is a low rasp, and speaking brings on another bout of retching. I almost collapse face-first on the ground as my left arm threatens to give out. The stump on my right arm aches, as if the trauma to the rest of my body has exacerbated old wounds.
Where is Marcus? The last thing I remember is his arms around me, the two of us going down together, the heavy weight of his body on top of mine.
The relief that flooded me when I realized the body in front of me wasn’t Marcus’s is beginning to ebb, replaced by a growing panic. Where is he?
“Marcus.”
It’s meant to be a shout, but it’s barely more than a whisper. I cast my gaze around, trying to ignore the way streaks of light fill my vision. My muscles are shaking, and despite the warmth of the sunlight streaming down on me, my body is cold.
Carson is sprawled on the ground beside me. He’s lying on his stomach, one hand still clutching the gun he aimed at us earlier. His limbs are spread out awkwardly, reminding me of the picture he showed me when he and Dominic had me tied to a chair in that abandoned house they brought me to.
The picture of Devin Brooks. The man Marcus killed the night I was shot two and a half years ago.
“Marcus!”
This time, the word bursts out of me on a harsh cry, and I surge to my feet, stumbling several steps like I’m drunk. I wrap my arm around my stomach, which is pitching and heaving again. If there was anything inside it, I would’ve barfed it all up already.
My knees shake—my entire body shakes—but I stay upright, turning to look down at the place where I was just lying.
There’s so much fucking blood. It’s spread over the ground like some kind of macabre painting, dark red and shiny. I can see the spot where my body fell, where the blood couldn’t pool as deeply.
But I don’t see Marcus.
A thick red smear leads away from the bloody patch of ground, and my gaze follows it, tracing its path as it disappears around the corner of a building.
Oh, fuck.
Did he crawl away?
