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What hurt even more was the fact that Father didn’t care about us. Not me. Not Dylan. And sure as hell not Vic.
He claimed to do what he did out of love. Because in another world, my father knew how to love someone. But just like everything else in this world, after the games, that too became twisted and gnarled, turning into something horrific. And nothing could ever bring you back to the person you were once the games were done.
You were forever changed. Forever broken.
And for what?
It was a cruel realization. To look back on my life growing up. To see how hard Dylan and I had tried to make him love us when all he wished was to use us for his own gain.
How many times had he looked at us, wishing our mother was someone else? How many times had he fantasized wrapping his hands around our throats while we were sleeping, just like he was now, so he could take back the mistake he made all those years ago?
“I hate you,” I forced out.
He gave me a bitter smile, a laugh falling from his snarling lips.
“Not more than Ihateyou.”
Hands wrapped around my waist at the same time people dressed in bright yellow grabbed my father and pulled him away from me. He tried to fight them, yelling over his shoulder and twisting in their arms, but it just made more of them show up.
Coughs racked my body as I collapsed into Vic. My chest twisting in pain as I tried to gulp for air. She made soothing sounds as she lowered us both to the cold ground.
“What’s it like, Wolff?” Vic yelled as Father struggled against the vultures as they tried to pick him apart. “To have your own, perfectly molded child turn against you? How does it feel to have everything you ever dreamed of stolen from you?”
“You little fucking—”
“Get ready for jail, Wolff. I heard theyloveArchitects in there!” she goaded.
One of the men in yellow slammed his hand over Father’s mouth before forcing him back into the secret door he came from.
“Let’s not incriminate ourselves anymore,” one of the men grunted.
The door slammed closed after them, leaving us alone in the bowels of the arena with nowhere else to go but up.
A pinging from my tracker called my attention down. My heart stopped in my chest when I saw that my viewership was in the hundreds and my rank was—
“Second to last?” Vic yelled, her voice echoing through the room.
“At least you’re not last,” I said, giving her a smirk and showing her mine. She let out a gasp.
“Kohl, oh no, what do we—”
“We go up,” I said, stretching my hand out to her. “That’s all we can do.”
Vic
Before the Games
The smell of stale beer and cigarettes drifted down the hall as I made my way toward the light seeping under the door of my dad’s study.
As much as I hated to admit it, since Mom died, he hadn’t been the same. Spending long hours alone in his office instead of watching shitty reality TV with me or cooking dinner together in the evenings.
While Mom had been sick, and even before, Dad had been my rock. But now? He was just so… sad.
Unreachable in his grief in a way that a kid shouldn’t have to feel about their parent. Especially not while enrollment was drawing nearer. Preseason interviews would start soon with the rest of the Legacies, and despite my insistence that I wasn’t going to enter—I had to admit I was tempted.
There were expectations as a Legacy, and even though my mom was kind of a piece of shit now that she wasgone,my inner child was struggling with ways to earn her approval from beyond the grave.
I pushed the door open with my free hand, a plate of dinner in the other.
