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Don’t do anything stupid.
My thumbs hovered over the keys. I hadn’t replied, mostly because I didn’t know what to say that wasn’t,It’s cool, I wasn’t going to show up anyway.
My plan was to ditch Kohl in favor of catching the train. By the time they realized where I was, it would’ve been too late.
If they knew what was good for them, they were somewhere playing perfect little legacy with their father.
We’d promised each other that we wouldn’t enter. It didn’t matter what the expectations were. We were going to be the ones who stopped the cycle. Stop the games by refusing to participate.
That was before my life fell to pieces.
I couldn’t afford to think like that anymore.
So, here I was, my affairs in order—at least as much as they could be for a nineteen-year-old with a dad in a coma and no other family except a fat, prissy cat.
The train slowed as it came into the station, finally lurching to a stop before the doors opened with a melodic chime. On the other side of the track, another train had just arrived, at least twelve full carriages dumping out onto the platform at the same time.
“Do you want to walk together?” Della asked, and I nodded gratefully.
Turns out that walking to your potential death was kind of scary as fuck, no matter how badly you needed the money.
It was nice to have some company.
She hooked her arm through mine, leading me out of the carriage and down the platform. I toddled along, looking around at the faces that I’d soon be fighting for survival. Either as fellow Ghosts, Killers I’d need to evade, or viewers I’d need to convince to keep me alive.
It was hard to breathe with so many people crowding together. Salty sea air from the ocean filled my nose, but it only made the air stickier,thicker. I tried to scan the crowd again, preparing myself for the Killers I’d have to run from.
Just ahead, a familiar stylized mullet came into view, blond hair partially obscured by a backward baseball cap. Even with the oversized hoodie hugging their shoulders, it was unmistakable—Kohl was walking just ahead of me on the platform.
What. The. Fuck?!
My throat closed and I stopped walking. My hand snapped to the bracelet on my wrist—a bracelet that they had the partner of, given as a gift the last time we saw each other in person.
It wasstupid. Obviously, a bit of string and magnetized metal didn’t mean shit. Especially since I already knew I was lying when I gave it to them. But, still, I’d kind of hoped…
Kohl turned their head, and instead of their slightly rounded jaw and familiar smooth skin, I was met with another face—one that I knew all too well.
Dylan.
My ex-boyfriend and Kohl’s older brother.
Shit.
“See someone you know?” a gruff voice asked me.
I whipped my head around, finding the tattooed guy from the train.
“N-no!” I stammered, grabbing Della’s arm and pulling her down the platform and away from him as quickly as possible.
There were three kinds of people who entered the Devil’s Playground:
The desperate, like me, who needed the money bad enough to risk being murdered for it.
The foolish, who hoped to obtain some kind of infamy by participating.
Sadists, people who wanted to hurt as many people as they could before the timer was up.
It was easy to tell what he was.
