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I nodded, feeling winded. The casual way this guy talked about my incredibly likely death was more than a little humbling.
He handed back my ID. “Wrist.”
I sighed, offering him my right arm.
“This is your tracker. It’ll let you know how long is left until sunrise, how many players are remaining, your assigned Seeker, and any other important information from the Architects. It also lets us know when to come collect your corpse.Do not take it off.”
“Got it,” I said with an irritated edge to my voice. “Keep the jewelry on.”
“Next!” he snarled, clearly not impressed by my cheek.
I breezed by, gripping the body bag and Sharpie as I stepped into the large tent beyond the wickets. I’d barely taken in the long metal benches when a stylist who introduced herself as Gwen tapped me to go into the room beyond to sit in her chair.
Around us, stylists ran between stations, pulling clothes from long racks and dusting glitter along cheekbones and on the tips of noses.
It was a little fucked up to me to apply highlighter that’d only be seen if you were dead, but hey, I was just a cog in The Corporation’s twisted death game.
Looks like the Fixer tent—where the stylist’s worked—was sponsored by Selena New York this year, with rows and rows of blushes, eyeshadows, lip colors, and whatever the fuck else lining workstations.
As much as I hated to admit it, a few years ago when LYX had sponsored, Ididbuy their setting spray after the games. If it could hold your smoky eye together while you were running for your fucking life, it could definitely handle cheer practice.
Given the event was being broadcasted on pay-per-view, it made a twisted sort of sense that The Company would do everything in their power to generate a profit off of it. That meant corporate sponsors. Ad revenue. Private investors.
Sick. Twisted. Evil motherfuckers who got satisfaction out of the suffering of the desperate so long meant a big fat check that paid for a third vacation home.
Fuck ’em.
As big of a part staying alive by your own merit was, you also needed to convince the viewers to help you—to follow yourstoryline. If you wereinteresting, or at the very leastdesirable, they might just choose to save your life.
Ugly people were worthless.
Uninteresting people were disposable.
That was the reality of the game I was playing.
I filled out the information on the body bag card and stripped to my underwear while Gwen picked out my clothes.
When she returned, all soft curves and bright pink hair, she was grinning. “Rabbit, right?”
I nodded tensely. “That’s me.”
“Great, get dressed. I love your hair. How do you feel about pigtails?”
I took the clothes from her, pulling on the black utility pants and matching sports bra before the cropped hoodie and zipper detailing crawled over my left shoulder, adding a bitch of an edge to the look. The pants were a little big, but they’d come with a belt that I tightened to the maximum.
Once I was seated in the makeup chair, I dumped my phone, wallet, and keys into the body bag and zipped it up.
Gwen applied moisturizer to my face before she started on my makeup. “Didn’t a rabbit win one year?”
“Yeah,” I said distractedly, regretting putting my phone in the bag already.
Not like it would do me any good to text Kohlnow.
Once they realized what I’d done—that I’d lied to them and entered the games anyway—they were going to fucking lose it.
But I didn’t have time to worry about that shit, I needed to get my head in the game.
That meant forgetting about them.
