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I held up my hands, shock running through me.
“Hey now—you don’t have to do this—”
She used my pause to grab hold of the edge of the booth, hoisting herself over and out to break into a run.
I cursed. I should’ve known that she wasn’t really going to kill me. That same rush of adrenaline flashed through me, and before I knew it, I’d pushed away from the booth and followed after her. She skidded in front of me, slipping on a bloodied patch of cement onto her ass. She looked back at me, slipping the gun into her hoodie before pushing herself off the wet ground.
She wasclose. So close that when I lunged forward, her long hair brushed the tips of my fingers.
“Should have killed me when you had the chance,rabbit!” I shouted, matching my footsteps with hers.
I didn’t care that I was leaving Dylan and his stupid friends in the dust. If anything, I was glad to finally have the chance to get away from them.
Each moment that passed in the games was another moment I was stuck, losing possible points as Seekers sniffed out the remaining Ghosts.
I could hear it. Feel the weight of the impending sunrise like a ticking time bomb.
This was mylastchance. Rabbit may very well be one of the last victims I came across.
Not only did I have to make sure to finish her off this tie, but I had to make it as memorable as possible. Get creative for maximum points accumulation.
“Plus one point for playing chase,” the robotic voice said once again from my tracker.
A positively feral smile spread under my mask.
Exactlywhat I needed.
She whipped around a corner, speeding around the Tilt-A-Whirl and a rocking boat-like ride, the same one I’d watched Victoria hurl into a trash cash after riding. Rabbit didn’t pause as she dodged the corpses littering the ground, people in yellow bulletproof vests zipping them into bags.
Briefly, I remembered that if I ended up like them there was a hastily filled out card with Victoria’s address on it waiting for me.
It wasn’t an uncommon sight at that time in the games. Bodies littered the park, and it only took a few minutes for the Vultures to come in and take away the eyesore—nothing fun and sexy about a minefield of the dead. Best for it to be tidied away so we could keep our minds on the freshest of the murders.
The closer sunrise got, the fewer people you’d find out in the open like this. In those last precious hours before the game ended—even the Seekers would begin to worry about staying hidden.
No one truly knew what was going on in a player’s mind in those last few moments. It was essentially a free-for-all. Everyone vying for those critical last few points.
“You won’t be able to run forever!” I yelled, and she turned toward the mirror maze.
Instead of my heart dropping, my excitement only heightened. It would be a challenge to get to her in there, butdamn, would the viewers go crazy for it.
I couldn’t have asked for a more cinematic backdrop.
She disappeared into the maze, moving quicker than I had expected her to. But I wasn’t far behind, my lungs aching with the effort of keeping her pace even with my longer strides.
Like the haunted house the mirror maze provided a sort of buffer between us and the outside world. It was silent, save for our heavy breathing and the pounding of her footsteps, but even those quieted as she worked her way through the maze.
The glowing reflection of my mask shone back at me, redacted into multiples thanks to the floor to ceiling mirrors. I was unrecognizable, blood caked into my blond hair and splattered over my bare stomach and arms. My eyes wide and crazed beneath my broken mask, a thick chunk missing from when my prey had hit me.
I looked like a monster.
No, I lookedeverybit the killer I was.
I placed my palms against the cool mirrors, letting them be my guide through the path. As much as I wanted to race through the thing, the last thing I needed was to panic and make a fool of myself in front of the entire country.
As if I’d willed it into existence the sound of shattering glass and a gasp of pain met my ears, ringing against the mirrors and reverberating back to us through the space.
And this is why we go slow,I thought smugly.
