Chapter 1: 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?

I want to run, to race around the corner of the building, but all I can manage is a slow, uneven shuffle. I catch the side of the large warehouse with my hand, steadying myself as I round the corner.

The trail of blood continues for several yards, growing a little more faint as it goes. Then it disappears.

“Marcus!”

My yell nearly splits my head open, but I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m not sure what time it is, that the game might not be over yet, that Dominic could still be out there, hunting us. I don’t care that I’m so lightheaded I feel dizzy, or that my legs feel like they might give out at any moment.

All I care about is finding Marcus.

Fixing him.

Helping him.

He got shot three times; I’m sure of it. I felt the impact of every single one, and I felt his blood, warm and wet on my back. Some of the blood pooling on the ground behind me might be Carson’s, but a lot of it is Marcus’s.

And if he’s lost that much blood…

Goddammit. Where the fuck is he?

Worry chews at my stomach like a dog with a bone as I stagger past the place where the trail of blood dies out. I reach another wide cement pathway between buildings and look left and right. But there’s nothing.

No sign of Marcus. No sign of anyone.

My heart lurches in my chest. Using the wall for support, I turn around and retrace my steps, heading back to the place where Carson’s body lies. My footsteps grow a little smoother, my muscles gaining strength as adrenaline overrides all the other signals flowing through my body.

When I round the corner and take in the scene before me, the gruesomeness of it hits me all over again. My entire body rebels at the sight and smell of the blood, but I force myself to walk over to Carson and kneel beside him.

He’s been shot in the head.

I missed the bullet wound at first because it’s just behind his temple, hidden in his hair. But I can see it now, the dark round hole where the bullet entered. He probably died instantly.

Did Marcus shoot him? How? When? And where the fuck did he go after he did it?

My fingers tremble as I extend a hand toward the corpse in front of me.

I fucking hated Carson Purcell. He abducted me and tried to use me as bait to lure out three men I care about, to use me like a pawn in this dangerous game. I’m not all that sorry he’s gone, but right now, I wish I could bring him back to life for just a minute so he could tell me what happened.

What happened between the moment when blackness overtook me and now?

I hit my head when I went down. I remember the sharp pain in my temple, the impact of my skull smacking against the ground. The spot where it hit still hurts like a son of a bitch, pounding out a heavy rhythm like it’s got its own heartbeat.

But I can’t remember any of the shit that happened after we fell. Not even vague flashes.

I brush my fingertips over Carson’s face, cringing at the unnaturally lax feel of his skin. He’s cool to the touch, which makes me think he must’ve been shot a while ago. More than an hour maybe? Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not a forensics expert.

Pulling my hand away, I dig into my back pocket for my phone. It’s streaked with blood, and I grimace as I press a button on the side to illuminate the screen.

Eleven thirty-three.

The game ends in thirty minutes. It’s not over yet.

A fresh wave of fear surges through me, and I stumble to my feet again. If the game isn’t done, that means Marcus is still vulnerable. If he’s out there somewhere, hurt and bleeding, he’ll be an easy target for Dominic or any one of the other players to take down.

And what about Theo and Ryland? Where are they? Are they alive?

I have Theo’s number in my phone. He gave it to me the night he drove me home from Marcus’s house. With my stomach twisting itself into knots, I pull up his contact, but my thumb hovers over the screen.

Should I call him? What if he and Ryland are hiding out somewhere, and the noise of his phone draws attention to them? Even if he’s got it on silent, the vibration could be enough to put a spotlight on him.

Should I text? Is that better?

Before my throbbing brain has time to sort through the random panicked thoughts flitting through my head, a voice calls out from behind me.

“Ayla!”

My heart jumps in my chest, crashing against my ribs as I shove the phone back in my pocket and whirl around. The move is too fast, my muscles too uncoordinated, and I almost just keep twirling like a ballerina doing a pirouette. But then my gaze locks on the face of the man who called my name, and for the first time since I woke up, everything seems to settle around me.

The world stops spinning as I stare into a pair of blue-green eyes.

Theo.

Ryland is behind him, and the two of them break into a run as soon as our eyes meet, sprinting toward me as I stagger toward them.

Theo’s body hits mine so hard it makes stars dance in my vision and fresh pain explode in my head, but I hardly even notice. My arm goes around him, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back as I cling to him like a fucking life preserver.

His heart beats against my cheek as he crushes me to him in a fierce hug, and it occurs to me vaguely that I’m getting blood all over him. But I don’t fucking care, and apparently, neither does he.

“Fuck, Rose. Jesus, Fuck.” His voice is rough. “What happened to you?”

“Carson.”

The word scrapes over my vocal chords. Anger burns in my belly, I’m filled with a sudden wild impulse to run back to his body and kick his corpse until his ribs break. He might be dead, but that doesn’t undo what he did when he was alive. And I want to kill him all over again for it.

“Cars—” Theo’s voice breaks off as his body stiffens in my hold. I have a feeling he just looked over my shoulder and caught sight of the dead man on the ground. “Oh, fuck.”

“Ayla, what happened?”

Ryland’s voice is hard, and when Theo releases me from his hold, the man with dark hair and hazel eyes takes hold of my shoulders, lowering his head to meet my gaze. The tattoos creeping up his neck look more vivid than usual with the strange halo effect that still colors my vision.

I swallow. “Carson chased me and Marcus down. I thought we lost him, but he found us. We stopped for a second, just a second, and when we stepped out, he was there with a gun. He…” The words stick in my throat, mixing with the bile that’s rising into my mouth. “He shot Marcus.”

Ryland’s eyes widen, his tan skin paling. His head turns quickly as he looks at the corpse lying a few yards away, like he’s afraid he might’ve been wrong about who it belongs to. His nostrils flare, and he turns back to me, his grip on my shoulders tightening.

“Ayla, where’s Marcus?” he demands gruffly.

A hollow pit opens up in my stomach, making me feel empty and insubstantial. I reach up to grip his forearm as I shake my head.

“I… I don’t know.”