I had to. One way or another. I was walking out of here with the prize. My life.
A man a few years younger than me glanced in my direction. He pressed his lips together before he shuffled over to the side of the room, where Parker leaned against the wall, his eyes half-closed. Nolan should consider himself lucky; he wouldn't have his hand near that germ factory. AKA the hat.
"Now we draw the order in which you'll play." Hunter wrote numbers on another set of paper rectangles and offered them around.
Mine read number three.
"You know there are apps that would do this for you," Bruno offered.
"This is the way it's always been done," Hunter told him. "Technology can be tampered with."
He was right there. With so much at stake, someone would try to mess with the system to make things work in their favour.
Looking around the room, appraising everyone here, I wouldn't even knowwhatwould work in my favour. Apartfrom male, with a healthy libido, preferably straight or at least bisexual, with functioning eyeballs.
There was an equal combination of brawn and a few that looked like they were here to outsmart the muscle. Fixing a competition like this would be difficult at best.
Bruno shrugged, seemingly unworried about the rebuke.
"Let's move into The Arena," Hunter said grandly. "It's time for the games to begin."
Heart in my throat, I followed everyone through a wide doorway to the side of the room and into a huge space with bleachers against the wall on either side.
In the dead centre of the room was the table we'd be playing at, long and high with a net in the centre.
"This is it," Bruno said, sounding reverent. "The most dangerous game on the face of the planet. Ping pong."
TWO
TASH
Hunter sent us over to the bleachers to sit to watch the first match. Thank goodness I wasn't playing first.
Bruno smiling on one side of me, Logan not smiling on the other, they sat. Sanun shuffled over to sit behind us and scowl at the world.
"Do you guys know each other?" I asked, making casual conversation while the first two players warmed up.
"We've known each other for exactly an hour," Bruno said. "Thrown together by circumstance. But we came together as brothers."
Logan snorted. "What a load of bullshit. What you are is my opponent. Get in my way and I'll clobber you." He nodded as though the matter was decided.
Bruno laughed. "You can try, but I'm harder to clobber than I look. Trust me."
"As far as I can spit you," Logan told him.
"Why spit when you can swallow?" Bruno gave me a sly look. "You know part of the game is to…" Bruno was interrupted by the first match-up.
A man named Henry faced a man with the unlikely name of Ink. Or likely, since he was covered in it everywhere except forhis face. Ink was half a head taller than Henry, but Henry was more slender.
"My money is on Ink," Bruno said.
"Of course you'd make a bet you won't have to pay when you lose," Logan told him.
"I'm not going to lose," Bruno said. "Any of this. I'd bet my life on it."
Logan led a glance his way. "That's exactly what you're doing."
The reminder didn't seem to faze Bruno in the slightest.
