My stomach knotted.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I managed.
Eight didn’t slow down.
“Positive.”
“Why now?” I dug my heels in as much as I could on a sheet of ice, forcing them to stop. “Why today? Why not yesterday? Or before the storm hit?”
Two gave me a look that wasn’t quite sympathy and wasn’t quite annoyance.
“Because you didn’t need saving until now.”
I bristled.
“I never asked to be saved.”
“No,” he said. “But you needed it.”
My jaw clenched.
“You don’t know me,” I muttered.
I wasn’t sure if I meant them or Ben or both.
Eight shrugged like the details didn’t matter.
“We know enough.”
We trudged forward again, crunching through patches of ice, slipping over patches of frozen ground. The wind howled against the side of the barn in the distance.
A sick feeling twisted in my gut. There was something about their urgency and the way they kept glancing at each other.
The pale, jittery looks on their faces bothered me.
They were scared, but not of the storm. They were afraid of Ben, and I knew I should be, too.
What the hell had I agreed to when I clicked accept and entered his Game?
“Almost there,” Two called over the wind.
The barn loomed like a dark shape carved out of the ice. Its roof wore a thick white blanket and sagged under the weight. Frost glistened across the big sliding doors, making them look welded shut.
I hesitated at the threshold.
“Inside,” Eight insisted, pulling one door just wide enough for us to slip through.
Cold air rushed in behind us like it was chasing us. I stumbled into the dark, boots slipping on the frozen concrete. The faint scent of hay, old oil, and winter-damp wood wrapped around me.
“Where… where’s all the equipment?” I asked.
Ben’s family was old-money wealthy. I expected everything from tractors to chainsaws to a fleet of ATVs.
But the barn was… sparse, too sparse.
There was a ladder, a few crates, a tarp-covered mound in the corner, a shovel, an old workbench, and a toolbox. That was it.
No trucks. No tractors. No plow. Nothing that could help us escape through a storm.
