“Perfect,” he mutters excitedly. “Keep her crying.”
Tyler’s breathing changes beside me.
Refined, but I know him well enough to hear death in it.
The man at the computer squints at the screen again.
“Oh shit,” he says ecstatically. “VIP wants the wig off this time.”
The clown raises his hand up for the edge of his wig.
And that’s when Tyler aims his Glock.
He is beside me one instant and the next a suppressed gunshot tears through the room.
The cameraman drops like a stone and the camera crashes against the concrete floor in a shower of burning flecks.
Everything erupts.
The clown spins around in shock while the girl shrieks on the swing.
I’m already in motion.
My boots pound against the concrete as I cross the room.
The man stationary at the computer stares at me in confusion with his mouth agape, all the color drains from his face.
His chair screeches loudly along the concrete as he tries to press himself backward away from the table, headset half hanging off his head now. The chat room for the livestream still flashes across the monitors.
This is all just a game to them and the girl terror-stricken behind me is nothing more than a prop in their psychotic little circus.
He throws his hands up immediately. “Wa-wa-wait!”
I snatch the front of his shirt, and I hurl him across the folding table hard enough that the entire thing buckles on impact. Monitors crash sideways. One sparks as it smashes against the floor. The camera feed glitches across another screen attempting to turn on another camera, but static stops the image before thelivestream reconnects again.
The chat keeps moving while thousands of people are still logged in, asking what is going on, but the video feed is completely disconnected.
Retribution claws up my throat so hard it burns.
The man I’m holding down lets out a distressed sound, struggling as I push him roughly into the table.
“I didn’t do anything!” he gasps wildly.
The words make something dark twist inside my chest.
As if that absolves him.
As if reading torture requests while this girl cries somehow makes him innocent.
I shove his face toward the one monitor still on.
“Look at it,” I snarl.
He cowers, covering his face.
The screen illuminates both of us while comments flood the livestream chat room.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
