Page 88 of The Pleasure Contract

She is no longer smiles and snark, no longer curves and softness. She isn’t even an eye-roll hiding a smirk she doesn’t want me to see.

She’s nothing but terrain cells. Melted back into the play of the arena.

I look up to find Pax, and I know what I have to do.

Judging by the fear of Nex I see in his eyes, he does, too.

39

Lois

“Oh, my God, he’s gonna kill him,” I say to no one in particular as we watch Az beat the ever-loving shit out of Pax on the biggest screen in front of us. “Come on.” I tug on Zek’s arm and hurry through the room, trying to find the exit.

“Where are we going?” he asks when we burst through into a sprawling corridor.

Looking left and then right, I try to find some signage. “Get me to the arena. I need to speak to Az.”

What I just witnessed was horrific. A blatantly morally-shitty manipulation tactic. And, as much as it has pissed me off – it seemed to have turned Az insane.

I don’t even know for sure if Pax stole my Permission. He sure did spend enough time tinkering around in DJ to try and connect me to Mom. Maybe he could have? But it sounds very much like humans don’t have any rights, anyway, so maybe he didn’t even need my Permission to conjure the image of me in the game?

I don’t know.

The only thing I’m sure of right now is I have to be with Az.

At least to stop him from committing murder.

“This way,” Zek says, leading me.

We get to what I think is a maintenance entrance. Above the door, in giant, neon-glowing letters, reads, ‘Do not enter, gameplay in hand’.

I give the thing a push. It doesn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

“Here, let me,” Zek says, stepping up and pressing numbers onto an electronic keypad. The thing makes an affirmative happy-ping noise, and we hear the door unlock with a click.

I look up to Zek with a creased brow. How would he know the code? He doesn’t work-

“Rykor brought me here a couple of nights ago,” he explains in a clipped tone, not making eye contact. “He wanted to show me his little tricks with the terrain cells.”

“I bet he did,” I say, smirking as I push open the door.

What greets us is a wall of jungle plants – scratch that… alien jungle plants. They’re huge. Some of the leaves are bigger than I am. But I don’t care. I plunge into that fake jungle headfirst and don’t look back.

“Az! Az!” I call, stumbling over fake tree roots and climbing over giant fake fallen trees. How do these guys make this look so easy?

“Prince Az and his old teammate, Paxariah Joridan, really getting into it now,” the commentator’s voice booms overhead as the crowds cheer for the violence around me. “Are any of the other team members going to step in? Neither of them seem to be going for the game-stones. Az, in particular, has had several opportunities in this scuffle to deactivate Pax’s game-stone, and he just hasn’t done it. What do you think the game plan is here?”

The two keep talking. Chatting on about nonsense drakball game tactics.

I keep going. “Az!”

This arena is so huge. He could be anywhere!

Overhead, the double screech of a drak makes my soul practically leave my body. It lands in a tree nearby, and I see a huge Xaviann jump down from the saddle and expertly descend from the tree limbs.

“Varrex!” I say as soon as I recognize him.

He stops short of reaching me, his chest heaving as he huffs. “You real?” is all he says, his eyes narrowing at me.