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His voice cracks, “I swear… if I survive, I’ll side with you in the next game.”
Mason tilts his head. “So, you won’t come for me, and you’ll help me?”
The boy nods his head frantically. “I promise, man.”
Mason lets the silence linger. Then chuckles, “That’s cute, but you barely have meat on your bones.”
Regardless of the insult and hesitation, the barrel moves on until it settles on Adrian.
Shit, this must be the reason why Amani and Lucas didn’t seem all that happy with the majority of the votes going to him.
“Our little celebrity.” He rocks back on his heels.
“You came into Kill Feed with quite the entrance,” Mason gestures lazily with the revolver. “Big dog until you met Kill Feed’s most terrifying hunter. I was on my way back to home base with my flag when I just had to stop and watch you fucking fumble like the little bitch you are.”
Did the lights just turn crimson? Because I’m fucking seeing red. Red like this motherfucker’s hair and red like the blood that will spill from him once I vault over this railing and fucking end him.
He has no fucking clue what my little stray is capable of, and if he believes for one second that he is above Adrian, then the delusion surely has swallowed him whole.
Mason clicks his tongue before continuing, “Talk about disappointing your—”
“Shut up,” Adrian cuts him off, the words landing flatly across the room, “and pull the trigger already.”
Fuck, that’s hot and exactly the Adrian I love.
Mason scoffs, clearly not as turned on by that as he wipes the grin from his face and replaces it with a frown, sliding a finger over the trigger.
As adorable as Adrian is when he gets like this, it offers no comfort for the possibility that he might die right now. I should end this… I should go down there, grab him. I should flee the fucking scene and take this angry stray with possibly irreversible trust issues and go where the dark web can’t find us.
The impulse is so immediate, so absurdly strong, that my hands can’t seem to stay still. I keep flexing my fingers, feeling heat creep up at the back of my head, vision turning almost hazy as it washes away everyone and everything in the room except for the revolver pointed directly at him.
At the only person who’s ever made me consider burning everything I’ve built to the fucking ground.
Kill Feed made me. It gave me purpose and turned me into the hunter standing here today. And yet... If it meant getting Adrian out alive, I'd destroy every rule this place has ever written.
Every. Single. One.
For him.
“Fine, if you want those to be your last words, then whatever,” Mason utters, the lines on his forehead deepening.
Then he squeezes the trigger.
Click.
The empty chamber echoes through the room, and a collective breath escapes the players. Mine leaves with it. Adrian doesn’t flinch, not even a fucking fraction.
Hell, his groupie seems more distraught. Lucas has his shoulders sag with visible relief as he drags a shaky hand across his face. Beside him, Amani presses a trembling fist against her lips, her complexion so pale I half expect her knees to give out. And I certainly don’t miss the way Leo’s shoulders fall either.
The room barely has time to breathe before another chime rings out as the countdown begins again. This time the players remain quiet, eyes down and making themselves as small as possible.
Eventually they huddle together, whispering amongst themselves as no cocky words and claims fly their way, yet a few eyes still find their way back to Mason, who’s watching them with hawk eyes. Every so often he jerks his chin toward one particular contestant—the skinny kid who’d practically begged for his life moments earlier.
Ah.
So that’s his game. He has a large following, it seems, and they are doing his bidding. This is typical behavior for players in Kill Feed; we see this every year. A game tactic with half of the contestants claiming themselves as leaders, with the rest turning into leeches.
“The Shepherds have reached a unanimous decision.”
