Page 156 of Kill Feed

“What happened?” she asks quietly, her voice careful, as though the wrong words might shatter whatever is left of me.

Where do I even fucking begin?

She studies my face for another moment before letting out a slow breath. “It wasn’t Mason, was it?”

Again, I say nothing because what is even the point?

Her eyes search mine, and I get the distinct impression she isn’t looking for an answer. She’s looking for me.

Slowly, she lifts both hands and cups my face, and the warmth catches me so off guard that I freeze.

“Adrian…” Her thumbs brush beneath my eyes, and only then do I realize she’s found the dried tracks my tears left behind.

How did I become this broken? My body has long since stopped listening to me, taking its own initiative by completely falling apart.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Amani continues, a faint smile touching her lips. “I just need you to hear me for once. I know you think you’re different.”

Different? That’s one way to put it. How ironic that she’s the one to figure it out, of all people. Not that it matters anymore. The image I built, the relationships I constructed brick by brick, the control I once had over everything—it’s all gone, shattered into a million pieces.

“I’ve never thought there was something wrong with you,” she continues. “You don’t always understand why people feel what they feel, nor do you really show much emotion yourself, so for you to be in this state, it must mean something is really fucking wrong.”

She pulls another small smile before laughing, “… despite the fact that we’re in a survival game, of course. Honestly though, you’ve been my rock, just like you’ve always been.”

“Even if it means it’s my fault you’re part of all this?” I find myself asking, and she shakes her head.

“I figured as much.” She lowers her hands but doesn’t step away. “Nothing we can do about that now but try and survive. There’s no rule against only one player winning, right? Lucas said so himself while we argued in the car during the first game.”

Her eyes drift upward toward the glowing green SAFE ZONE above us. “So, let’s win this. Go back to our lives. Go back to eating burnt cranberry pie and me assisting you with photography assignments even if it’s just to bring you lunch. Maybe I can even properly meet that ‘secret’ boyfriend of yours.”

She’s speaking of a world that no longer exists, yet I’m hanging on to every word, every possibility.

I swallow hard before uttering, “I’d like that,” and I mean it. The thought is so absurdly ordinary that it almost makes me laugh. Maybe all of this is salvageable.

Tears that I can only assume are from joy begin to roll down Amani’s cheeks.

She opens her mouth to say something else, but before the words can leave her, a crack tears through the air like thunder. My ears swallow the sound in an instant before my vision fills with an impact so devastating it snaps her head sideways, blood bursting from her temple.

Staining her hair.

Her face.

Her body.

Me.

One moment she’s standing, the next she’s on the floor. The realization of what’s happening arrives with a certainty that makes everything inside me recoil, lungs suddenly forgetting what they’re designed to do.

I try to take a step forward, feel her pulse, anything, but I can’t. I can’t fucking move.

My vision begins to narrow around her body, the edges of the room swimming as I struggle to control how badly my hands are shaking.

She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.

I press a hand against my chest as if I can physically force my heart to slow down.

Fuck, what do I do?

I can hear noise erupting all around me. There’s a voice to my left scratching at my eardrums to be let in, as the sound of boots hitting grated metal sounds from above me… or behind me? Shit, I don’t know.