Page 158 of Kill Feed

He’s a pain in my ass at this point, but how could I not tell him about my encounter with Selene and her wordless guard dog? At this point, I’m going to keep playing her game and hope I win—and I’m not talking about Kill Feed.

We barely step out of a corridor and turn a corner before I nearly trip over a body.

The contestant lies face-down in a widening pool of blood, one arm twisted beneath her at an angle that suggests the shoulder left its socket before the rest of her hit the floor. Marcos steps over the corpse without so much as a glance.

Three figures—head to toe in military outfits—emerge from the adjoining passage, and we stop dead in our tracks.

“Damn,” I whistle, gesturing lazily toward the body. “This your work?”

They don’t look impressed in the slightest, but I laugh anyway. Misha plants her boots shoulder-width apart, baseball bat resting casually across one shoulder.

“Kieran never came back,” she says, adjusting her mask.

I shrug. “Congratulations, he was a dick.”

Her jaw tightens. “We found his mask in a blood-filled machinery room and his rifle on the stairs of the players' safe zone.”

“So, a player killed him,” Marcos interjects, taking a step forward. “Mystery solved.”

“Like hell it is,” Misha shouts, tightening her grip around the bat. “If that was the case, then why didn’t we get notified?”

“The internet’s slow,” I chime.

“You think this is funny, Graves?” She shoots back, teeth grinding, and so do those around her.

“Yes,” I reply, grin now wiped from my face. “It’s fucking hilarious.”

“It won’t be so funny when I bash your skull in,” Misha spits back, the bat settling comfortably into both hands.

“I’d like to see you try.”

She finally snaps, lunging forward and swinging the bat at me.

I duck beneath it. The impact caves a section of brick wall behind me, dust exploding into the corridor.

Marcos is already moving, his irritation with me practically radiating off him, but he jumps into the action nonetheless, jumping Misha.

My knife flashes beneath the fluorescent lights as I collide with the first hunter, driving him sideways into a bank of exposed pipes. Steel groans as the second reaches for me, but I catch his wrist before he can draw and smash his forearm against the wall. Bones snap as he screams in the process.

My blade slips beneath his chin and drives upward, turning the scream into a wet gargle before he crumples.

His body barely hits the ground as Misha swings at me again, Marcos now on the other guy. Jesus Christ, this fight’s messy… but oh well.

The bat catches my shoulder, numbing my arm as I stagger back. She charges again, and I wait until the last possible second before stepping aside. Her momentum does the rest. I hook her ankle and shove, sending her shoulder-first into the concrete as the bat skids away.

I grab her vest and drive her face into an exposed steel beam before slitting her throat.

Behind me, Marcos curses. I turn just as he wrenches his knife from the third hunter’s abdomen. The man drops to his knees, clutching uselessly at the wound before collapsing beside the contestant they killed moments ago.

Marcos wipes his blade on the hunter’s sleeve and looks at me. “This is getting difficult to explain,” he curses, pointing to the camera in the corner.

I follow his gaze, then back at the bodies. “No. I think we’re well past explanations.”

He exhales, sliding his knife back into its sheath. “You know there’s no going back after this.”

“I figured that out somewhere around Kieran.”

He shakes his head. “You’re lucky I’m willing to throw it all away for Leo just as much as you do for Adrian. Otherwise, I would’ve killed you myself.”