Rat Race (Devil’s Playground #2)

5. Cam

Cam

Keeping it cuntry.

“ W ould you put me the fuck down?” the ragdoll snapped, hair swayin’ as I whipped around corners.

Our watches had gone green a while ago, but I was still eager to get some space between us and the first trap—as well as any of the other Runners that’d be coming up close behind us.

In all honesty, I’d have forgotten the girl was there if it wasn’t for her bitchin’ and moanin’. Even if she was wrigglin’ like a fuckin’ piglet.

You’d think she’d be at least a tiny bit grateful that I’d saved her life, but given the attitude? That dog wouldn’t be huntin’ any time soon.

Fuckin’ civilians. I’d never understand why they let people with no training sign up for this thing. Call it being old-fashioned, but I just thought that everyone deserved the opportunity to learn how to identify a pressure plate before throwing them into the maze.

I picked down the next hallway carefully—a task made more difficult as the blue-masked girl in my arms continued to fight to get free.

“Naw, sugar. I reckon you’re no good at traps like this,” I said, glancing at the light on my watch, a yellow light cheerily now reminding me that we weren’t clear of danger. There had to be another trap close by. “Lemme take care of this for ya. Be a shame not to make it to stage two, right?”

The maze was divided into two distinct stages, usually split down the middle by an oasis , a zone of play generally agreed upon by the Runners to be a no PK zone—y’know, no murderin’ each other. It acted as a rest stop in the middle of the most physically demanding of the Games. A place to refuel and prepare for the fresh horrors lyin’ in wait ahead.

I half hoped I’d see Elijah there. As much as I sort of hoped he was already dead.

Fuck, I really needed to get my head on straight.

“Put me down, you big, stupid, fucking—” the girl shouted, making me wince at the proximity to my ear.

I wrinkled my nose. “Hey now, don’t get ugly with me. I’m saving your life! Coulda let you wander off over yonder and to your death ages ago, so least you can do is say thank you and talk at a fuckin’ reasonable volume.”

Y’know, city folk always looked down on people like me with my so-called simple accent and lack of big-name university degree—and fuckin’ sue me if boots and jeans felt more comfortable than pencil skirts and stilettos. Though, even if I were one of them sophisticated city types, I reckoned I’d be more interested in suits.

Dresses weren’t really my thing, at least not the ones Ma and my sisters wore. Frilly little things edged with lace in Easter colors. Usually with a matching hat that looked more like a frisbee than headwear.

A flash of green on my wristlet, paired with a thumbs-up emoji, warned that we’d made it through the kill zone, and I, rather hastily, dumped my ungrateful tagalong onto the ground.

My thick arms crossed as she scrambled up from the dirty floor to meet my raised eyebrow with her furious glower like a cat fresh outta the bath.

“You could’ve put me down nicely!”

I also coulda left ya there to die. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I went the more polite route. The Ranch wasn’t just good for teaching us murderin’. Manners were important too.

“Coulda,” I agreed. “But given I saved your life just now and I've yet to hear a thank you , figured that fair was fair. Well, good luck, miss,” I said, tipping my hat to her and turning to continue my path up the hall with a glance at my watch.

B1GGYB0Y

Good riddance!!

ELLEMAEBOOKS

WESTONS 4EVER!!!

AUTHORBEXDEVEAU

Keeping it CUNTry!

There was a pause, the only sounds her panicky, shallow breathing and my boots against the concrete while she seemed to wrestle with the idea that she’d nearly died back there.

Civvies. I tell ya, reckon they can just sign up and win, no forethought. No plan.

Never mind the fact Billy’d trained from birth for this thing and still didn’t manage to make it out.

You could kill her , a voice whispered in the back of my mind. An unfamiliar dark corner that wriggled just out of reach. Make a show of it.

Given Blue’s performance so far, I’d made a snap assessment that she wasn’t a Legacy. Most of us had some kind of background knowledge of how the traps worked. It was one of the perks of having winner parents—even if those winners weren’t the militant training organization that was the Ranch, they could at least offer you a little advice.

If she kept at it like this, it would be her funeral, literally .

Clumsy girls were usually better at Hide N’ Seek. Rat Race was too much on the athletic side—like a real sport, only every time you played it you had an above-average chance of meetin’ the good Lord instead of headin’ home with a participation ribbon.

But death was what made it entertainin’ to the millions of people watching at home. It’s what paved the way for my family’s career. Hell, paid lots of people lots of money. The impact of the Games alone had been the biggest economic boost in the entire century.

Like the Olympics, but annually. A massive amount of ad spend, hospitality dollars, and good old-fashioned taxes on bettin’ wins.

And that was only the aboveboard shit.

No matter how wholly fucked the idea of watchin’ people kill themselves for a couple trophies and a bit of money was, there was no puttin’ a stop to it. Thousands of people could die—had—died. But that didn’t change a thing. Population control. Natural selection. Just the cost of doin’ business. Whatever you wanted to call it, I reckoned that as long as Devil’s Playground kept lining the pockets of the right politicians, it’d never be stopped.

Do you get mad at the farmers for raising the pigs or at the people eating the bacon?

It was circle of life shit, and I wasn’t gonna change it.

Naw, I’m here to win the whole damn thing, right?

Give ‘em a good show, make the Ranch some money, bring honor to my parents, and get myself the fuck outta here.

Yes, Lord.

I took a deep breath, slowing my racing heart. Even after years of training, I still found the maze… disorienting. Especially carryin’ my extra baggage.

There’s no way she’ll make it if she doesn’t tag along.

Which means I’d be forced to take her.

For once, I almost wished that I was like my cruel siblings. It’d be way easier to leave her here to die, givin’ me a higher chance at winning if I wasn’t slowed down by someone with no training.

But I couldn’t do it and still live with myself after.

Fuckin’ cock on a rock.

Just ahead was a T in the path, a flat wall that ended in a dead end, forcing us to choose a direction. Historically, the finish line was in a central position, but that didn’t mean cow shit to me. In here, history books were best used as a blunt weapon to try and kill a stray rat.

It was all about instinct and hints. I looked at my watch, but the comments from my viewers weren’t helpful—not that they could be if I was in the lead. Means they wouldn’t’ve seen nobody come to this location yet. Not that it mattered too much, but my gut was saying that the left was the way to go.

Usually, it was worth listenin’ too.

I was just looking down the hall when the girl’s voice made me pause.

“Where are you going?” she asked. Hesitant, maybe even a little scared.

Tug at the heartstrings, why don’t ya?

“O’er yonder to the finish line, sugar,” I answered, hooking my thumb toward the left path. “You gonna sit there like a bump on a log or come along?''

She slowly got to her feet, taking a few careful steps toward me.

“You’re really not a PKer?”

“Naw, blood makes me squeamish.” An outright lie. I’d grown up on the Ranch for fuck’s sake, but it made her shoulders relax nonetheless.

Never you mind that I coulda split her head open easier than peeling an orange.

She really shouldn’t be so trustin’. You never knew who you were spendin’ time with down here.

“Okay… I… uh… I’m Ella. T-Thank you. For not letting me fall.”

“Cam,” I replied with a nod. “Don’t worry about it too much—gratitude does go a long way though,” I said, flashing a cheeky smile and turning to motion for her to follow. “C’mon, we need to get movin’. Slow and steady doesn’t do fuck all in here.”

“Cam,” Ella repeated thoughtfully, jogging to catch up so our arms brushed as we walked along the left-hand corridor. “Oh--- Camilla . I should have recognized which Weston you were”

“The one and only. See, I’m not tryin’ to hurt ya. No PKs in my pre-game stats, right?”

“Strategies change,” Ella hedged, tightening her ponytail. Her eyes were searching my masked face as if it would tell her whether I was lyin’.

I couldn’t tell behind the blue glow of hers if she was scowlin’ or not, but I guessed so from her general air of displeasure.

“Sure,” I agreed, scratching thoughtfully at some of the tattoos covering my throat. “But I tend to be pretty set on not murderin’ nobody. I take it you aren’t a Legacy then?”

Ella’s laugh was the sort that made it clear she didn’t find my question funny, which it wasn’t meant to be in the first place. There was a tinge of hysteria to it, like she wasn’t quite right. Though, I guessed if you were willing to sign yourself up for this shit, there had to be somethin’ fuckin’ wrong with you.

Ma and Pa made it crystal clear that I was either to be one in a long line of success stories or they’d let my body rot outside in the Texas heat after Devil’s Playground delivered it. Not exactly the warm, nurturing types you expected of typical southern families.

To be fair, fuck all about us was typical. Our family ranch went from raising cattle to… Well, I guess technically we still raised cattle. In the sense that they raised children—their own and other people’s—for the sole purpose of being able to enter them into the Games.

We raised prizewinning pigs.

Legends.

Legacies.

The type of people that could change the entire fabric of their family tree—if you had the money. Which we did. Back in our long family history, we’d been nothing but poor farmers. The same farm we lived on now had been passed down for generations before the Games even started.

They would never guess how the family changed. What we changed into.

Monsters dressed as fuckin’ ministers. Though I reckoned a lotta churches had those.

“No,” Ella said finally. “I’m not a Legacy. I grew up on a hobby farm with artists for parents. My mom is—was—a potter.”

“Like cups and bowls and stuff?” I asked, stopping off to grab a couple bottles of water from a recession in the wall and handing one to her.

She nodded, muttering a quick thank you . “Yeah. My dad was an accountant. But his real love was like, farming? Probably seems a bit silly to you, I guess.”

“Naw,” I said, cracking the top of my bottle and pushing my mask up for a long drink. “It’s sorta nice, normal. Crops or animals?”

“Both. Horses, goats, a couple cows. I even grew up with pet chickens. Got one now—Amelia Egghart.”

I laughed, a sudden tug of warmth for the brunette enough for me to know I’d made the right call.

“Mine was Hennifer.”

“And how was Hennifer’s body?” Ella asked, the smile evident in her voice even before she was pushing her mask up to drink her water.

“Delicious.”

Fine, maybe I cared just a little that Amelia Egghart would be an orphan or whatever. It was stupid, but it didn’t change how I felt.

We shared a fond glance, the connection from back home solidifying our alliance.

The scent of rain was heavy the closer we got to the next bend, the metal pipes overhead pumping in fresh air from the surface. I sniffed hard, listenin’ in the eerie quiet for the sound of the mechanisms that’d warn of an oncoming attack.

Rain? Did it start raining after the other lots entered?

There was no telltale ping to warn about new dangers, just the running stream of feedback from viewers. I glanced around, flashing a little wink at one of the cameras.

We took a left, then were forced to the right, the path ahead opening up into a square room. The far wall was smooth except for a seam in its middle, the rest of the room with ends of dozens of pipes poking from the rock.

Overhead, the Devil’s Playground theme crackled lightly through the speakers as we entered. Slowly, I walked around the perimeter, looking for loose bricks, pressure plates, rope… a big red shining button? Anything that would offer a hint about how we were supposed to get the doors to open.

The watch on my wrist buzzed, the feed of chatter suggestions moving too fast for me to make sense of it beyond the idea that maybe the pipes overhead had something to do with the solution. But that seemed a bit… overly simplistic for the maze.

I’d just opened my mouth to ask Ella what she thought when colored ropes descended from the ceiling at different lengths, their ends hidden by holes that could be several inches or feet deep.

“Dead end?” Ella said, huffing with irritation. “That’s going to really slow us down… Fuck, we needed to move faster.”

“Naw, not a dead end.” I corrected her, motioning to the seam in the wall. “Look.”

It felt a bit like counsellin’ the younger kids on how to solve the puzzles inside the maze. Obvious to me but lost on them.

“C’mon now, you’re smart as a whip. You gotta be able to see it, right?”

“A big flat wall, yeah, I see it, genius.” She sighed, looking around the rest of the room. “Those holes aren’t big enough for us to fit through,” she added, her hand stretching out to wrap her fingers around one of the ropes.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes, forcibly taking her chin in my hand to turn her head to look at the seam. “Naw, sugar, one of those must open that . Not a fuckin’ clue how we’re supposed to know which one, though.”

“Right,” she mumbled, shaking my hand off and staggering back.

It was almost cute how clueless she was. At least I reckoned it would’ve been if she wasn’t a total disaster who was gonna get us both killed.

I didn’t have time to play no fuckin’ babysitter. I was here to win, by any means necessary.

“Well,” Ella said, fingers tightening on the rope. “I guess we just try one?”

“Hello!” A cheery, masculine voice called over the intercom system. “The Company is happy to provide you some assistance in the form of a riddle clue?—”

Ella yanked on the nearest rope, a low rumbling beginning in the distance. A bit like the sound of a lot of pressure being released all at once. My lips parted as I looked first at the seam in the door and then at the intercom, my heart already beginning to race.

Couldn’t be fuckin’ good.

The cheery male voice had a definitive air of irritation as it came through the speaker again. “Well, I did have a whole thing planned. Was sort of my one job to read these to you, but since you decided to be a dick and not listen, I’ll have to give you a different one.”

Ella tried to shove the door open with brute force, her shoulder hitting the rock as if it were made of steel. Surprising absolutely no one, she fell backwards. The doors didn’t even have the good manners to quiver.

“I’m sorry, mister!” I shouted up at the speaker as Ella tried to pry the gap open with her hands. “Ella! Quit that and come apologize for Christ’s sake. The nice fella is going to get us a clue.”

Overhead the pipes groaned, the wind roaring miles above making Ella jump.

“Okay, okay!” Ella said, her terrified eyes flicking to mine. “I’m sorry! What are the clues?!”

There was a sigh, the masculine voice clearly irritated that his perfect setup had been interrupted. “Oh, so we are going to play? Fine. Look down, look down. Stop at the stone that makes a sound.”

“Stone that makes a sound?” I muttered, crouching to take in the stone floor for anythin’ that might’ve been invisible to the naked eye in the low light. I’d been so busy looking for pressure plates that I hadn’t been botherin’ to take notice of anything else. “Ella, walk the length of the room, and listen for a loose tile.” I ordered, doing the same on the other side.

It took a few passes before I found it, close to the middle, a tile that, when stepped on, let out a metallic sort of clang. I bent, my fingertips moving along the ridges until they caught on an uneven bit at the tile’s edge, yanking it up to reveal the start of what looked like a trap door.

“Ella! Come help me, would ya?” I called to the brunette, grunting slightly as I pulled up tile after tile.

The group of them seemed to interlock on a tongue-and-groove system like puzzle pieces, lifting away easily after the first was pulled. Ella came to join me, pulling more until a six-foot square was uncovered, large silvery metal rings screwed into the surface of a painted black surface.

“Grab one,” I ordered unceremoniously, taking hold of the other with both hands. She followed my instructions, and I braced myself, preparin’ to do the lion’s share of the work. “Pull.”

I yanked on the ring, surprised when the wood didn’t fall away and pulled upwards instead, a stone box standing at table height when all was said and done. A mechanical click let us know that the box was secured in place.

It was like some sort of altar—fitting, since I reckoned I was in the middle of yet another test.

Make a show of it.

There was a small latch on the side that I opened, revealing a sliding puzzle underneath the hinged lid of the table.

My watch and Ella’s blared to life, the screens lightin’ crimson as our startled eyes met each other.

“Timer,” Ella supplied, lookin’ uneasily around at the pipes. “Could be gas, or water, or… or?—”

“Ella, focus,” I told her softly. Then, raisin’ my voice a bit to the speaker box, I added, “Don’t suppose you got some advice?”

“Above my pay grade,” the masculine voice called.

Lord have mercy.

I turned back to the table, studyin’ the pieces and tryin’ to make sense of what the image could be. Waves of brightly colored somethin’. Red and white stripes. Mechanical parts that looked like they could be…

I didn’t know.

Familiar and foreign all at the same time.

Fuck me, I was no good at shit like this.

“It’s a postcard,” Ella said, her eyes movin’ over the table like lightnin’. “At least… I think so. See this here? It’s the stamp, right?”

“I—” I started, tracking her finger to the image of the flag, the white scalloped edges around it.

Okay, yeah… It was a postcard, maybe… But, of what?

I looked over the colors and shapes again, pickin’ out pieces of letters, the machinery starting to look more n’ more like… rides.

She placed her hand on one of the pieces closest to the empty space, sliding it to the left.

A trickle of water had begun to drip from overhead, steadily increasing with every movement of the blocks.

“I don’t see how this will tell us what rope to pick,” she said, frowning as she continued to work the puzzle.

“Well,” snarked the voice over the intercom. “If you’d listened first, I might’ve explained that getting the riddles right would drop the incorrect options. Make it easier.”

“Woulda,” I repeated with a little chuckle. “Sorry. Ella here has a fuckin’ bee in her bonnet.”

There was no reply from above, but Ella muttered under her breath. “I just want out of here.”

Kill her, Pa’s voice commanded. She’s already slowed you down.

I pushed the thought away, watchin’ as she slid the pieces around the table quickly, the picture of the Devil’s Playground theme park slowly startin’ to take form as she worked through the puzzle.

Feelin’ a bit like a bump on a log, I hunted around for somethin’ to say. Finally settlin’ on, “So if you aren’t a Legacy, why enter?”

“Why does anyone enter?” Ella hedged, her movements becoming rougher, shoulders high and tight.

Okay, touchy subject.

“Money, usually,” I conceded, lookin’ down at a tickle on my arm to find a cockroach crawlin’ up from my hand. I brushed the bug away with a frown, lookin’ up from the puzzle for the first time in several minutes and blinking in surprise.

Hundreds of the bugs—big enough that they’d need to get on their knees to fuck a chicken—covered the room from floor to ceiling, pourin’ from the pipes overhead. Gross, but not exactly a cause for concern.

Ella didn’t agree, her bloodcurdling scream bouncing off the walls as she climbed onto the table, shakin’ one of the bugs out of her hair. Not that it did her any fuckin’ good. The big bastards were everywhere, their hideous little bodies racing for the corridor we’d entered through where they appeared to congregate, crawling up the clear gap as easily as if it were a flat surface.

Fuck .

We were boxed in. And I was too damn stupid to notice.

“Get off the fuckin’ table, Ella. We need to figure out the question.”

“No! Oh my God! Oh my God! Cam, they’re everywhere !” She screamed again, and I covered my ears, irritation lickin’ up my spine. I couldn’t stand screechin’. “Water!”

Maybe it would be easier to just make a show of it and get it over with already.

But I didn’t want to be like that. Like them .

“Christ on a cracker,” I hissed, shoving the girl off the table to continue workin’ the puzzle. With every move of the blocks, the water seemed to increase in pressure.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

It wasn’t timed! It had a maximum number of moves. And if I had to guess, we were quickly approachin’ the limit.

Goddamn it.

I looked at the pieces of words, tryin’ to guess what the rest of the question could be with the ones left. Made more difficult with Ella blockin’ half the pieces.

Really, I needed her to try and finish this fuckin’ thing. I was dead awful at puzzles, and if every wrong move I made fucked it more… But Ella was too busy trying to rid herself of an ample coating of bugs to be any help.

For a second, I considered if I'd really be better off leavin’ her behind. She was slow, frightened, and easily sent into a panic, not to mention clumsy. I needed an ally that could be an asset. Not another fuckin’ drawback.

But that wasn't who I wanted to be. The Ranch might’ve taught me to think like them, but it was up to me if I wanted to act like them.

Westons? They used and abused people like they were animals bred for slaughter.

I wanted to be different .

Fair.

To treat people with respect. Be compassionate and all that other bullshit city folk nonsense. I didn’t want to become like them. I wouldn’t allow myself to.

I’d changed. Grown.

Grabbing her arm, I yanked the girl off the table and to her feet as the water began to form a deep puddle in the center of the room, forcing the wildlife closer to the doorway.

“Can you please, for five minutes, act like we are in the middle of somethin’ bigger than a room full of critters? The clue, Ella. What’s the fuckin’ answer, sugar?”

She hesitated, her breath comin’ in wild pants as her eyes darted around the room. I’d seen looks like this before. Usually after finding a horse without a rider on the trails on the back end of the Ranch’s property. Spooked after seein’ a rattler or somethin’. Dumped their rider further up the creek and took off.

As the moments ticked by, and the water continued to rise, the puddle growing until the water was sloshing at our ankles and lapping along the walls of the room, my patience thinned.

“Sugar,” I repeated, tryin’ to empathize with her fear. But if the girl didn’t get a fuckin’ grip and stop moaning, I was pretty damn sure we were gonna drown in a sea of filthy fuckin’ roach water. “Please?”

Ma wouldn’t even bother hostin’ my wake.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to quiet the roar of water and unpleasant demands in my ears. I’d realized my mistake a second too late, with Ella’s rushing footsteps splashin’ as she raced for the wall of ropes. I tried to make a grab for her, but I was too slow, her hands closing around two ropes as she pulled down hard.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the voice sighed over the intercom, the seam in the wall opening with a roar of water. “Who’s out of time, has to say goodbye, and never getting out alive?”

Didn’t have to be no fuckin’ genius to work that one out.

Us.

A robotic buzzer noise sounded like we’d lost a low stakes carnival game. The dim lights of the room shifted red, a loud siren beginning to blare, making it hard to think. The pipes exploded into waterfalls, the puddle lapping at our ankles rising to our knees in seconds.

Ella tried to run the way we’d come, her little fists banging on the invisible barrier that the roaches were still trying to crawl up—the ones that weren’t floatin’ around us in the water at least.

I didn’t have time to think. Picking up one of the heavy blocks from the puzzle table, I took a few steps, slowed by the water, now up to my thighs.

“Move it, sugar!”

She turned, duckin’ out of the way just in time for me to miss her with the brick. But it just bounced off the barrier and flung itself back at us.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Okay, Cam. Think. Look. Deep breaths. Do not spin out.

My eyes moved around the room desperately, looking for somethin’—anythin’—to help us out of this mess when my eyes caught on a tiny gap where bugs were disappearing beside the barrier.

The water was already to my chest by the time I made it to the wall, usin’ my fingertips to pry the hidden panel open to a swarm of writhing bodies covering an electric panel.

Doin’ my best to dry my hand, I took a deep breath, throwin’ my fist into the machinery. Punchin’ and punchin’ until my knuckles split open and the siren stopped with a peel of feedback.

I grabbed the back of Ella’s shirt to stop her nearly overbalancin’ as the current of water tried to pull her down, free to run now that the barrier had fallen.

But instead of starting to thin, the roar became louder.

I cursed, yanking her behind me as I began to run, trying to get ahead of the Architects’ renewed efforts to drown us in the form of a giant wave rocketing from the door and pipes.

“Run!”