Rat Race (Devil’s Playground #2)

7. Cam

Cam

Crab boil

S ome people just didn’t use the good sense that God graced them with.

The blonde’s outfit was suggestive, barely coverin’ her chest with thick pink straps attached to the scrap of fabric that the stylists had dared allege was a skirt. In a different setting, it would’ve been the sort of thing that would’ve earned a low whistle and the offer of a free drink. But down here? I barely had time to think before I was pullin’ the girl into my arms to get away from the water threatening to pull us down.

She was too slow, especially when she kept wanting to go back for that Architect.

Bloodthirsty little woman. I might’ve been running, but I could tell how rabid she was when I first saw her with him. Even behind the mask, her eyes were alight with anger. Her hand was steady when she held the spike over his chest.

She never wavered.

A woman like that would do well in the Games. And back home. Pa would arrange the wedding him-fuckin’-self if I ever took someone like her home. He wanted me to be happy, wanted me to succeed, but most importantly, he wanted the family’s legacy to continue. Having someone like her at my side would ensure that the future of our family’s legacy wouldn’t just survive but thrive.

I lost my footin’ as the water caught up to us, swept around a bend quickly enough that I cracked my head and elbow against the stone walls and let go of the pretty blonde.

Pain ricocheted throughout my head and black spots sprouted across my vision. It was enough to make me lose my thoughts, even for just a moment before getting my shit back together.

Fuck. An injury like this can take me out for good if I’m not careful.

Ella and I’d been separated at some point, taking opposite directions in our mad dash to find higher ground. Which there didn’t seem to be any of. Just miles and miles of flat land that was still rapidly fillin’ with water.

Fuckin’ hell, you’d think they really are tryin’ to drown us.

What a boring way to knock out some of the competition. Not much of a show—there wouldn’t even be any blood.

The girl wasn’t far from me, but the current kept sweeping her up, and she was strugglin’ to swim against it.

Again the voice in my head that sounded strangely like Pa told me to leave her, but I used it as a sign that the opposite was probably the right thing to do.

“Grab hold!” I ordered the blonde, offerin’ my hand. She hesitated, a look of mistrust in her light blue eyes before grabbin’ on.

It turned out that self-preservation often won out in times like this, and sure, I wasn’t perfect, but I could sure as shit swim. Every year Pa forced me and my siblings into the freezing cold lake on the outside of our farm and had us swim laps until our lips were blue and our toes threatened to fall off.

This was a far cry from the terror of those times, so even with my injury and poundin’ head, I was sure to be fine.

I wrapped my arms around her slim body and pulled her as close as I could to me. We were swept along, our bodies twisting and jerking as the water took us along.

I tried to open my eyes and see where we were going, but it became murky, and I honestly thought it was safer to close my eyes than risk an infection.

My back hit the concrete walls more than a few times, and that threatened to pull the air from my lungs. Each time my grip got looser and looser on the woman until it was by the grace of her tiny arms wrappin’ around my neck that she was able to stay on.

Water entered my nose, burnin’ as it forced its way through my system.

Just as the final bit of air was about to escape my lips, we were spat out into a room, not unlike the one I’d set off the fuckin’ water trap to begin with, hittin’ the ground with enough force to knock the small bit of air out of my lungs.

The little blonde’s body landed on top of mine.

It felt good. Her heat sinking into mine. Her lithe fingers running down my chest. We melded together with the ease.

Maybe it was the adrenaline from almost dyin’… but I dare say her body felt like it belonged against mine

Electricity shot through me as my fingers twitched against her back. Her blonde locks tickling my face. Beyond the scent of the water and maze stench, was her sweet, floral perfume.

Lilies. The scent traveled through me and embedded in my brain. It quickly became my favorite scent.

She recovered faster than I did, jumpin’ to her feet in the rapidly filling room, backing away quickly, her hands in the air as if trying to protect herself from an incoming blow.

No. Her movements rung my heart out.

“Don’t come near me!” she yelled, frightened blue eyes moving around the room as she tried to put some distance between us.

I staggered up, the once-cold water quickly warming where it sloshed around my calves and quickly coming up to hit my knees.

I raised my own hands to show her I meant no harm.

“Hey, now, darlin’, don’t worry—I’m no PK, alright?”

“Bullshit!” she snapped, her glowing pink mask cracked, only half lit in the relative dark of the room.

An alarm began to blare, adding to the rush of water and forcin’ me to yell over it. “Yeah, fair enough. Just saved your life back there to bash your skull in, right?”

The water really was getting hotter. At first it was pleasant, but then it quickly started to make me sweat. Not only that—it was slowly changin’ color, and there was a certain metallic smell wafting through the room.

What the fuck?

“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know? You’re a fucking stranger!” she shouted back, stumbling a little as the floor beneath us began to move, slowly rising in segments. Pillars.

There were about seven of them spaced out around the room, some further than others. Before I could think of which one might be the best to take strategically, I realized what the water was turning into.

It was turning a dark red and becoming thicker until it was hard to sift through it.

It’s fuckin’ blood.

I didn’t have time to think about which pillar to take. If I didn’t get out of the water that instant, my entire body would be soaked in boilin’ blood.

I jumped onto the nearest one, relieved to be lifted from the sweltering warmth. I looked down at her as my pillar was rising. Her eyes were still watchin’ me with that same mistrust even after I saved her life.

Valid, though. I wouldn’t trust me either. These Games weren’t time to make friends. And it was likely whoever got close to you in there was likely to be your downfall.

“Okay, well, my name is Cam. What’s yours?”

I took my mask off, hopefully showing her that she could trust me, even just a little bit. I threw it into the blood, the lights blinkin’ out as it sank into the thick liquid.

Her eyes were on me for just a second before she was back staring at the blood.

I stood up, shakily trying to wipe off the blood from my skin. It was starting to stick to me.

“Fuck, is this blood? Disgusting .”

She scrambled to get up onto a platform before the blood reached her skirt. After she was safely on the pillar, she looked at me again, staying silent until?—

“Aubrey,” she replied tersely, looking down at the rising liquid. It matched the progress of the pillars, churning at the closed door. Steam began to rise from its surface, warning of the temperature below.

In just a few moments, the blood will be boiling.

The heat of it had beads of sweat running down my face. The air was sticky, hard to breathe. And that fucking smell…

“Okay, well, now there, darlin’. Aren’t strangers anymore, are we? First name basis and everythin’.”

Most importantly, we need to get out of this fuckin’ disgusting death trap.

Her eyes narrowed on me, recognition spreading across her features. She dabbed a bit of sweat off her neck before pointing a finger at me.

“Hey, wait a minute, aren’t you from the Legacy family that, like, owns cattle or something? Like on a real-life farm? Weston, right?”

Like on a real-life farm. I wanted to laugh at how outrageous the conversation was turning.

My gaze shot around the room as steam threatened to obscure my vision. Yes, this is exactly what I want to talk about right now.

“Something like that, darlin’,” I said and forced another smile even though she couldn’t see it. “But I think we have more impo?—”

Aubrey’s foot slipped on the slick surface of the pillar just enough for her foot to dip into the liquid, making her yelp as she fell backwards on her platform.

She unsuccessfully tried to fling the blood off her shoe before shooting me a look, anger and shock filling her eyes.

“Crab boil,” I answered to her look of furious confusion. “Start ‘em cold and then raise the temperature slow so they don’t notice until it’s too late, otherwise they’ll use each other to climb out.”

“With fucking blood? Twisted fucked-up Architects,” she mumbled under her breath. “So how do we get out?” Her gaze shot to the door. The platforms had come to a grinding halt, still too far away for either of us to easily reach the doors alone, the gap open and waiting for us.

“If you can trust me to come to you, I could lift you up… but you’ll need to pull me up after, yeah?”

She appeared to consider it for a few moments, tossing her ruined mask aside into the blood, where it rapidly sank to the bottom, the pink lights blinking out.

Goddamn. The breath was forced from my lungs when I caught sight of her face.

She was just as beautiful as I thought she’d be behind the mask. Blue eyes, full lips, a heart-shaped face. Her personality nowhere near matched her looks.

Aubrey looked like a pretty cheerleader who should have been on the sidelines at a football game, not in a fucked-up murder maze getting her hands dirty.

No wonder she got close enough to the Architect to almost kill him.

But she was just so… fucking perfect. The little voice in the back of my head kept telling me she would be a perfect candidate to take back home.

Another told me that bringing her home would be a mistake cause then I’d have to share her. That dark part of me didn’t want to share her. It wanted her all to myself.

“Alright.”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest at her agreement.

“Alright,” I whispered back and gave her a nod.

I needed to get my head back in the game, so I had to force myself to stop looking at her.

I backed up as far as I could on the platform before taking it at a run, jumping to reach her pillar with a skid that nearly sent me right over the edge. Her manicured hand on my forearm wouldn’t have been enough to hold me back if I were to take a disastrous fall, but the thought of her trying to save me felt nice.

A buzz rang out, and then our pillar jerked forward. The one closest to us jerked to the left, moving further and further away from us.

Shit.

“Now they’re just fuckin’ with us,” I whispered under my breath.

“All for the show,” Aubrey agreed, her eyes carefully watching the way the pillars moved.

The exit wasn’t far, but tryin’ to jump between moving pillars with blood sticking to our clothes and shoes was a terrifying thought.

“Right, left, left, then up,” Aubrey said, her eyes not moving from the moving pillars. Buzz after buzz rang out, warnin’ us they’d be movin’. But it was all too fast.

I followed her gaze, watchin’ the pillars. It was a sequence.

“You sure about that?” I asked, not able to make out the sequence she was seeing.

Her head snapped to me.

“Time for you to take a chance on me,” she replied, giving me a wink before jumping to the next pillar.

I cursed under my breath because as soon as she landed, it jerked further away from me.

“Jump on my command and we will get out of here, okay?” she said. My pause had her lettin’ out an annoyed groan. “Fucking move your ass!”

Her yell reverberated around the room and had my body moving before my mind caught up to what I was doin’.

I ran at the pillar, jumpin’ and flyin’ through the air to land just in time for it to move back to its original place. I let out a tense breath and looked up at the blonde knockout who was staring down at me with a cruel smirk.

“ Good girl. ”

Her tone sent a zap of excitement through me.

I looked at the next pillar, and then suddenly, the sequence clicked.

“Can you keep up, darlin’?” I shot her a smile before jumping to the next one.

I didn’t even have time to steady myself before her body collided with mine. Her hands wrapped around my shoulders and her chest pushed up to my back. A light laughter rang in my ears.

“The question is, can you?”

And with that, she was jumpin’ to the next. This time, she didn’t wait for me to follow.

I looked back down at the blood coming up fast and bubbling. The smell was overwhelming and threatened to gag me.

With a deep breath, I jumped the last two pillars before pulling her to me.

“Ready?” I asked, looking down at her.

She let out a playful scoff before pushing me away to turn around to look up at the exit.

“I’ll lift ya,” I offered a bit too eagerly.

“Keep your hands where they’re meant to be, cowboy.” Aubrey said with a grin as my hands grabbed her waist. Her fingers grazed the ledge, her heeled boot making hard contact with my chest as she pulled herself up, rolling onto the ledge.

Bitter disappointment coated my tongue. Am I the only one feeling this?

The buzzer rang again, warning that the pillars would be shifting.

“Now me,” I called up to her, my hands outstretched for a much-needed boost.

She looked over the edge of the door, a feral smile covering her beautiful features. “What was it that Scar said to Mufasa? ‘Long live the king’?”

My heart raced, jaw falling slack at her betrayal.

If my life wasn’t on the line, I might have taken a moment to revel in just how breathtaking her cruelty was.

There I was, trapped in a pit with only a crab’s death awaitin’ me, stupid enough to trust a little mouse of a girl to hold up her end of the bargain.

She was meant for the Games more than I was. A fact my subconscious had figured out first when it was daydreaming of bringing her home to Ma and Pa.

If only my survival instincts rang the alarm bells first.

The platform began to lower, blood rushin’ onto its surface, threatenin’ to swallow me whole. Inch by inch, gettin' me closer to a very painful, very hot death.

Is this how it ends? My family watchin’ as the very last of their line is cooked alive because they trusted the wrong person?

Embarrassment and shame filled me faster than my fear of death.

Then, a manicured hand appeared over the edge, and I watched Aubrey lying flat on her stomach, reaching down for me.

Maybe my subconscious was actually right for the first time.

Hope ran through my body, and a smile spread across my face.

I let out a laugh then jumped up, catching her wrists and using my feet against the wall to help pull myself up. With a considerable amount of effort from both of us, and with only a little bit of melted rubber on the soles of my boots, we lay side by side on the solid stone floor of the next corridor, panting hard.

But we weren’t fully out of the woods yet. There was a wall separatin’ us from the rest of the maze.

Tears slid down Aubrey’s cheeks in fat droplets, smearing her makeup and making her nose red.

Poor girl. Maybe she isn’t as bloodthirsty as I first thought.

The Games did things to people, including turnin’ them into monsters. Maybe she too had a soft spot inside her.

“Hey now, darlin’, it’s okay. We made it.”

“No, you don’t get it. There was a girl back there?—”

“Shh, c’mon, we can’t save ‘em all. They know what they’re gettin' into signing up for a thing like this, right?”

“I don’t care that she’s dead, Cam, I care that I didn’t get to kill her! That stupid fucking cunt was the whole reason I signed up for this shitshow, and now I have NOTHING! No reason to be here! No reason to want to win! She won’t even get to see me holding the trophy!”

Christ on a cracker, this girl is nuttier than a buckeye.

And after that performance… I owed her my life.

Fucking hell.