Page 15 of Rat Race

Game. Fuckin’.On.

Aubrey

I’m coming for you!

That useless fucking bitch wasn’t just ahead of me.

She wastwoheatsahead of me.

I was agnostic at best—as if I’d let some fucking man tell me what I could and couldn’t do. Especially one who only spoke to me through a book that was written thousands of years ago by—you guessed it—men! But if I did believe in God or a higher power or…whatever, I knew one thing and one thing only.

He had it out for me.

It was the only explanation for how the fuck this was happening to me again.

Sure, starting in fourth wasn’t an immediate loss, but it was no secret that the sooner you got in, the better chance you had at getting to the end first. There were risks, at no point did you enter the maze without them, but the slightly increased chances of running headfirst into a trap didn’t mean shit in comparison to a damn near half-hour head start. Besides, if you had half a brain, you could easily avoid them.

Just needed to be observant.

Basically, the same skills as searching for an actual staple piece at the outlet mall instead of last season’s dime-a-dozen already out of fashion rejects.

Easy.

Only an idiot would think our positions were a coincidence. The Architects had planned who would go first as carefully as they had laid the traps to kill us. It was all for the good of the show.

For entertainment and wow factor—the Bachelorette for people with loose morals around killing. Who was I kidding? With the do-or-die attitude of some of those men? Same audience.

So why?

Why, why, why, why?

How thefuckam I in lotfour?

I’d caught glimpses of the first heat as they stepped up onto the raised platforms, waiting for the catwalk to bridge the gap between them and the maze.

The fan favorites were unmissable—the last Ranch prodigy from the actual Weston line in the first group, no surprise there. But what was shocking? Hiram Wolff, a Legacy in his own right from his win decades ago in Hide N’ Seek in heatthree. Still waiting to even be allowed onto the platforms.

Even more shocking? I’d barely fucking noticed him, save for the way that everyone was giving him a wide berth like he had some sort of disease. I’d been too distracted by the Weston. My eyes caught on their wide shoulders, the cut-off sleeves of their black top only accentuating their muscular, heavily tattooed arms. The cowboy hat was a bit on the nose for my taste, but given I was dressed like Sailor Moon’s slutty sister, I figured I should probably shut up.

But Hiram? That was worth noting, maybe even more than the veritable eye candy.

I’dneverseen the Architects put one of their own in the ring, so whatever he’d done… it had to have been explosive.

Interesting.

I shuffled my feet, platform boots sinking slightly in the plasticized grass where I waited under a large banner that readfour.

But Hiram’s fall from grace wasn’t the only thing pulling my attention around the room. There was something else that factored into Rat Race in a way that the other events lacked:the live audience.

In Hide N’ Seek, the closest the watchers could get was through a phone screen—simply wouldn’t do for a stray bullet to take out a paying customer, right? That left all the spectating to be done through large TVs and mobile phones. And Truth or Dare was too unpredictable in location for there to be a real studio audience factor. But this?

This was marketing gold.

The Company sold tickets at a premium,obviously, allowing our more affluent supporters the opportunity to glimpse us right before we went inside.

For some Runners—what they called the idiots who entered the maze—it would be the last time they’d be seen alive.

Idiots like me.

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