Page 59 of Wicked Games

Tate lunged at me, arms outstretched. In a futile attempt to dodge him, I wound up slipping and falling flat on my ass with a painful thud. At the same time, footsteps pounded on the path ahead. Maverick appeared right behind Tate, and one hand shot out over his shoulder to tug on his string.

A shrill buzzer sounded, and Tate’s light turned red. At the same time, a raucous cheer resounded through the maze. “Someone finally got her!” Hudson shouted distantly. “We’re all good!”

Tate’s jaw dropped as he looked down at his newly red light. Then he slowly turned to face Maverick. “What the fuck, man?” he spat out. “We agreed it would be her!”

Maverick stared down at him with a stony expression. “I didn’t agree.”

Tate lunged forward, presumably to tug on his string as a parting revenge shot. Maverick anticipated it, and he quickly knocked Tate’s hand away and shoved him backward.

Nine seconds later, the timer ticked down to zero.

Tate was shaking like a leaf now, hands frantically clutching at his neck. “Get it off me,” he said. “Please! Stop it!”

The collar was slowly tightening, just like Rhys predicted, and Tate’s face and neck were turning crimson. “Stop it,” he croaked, eyes bulging. “Help me!”

Maverick stepped forward and yanked me to my feet. “Come on,” he said tersely. “We don’t need to see this shit.”

He led me down the path, one arm hooked around my shoulder. Neither of us looked back.

When we finally reached the maze entrance and stepped out, we were greeted by a sea of stunned faces.

“Oh my god,” Jasmine said. “She’s alive?”

“What the fuck?” Hudson roared, charging toward me. “You fuckingbitch!”

Maverick held up a palm and stepped partway in front of me. “It wasn’t her. It was me,” he said. “I killed Tate.”

Hudson stopped dead in his tracks, face contorted with slack-jawed shock. Then he backed down and trudged over to Rhys, jaw clenched and hands balled at his sides. As much as he despised Maverick, he clearly knew he was below him in the pecking order here.

April ran over and threw her arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” she said, voice cracking with emotion. “I stopped Tate for as long as I could, but he kept threatening—”

I cut her off. “Don’t apologize. You gave me the head start I needed, and it worked. I’m alive!”

Brooke and Zach came over and hugged me too, whispering their relief that I’d survived. Neither of them would meet my eyes when I drew back, and I knew exactly why.

At the start of the game, both stood back and watched as April wrestled with Tate, risking her own life to save mine. They weren’t willing to do the same, and now they were ashamed of themselves.

I understood their choice, though. Our friendship didn’t automatically obligate them to risk their lives for me. Also, deep down, I knew that things were probably going to deteriorate into an ‘every man for himself’ situation at some point during these twisted games. That wasn’t Brooke or Zach’s fault.

Only the Game Master was to blame.

An announcement from the nearest speaker informed us that the rest of the day was free for us to do whatever we wanted. No one wanted to do much, though, and no one seemed interested in talking either. Morale had never been lower. Despite Tate’s general unpopularity in this crowd, his death was a stark reminder that these games and their consequences were real.

Lunch was eaten in fraught silence. At one o’clock, a text message ordered us to our bedrooms for five hours so the drawing room could be cleaned and prepared for dinner. We were warned of dire consequences if we disobeyed and went out in the hall during these five hours, and no one wanted to risk finding out what those consequences were.

Dinner was served at six. Afterwards, people either went back to their rooms to read or hung back in the drawing room to talk in huddled groups. I stayed for a while to hang out with April, Brooke, and Zach, but the mood was tense and awkward, and we all decided to leave just after eight.

I returned to my room to shower and read in bed. I left my door open so I could see and hear what was going on outside,and by nine, the last group members who were still out—Rhys and Hudson—were trudging back to their respective rooms.

I got up to close and lock my door, but when I reached it, I hesitated, hand hovering over the handle. Then I took a deep breath and headed for Maverick’s room for the second night in a row.

This time, he answered when I knocked. He was shirtless, skin glistening with tiny droplets of water. I gulped, trying to push aside the mental image of him in the shower. That was the last thing I needed to be thinking about right now.

“What do you need, Carey?” he asked brusquely, staring down at me.

“I need to know why you did it,” I said, boldly matching his gaze.

“Why I did what?”

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