Page 96 of Drop His Mask

“But what about my teammates?” I murmured, still in shock by how everything had played out.

A practical stranger had just died for me. Butwhy? How had Griffin known his name?

“What is going on?” I dug my feet into the ground, but I was still weak, my body barely doing its job of keeping me alive. I had no fight left in me.

33’s nails dug painfully into my skin as she wrenched me into a lift, as she typed in the code needed to raise us, as we climbed upwards.

At this point, I knew this wasn’t right, but I was essentially this woman’s prisoner. My shock and confusion were not allowing me to fight back. The mental walls I had so carefully crafted to keep myself separated from my own emotions were crumbling. Dissolving. Just as Miko had in the acid.

Shivering at the thought, I shut my eyes and tried to block out the flashes of his face as it melte—

“It’s time Raven. You need to go to the very last game that this hell will ever have. You can end all of this. You just need to trust me. I have helped to keep you alive, haven’t I? I’ve been a trusted ally.” 33’s voice pitching higher than needed.

“What are you…who are you?” My eyes flashed open to find hers. They were piercing into my skin as they widened in excitement. My breath came out in ragged pants as I tried to gain my bearings.

The elevator came to a stop.

“I am Player 33. Just as I was when I won the game last year.”

This time my mouth opened in shock. “You…you…”

33 didn’t wait for me to process, she simply continued dragging me along like a broken toy. And that’s exactly what I was, a toy that had been used and played in so many ways I couldn’t keep up. The amount of strings that had been tugged to put me into this game, with all of these people, with Julian.

Before I could ask anything else, 33 was pushing me through a door and slamming it shut behind me.

Stumbling forward, I twisted and fell flat on my back, my attention went up to the familiar dome. Where we had come for a game before, where I could see outside. It was pitch black again this time. But the sound of rain was unmistakable as it battered against the glass.

The dome rippled until it turned into hundreds of screens, reflecting my image and…

“Anadil?” I gasped, shifting quickly and staggering to my feet.

“Dear sister, I want to say congratulations. You have made it farther than most do.” Her words echoed around us, her face cast on all the different screens, but I stayed focused on her.

Seeing my sister for the first time since she had hurt me. Since she had nearly killed me. Since she had broken me in a way that I never had found a way to fix. It was eerie. As if I were in a fugue state, unable to absorb any of my emotions at all.

“You would be here.” It was all I could think to say. “What do you want from me?”

We stood on a platform that reached halfway across the dome, and my sister was nearly at the edge. Something shifted behind her, my eyes snapped to it for a second, before landing back on her face.

I didn’t trust my sister. Couldn’t imagine what she planned to do with me here.

“What is this? The last game?”

Anadil threw something to me. The item bounced a few times before landing at my feet.

“Remove your mask and collar, Raven. Let them see who you are. Our images will not be blurred for this. Let them see who it is behind the mask.”

Still not trusting her, but deciding it was best to establish what she was playing at, I bent and scooped up the item. A block-shaped key.

“It goes in the back, just reach and push it in, the collar will fall away.”

Is this how I will die? But surely she wouldn’t go through all of that just to kill me here?

Doing as she instructed, I popped the key in and the collar fell away. I then found the latch of my mask and undid it as I had in the past.

“As you can see. This is my beautiful sister, Raven. A woman that was sent here to fight and die for her crimes against Violencia. Except–” Anadil stepped aside, revealing what was behind her.

Whowas behind her.

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