Page 69 of Stream & Scream
The realization is ice cold, shocking my system back to life. He’s leaving.
"Don't go," I whisper, and the words come out broken and desperate. I can’t bear the thought of being in this place aloneafter knowing what it’s like to be consumed by his overwhelming presence. "Please don't leave me here."
His expression almost looks pained. Like he doesn’t want to say what comes next.
"I have to," he says, and there's a numbness in his voice. "The producers don’t like how…possessiveI am of you. They want to take you from me. They want me to end it, Olivia."
The use of my real name instead of the nickname he's given me makes me sit up straight, paying that much more attention to his words. He’s saying this to show his dominance over me. This is information I need if I want to survive until dawn.
"There's another hunter coming," he continues, his voice unable to hide his growing stress. "Someone else like me but not like me. They’ll come in and kill you immediately. There won’t be games. It’ll be over before I can stop it if they get to you."
Another hunter. Yeah that’s exactly what I fucking need right now. Just when things are looking up and I actually believe I’m going to live until morning, reality comes crashing back down on me. Fuck this place.
"Why would they do that?" I ask, though part of me already understands it’s for their viewership. “How many of us are left?”
"The people running this show want me to take you out," he says, his hands moving to cup my face, taking me by surprise, "and they're getting impatient. They want results that’ll take the audience by storm. They want drama and killing you now would be the ultimate betrayal."
I don’t miss how he doesn’t answer my question.
The show. The cameras. The invisible audience that has been consuming the idea of us all weekend, getting attached to The Hunter and his prey. A lion falling for lamb.
"They want me dead," I sigh, running my hands over my face.
"They want everyone dead," he corrects, and there's something almost protective in his tone now. "That was alwaysthe point. But you’remine. I can’t kill you when I want to keep you so fucking badly, Liv."
"So they're sending backup," I say, understanding dawning on me. "Someone to finish what you won't."
"Someone to finish what I can’t.” His hands tighten slightly on my face, not enough to hurt but enough to ensure I'm paying complete attention to what he's telling me. "Because you're mine now, Olivia. Mine to keep, mine to protect, mine to do with as I please. And I'm not done playing with you yet."
Mine to protect. The words send relief flooding through my system.
He's not abandoning me or discarding his toy now that he's taken what he wants from me. Whatever comes next, whatever threats emerge from this forest of fucking horrors, I won't face them alone.
"Stay put," he says, rising to his feet easily, letting his muscular frame tower over me and dominate the space. "Don't run, don't hide, don't try to be clever. Just wait here until I come back."
"What if you don't come back?" The question slips out before I can stop it, revealing my newfound fear of abandonment.
The grin that spreads across his face is predatory and reassuring at the same time. It’s perfect.
"I always come back for what's mine," he says, and the certainty in his voice makes me believe him despite every rational reason to doubt a killer.
He moves toward the broken window, but he pauses at the threshold, looking back at me with an expression I can't quite interpret.
"Olivia," he says, and something in his tone makes me straighten even more. "If someone else finds you before I get back… Fight them. Fight like your life depends on it, because it does."
Fight. Because if I don’t, I won’t see the sun rise tomorrow.
Is there even a half million dollar prize? Or was the plan to kill every last one of us all along?
"Use whatever you have to," he continues, his eyes scanning the cabin's interior like he's looking for a weapon, but he doesn’t immediately find anything. "Be smart, be vicious, be whatever you have to be to stay alive until I can deal with the problem."
Then he's gone, disappearing through the broken window, fading into the forest like a ghost.
The cabin feels enormous without his presence, too big and too empty and too vulnerable.
I'm alone.
Alone with the smell of sweat and sex hanging in the air, and with the taste of him still coating my throat… and the ache between my legs that reminds me just how much I want to belong to him.
