Page 80 of Stream & Scream
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jaxen
Monday morning
The road out of hell is quieter than I ever fucking imagined.
No sirens. No helicopters. No producers chasing us with their clipboards and contracts like they could leash me. Just the low, steady growl of my engine and the ragged saw-blade rhythm of her breathing beside me.
Liv’s curled in the passenger seat, a crooked little question mark. Shirt torn, stained in blood, most of it hers, some of it mine. Still, she’s alive. She’s fucking alive.
Mine.
I grip the wheel until the leather creaks, knuckles raw and split, blood crusted into the grooves. Every bump in the dirt road rattles my ribs where he slammed me, stabs heat into the gash in my side. Doesn’t matter. I keep it steady, slower than I want, because she’s slumped against the door with her face pale and lashes twitching, and I’ll tear the truck apart before I let it jolt her awake.
The sun’s dragging itself over the horizon now, weak orange bleeding through the trees. They stretch like black claws againstit, twisted silhouettes clawing at the sky. It feels wrong, too calm after what we just walked out of.
We made it out. But it’s not fucking over.
I slap the monitor bolted to the dash. It flickers, static, color bars, then straight into a highlight reel. My lip curls.
Cody’s death. Slow-mo. Trent’s body collapsing like a fucking action shot. Blood arcing in cinematic splatter. Liv’s face next, terrified, stubborn, goddamn beautiful even when she’s fighting. Then me. Always hunting. Always closing in.
A voiceover crackles through.
“In the deadliest season yet, Contestant #1 proved the impossible… could bleed.”
My throat burns as I laugh, bitter and low. Yeah. They got that part right. I press my palm into my side—hot, sticky—blood still seeping through the tape. I bled. And I kept moving. Because I don’t stop.
The footage cuts. White text flickers like it’s seared into the feed itself:
CONTESTANT#1: EXTRACTED
WHEREABOUTS: UNKNOWN
ALL FOOTAGE: CLASSIFIED
A pause.Then static swallows it. Gone.
I snap the monitor shut and toss it into the backseat. “Fuck your narrative.”
Let them try to find us. Let them spin their lies. I’ll burn them all the same.
I glance over at her again. Her lips move. Soundless at first, then a rasp of air, and my name. My fucking name, spilling out broken but real. My throat tightens. I reach over carefully and slip my busted-up hand over hers. My knuckles are torn open,palm still bleeding, so I press with the side of it instead. She stirs, head turning. When her eyes open, they land on me. Not a flicker of fear. Just fire.
“Hey,” I murmur, thumb dragging across her fingers, rough but soft enough she knows it’s meant for her. “Still with me, clickbait?”
“Yeah,” she breathes, voice shredded. “Barely.”
“You did good.”
Her mouth crooks into something that almost passes for a smile. “You did better.”
I huff, but it cracks into a cough, blood in the back of my throat making me wince. Fuck. Doesn’t matter. I keep driving.
Silence stretches, heavy but not empty. It’s packed with all the shit we just survived—gunfire, glass, his hands on her throat, his blade in my neck. The flour cloud of a cabin. The weight of still being alive.
“Where are we going?” she asks after a while, her voice thin.
