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“Whoever kills Hiram will get paid out a million dollars, regardless of whether you win the Games. Hell, I’ll even cut the check myself. If you can make me laugh while you’re doing it, I’ll double it,” she said with a smile so bloodthirsty—feral—that I’d never have expected from Miss Polly Pocket, thecheer captainherself.

I couldn't help the giggle that escaped my lips.

Damn, she knows how to play the game.

Out of the arena and still trying to cut down her enemies… An interesting choice of target, too. Hiram Wolff, an Architect and father to two nightmare children—well, one nightmare child now. Vic had seen to that in the arena. I had known Dylan from the parties he’d thrown at the Wolff mansion, if you could call them that. If anything, they’d just been an excuse to try and bully his then girlfriend into some wholly unenjoyable sex.

Dudes with attitudes like Dylan wereneverany good at giving head. That and their general lack of overall appeal really solidified the whole softball-loving lifestyle I was curating for myself.

Friend of Ellen, if you get me.

But the youngest Wolff sibling, Kohl? They were barely worth notice at all.

A million dollars, two for a laugh.

With a payday like that, evenIwas tempted to try my hand at hunting him down… Fuck, maybe I would after I dealt withher. I didn’t really plan on winning this thing anyway—just making sure she was headed home in a plasticized body bag with her address scrawled hastily on top.

It was important to have goals in life. SMART goals at that.

Specific, in that she would be dead as a doornail and have a pathetic, miserable funeral with her alcoholic mother ugly crying into her father’s polyester tie.

Measurable, since it was just one teeny tiny murder.

Achievable, as there was no way that lazy cunt could outrun me after I’d spent the entire summer allowing the local CrossFit gym bootcamps to rock my shit into the best shape of my life.

Relevant, since, truly, what was more relevant than the Devil’s Playground? It was all anyone would be talking about for the foreseeable future.

And, perhaps the most important one, time-bound—by the end of the day she’d be finished and I’d be free of ever having to look at her shitty tape-in extensions ever again.

Even just the thought of thatbitchhas me threatening to teeter off the edge with rage.

You’ll get yours, just you wait.

Gold-shadow girl paused, the curling iron held aloft as she watched the screen of the tablet over my shoulder, a sort of proud smirk curving her full lips.

I hadn’t expected to see anyone from my school on the big screen, even if there were a few Legacies in my class. Vic hadn’t even bothered to do the press junket that having a parent who won the Games got you, so I figured her plan was to ditch. Especially since she was always going on andonabout how the Games were just a modern-day Colosseum. A way for the ultra-rich to get richer and the poor to suffer in the hopes of changing their circumstances.

Yawn. Sounded like a bunch of proletariat bullshit to me.

Either buck up or shut up, really. We all signed up to play. It wasn’t like you were being forced into it.

Still, out of all of the idiots we knew, Vic was the one to actually do it.

Win.

It wasn’t that much of a surprise, once you got over the shock of her playing at all—aLegacy, not to mention by far the brightest of our graduating class? Yeah, Miller had the grit and talent needed to take on a game likeHide N’ Seek.

And,to my delight,a penchant for cruelty. Catching the end of her game on the way here was a masterclass on not judging a book by its cover.

Kohl chokes me harder than that when we fuck, she said, and it almost made me laugh again to think about it. Fucking. Vicious.

Beside her, the erotic asphyxiator themselves, Kohl, played with Victoria’s fingers as she spoke, their mouth slanted into a relaxed smile.

Nowthis? This was a surprise.

I’d seen them lingering around her at school when they thought we weren't looking. Their obvious crush was amusing, if not a bit pathetic. I mean, come on! Yourbrother’sgirlfriend? A cheerleader and the school freak? Could you be more of a cliche?

Last I checked, this wasn’t the fucking Breakfast Club, and if it were, I can sure as shit tell you that Molly Ringwald never would’ve dared to eventhinkabout dying her hair that color.