Page 29 of Convict's Game

I wrinkled my nose at my arm, twisting it to display the lifting edges of the medical tape. “Probably.”

“Still can’t face it, huh? I’ll do it for you.”

I thanked her. She treated my arm while I watched the door, my focus anywhere but on the burn scar.

More contestants arrived, the pictures crowding my phone.

At last, the sense of excitement built inside me. I was still too pissed off to enjoy it, but it sped my pulse and warmed my blood.

In twenty minutes, the game would be underway. The fights would start. The fucking would follow.

Dixie spoke as she worked. “I’m glad that this is happening tonight, I mean that Arran has given you the management of it. After what happened last time, most of us feel he owes you.”

“He owes me nothing,” I said automatically. Then I hesitated. “What last time?”

“When you went into the game? You broke his rule that none of the crew can take part, and he retaliated horribly.”

Shit, that’s what I’d done? My stomach gutted out. I knew I’d broken faith in some way, but for Arran to give me a second chance that involved exactly the same risk to him made me nauseated.

He’d trusted me once and was showing me he trusted me again. Or that he felt so bad that I’d been injured he’d overridden his better judgement.

Another two photos landed on my phone. I checked and dismissed them. Only one left now. The last woman standing.

“I don’t remember that,” I confessed.

“Shit, bestie. It isn’t right that your memory is still messed up.” She taped down the fresh bandage on my arm. “You went into the game because you’d craved it, and Arran treated you like you were his worst enemy. None of what happened to you was right, but it started with Arran’s delulu overreaction. That’s when you were sent undercover, to make up for that plus some other minor things you’d done.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an overreaction. I broke his rule, like you said.”

“I don’t know. He’s home in a couple of days. I want to watch him grovel. You’re owed that.”

Dixie was done, and I thanked her and tugged down my grey shirtsleeve, half covering the bandage.

I needed to get downstairs. I’d be the one to sound the siren. To unlock the cages.

But hearing how I’d broken the rules in the past summoned a flash of a memory, and I stared into space, trying to focus on it.

I’d been in the basement. I’d stalked a woman. I remembered the hunt and the feeling like no other. Why had I done it?

A wave of certainty followed, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

For the end result—the woman I’d get to claim and keep. I’d wanted someone to love who was mine and who’d love me back. A relationship I was sure I’d never had, though I didn’t remember my history to know exactly how alone I’d been.

The realisation threatened something deep inside me.

Of a loneliness so acute it cut through me. Alone in the hospital. Alone before that.

I pushed it away. I couldn’t indulge that kind of thinking, not after where it had got me last time, where rejection from my crew had nearly ended my life. I had a second chance. I was certain over my future. Over the home I’d found and the forgiveness I didn’t deserve. The faith the skeleton crew had put in me couldn’t be tested again.

A message titled ‘Last contestant’ arrived on my phone, and my pulse sped before I even checked it. They were all here. This was happening.

I could watch but never join in.

But the picture on my screen stole my breath and froze my heart. According to the text, the photo was for the final contestant on the list, no longer using her initial but giving her full name of Emilia Marchant.

New clothes, her hair up, but in every other way herself.

Mila had entered my game.