Page 12 of Convict’s Game (Skeleton Crew #1)

She shrugged, her wide-necked top sliding over one slender shoulder. The bandage at her throat had been replaced with a smaller one, closer in colour to her skin. She touched the edge of it. “I feel safer here. Don’t like to sleep alone at home.”

I hadn’t purposefully asked around for Dixie’s story, but through conversations in the warehouse, I knew that the Deadwater serial killer had cut her throat and left her for dead. That murderer had been dealt with, in the permanent sense, but the scars left on my friend weren’t just skin-deep.

Folding my arms, I rested against her wall. “What’s the deal with Tyler?”

“There’s no deal. Think he just feels sorry for me, hun. I don’t need that.”

“Or, he likes what he sees,” I decided.

“Maybe once, he did. Not anymore.”

I released a laugh. “Are you kidding? Dixie, you’re hot as fuck.”

She scowled at me.

I held my hands up. “I didn’t mean it in that way. My dick literally only works for one woman, and it ain’t you. I’m just saying that he admires you. I’ve seen it more than once.”

She perked up. “Who’s the mystery woman? Name, bra size, compelling facts. Spill the tea.”

“Her name’s Mila.”

“Cute. Is that short for something?”

I frowned. Was it? Her name had got me nowhere in my search for her. Perhaps that was a clue, but not one I could obsess over this evening.

My phone chimed with an incoming message.

Security had a new protocol for the contestants as they arrived for the game.

Manny’s team were responsible for the list, but a picture was taken of each then sent to management.

Tonight, that was me. I checked the three photos.

All men, all expected, the last being Rhys Jacobs.

By now, they would’ve been escorted downstairs.

There was only one person I couldn’t vouch for. A woman named E Marchant who Shade had spoken to. I’d check off her picture with him once I got it.

Something was bothering me about Jacobs.

Since the interview, it had niggled at my mind though drowned out by my concerns over Mila.

It was about his degree of interest in the protection the skeleton crew could offer him.

There was no way that would be the primary thought for a guy who’d dreamt of hunting and fucking a woman, but he’d made a point of referencing it.

At the time, I’d dismissed it, assuming he’d heard the story Shade told me about the loser who’d turned stalker. But what if I was wrong?

I lifted my gaze to Dixie. “Did you hear about a guy who lost the game and went after one of the women?”

She tilted her head in a thinking pose. “Vaguely? I think it was last year.”

“How well known was it?”

“Outside of the warehouse? I’m not sure. Why?”

I exhaled and tried to dislodge the strange feeling. It was the type of dark gossip that would be shared between men. Some guy brought down by stronger men. I was overthinking.

“Never mind. I need to get ready. Are you done using me as a human shield against Tyler?”

Dixie rolled her eyes then pointed at the bandage on my arm. “That needs changing again.”

A couple of days ago, I’d asked her to change my dressing while I kept my eyes closed. Sweetheart that she was, she’d obliged.

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.