Page 25 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jaxen

Sunday night

I catch her scent before I catch the sound—sour sweat and girl-tears, that sharp tang of fear riding her skin like perfume. The creek roars nearby, swollen from the storm, water chewing through rock like it’s hungry for her name.

Delaney.

She’s close.

I ghost through the trees, boots sliding silent across decaying leaves and wet pine.

The forest is a cathedral tonight, black canopy swallowing moonlight, trees creaking like old pews.

Every step is measured. I don’t need to rush.

Crippled prey never gets far. A twisted ankle is the worst kind of injury—doesn’t knock you out, doesn’t kill you fast. It drags you.

Forces you to crawl, to sob, to fucking plead.

And right on cue—she’s pleading.

“I’m done! Hello? Can anybody hear me? Please!”

Her voice shreds the quiet, raw and desperate.

I ease closer until the tree line breaks, visor painting the bank in ghost-green heat.

There she is, hunched over, one hand clinging to a branch, the other hammering that shiny panic button on her wristband like it’s salvation.

The light blinks yellow, feeble, a useless heartbeat.

I almost laugh. She thinks that blinking wristband is her lifeline. Thinks some faceless tech in a headset is gonna swoop in with med kits and mercy the second she cries loud enough. She still believes this is a game—levels and rules, safe words hidden in fine print.

No one’s coming.

Except me.

I ease forward, slow enough for the tension to strangle her before I even touch her. Just enough that her wrist-cam lens catches my silhouette—mask gleaming under moonlight, shoulders broad, blade resting in its sheath like a secret I haven’t told yet.

She whips around. Freezes.

Her brunette waves tangled from the creek mist, violet-gray eyes wide and stupid in the dark.

Sneakers already soaked through from stumbling too close to the water.

She looks like a runway model shoved into survival gear, still trying to pose for her best angle while she bleeds desperation all over the dirt.

Her mouth twitches like her brain forgot the words it was supposed to use. “Wait—what the fuck—are you… production? This is a joke, right? Some… cosplay shit?”

I cock my head, amusement burning through me. She’s terrified and still trying to sass her way out like some discount damsel, lip gloss in the woods. The naivety is delicious.

She has no idea.

Not yet.

I don’t answer. Just let the dread sink teeth into her.

She limps forward, ankle collapsing with every step. “Jesus Christ,” she scoffs, trying to sound braver than she feels. “Real funny. Masked psycho bullshit. Ha-ha. Okay, yeah, you got me. Now drop the act and get me out of here.”

I move one step closer. Her breath hitches. Another, and she stumbles back like a crab, arms flailing until her bad ankle smashes into a rock and she crashes flat on her ass. The scream tears out of her throat, ugly and raw.

“Oh fuck—fuck!” She slaps her wristband again and again, yellow light strobing wild across the mud. “I’m pressing it! Do you see this? Hello?”

I crouch low, tilt my head, and let my voice rasp through the modulator, dark, deliberate, hungry. “Thought they’d come for you, didn’t you?”

She stares like the words don’t belong in the world she thought she signed up for. “W-what?”

“That button?” I snort, the sound jagged. “It never worked. Wasn’t built to. Why the fuck would they give prey an out when they’re paying me for the slaughter? Viewers don’t tune in to watch you tap out, sweetheart. They come for the screaming. For the bloodbath.”

Her face drains to chalk. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” I lean closer, visor throwing her reflection back at her in a warped, ghost-green glint.

“Tell me, Delaney, did you even bother to read the fine print in that contract? Hmm? That stupid waiver they shoved in your face? Or were you too fucking desperate to notice you were signing your death sentence? You’re not contestants.

You’re meat dressed in matching tracksuits, like cattle tagged for slaughter.

And I’m the one they pay to carve the marks. ”

She scrambles, tries to stand, but her bad ankle betrays her and she topples straight back into the muck. Tears streak down her cheeks, brunette waves plastered wet and stringy across her forehead.

“What fine print?” she screams, voice cracking into hysteria. “A fucking lawyer! They said there were rules!”

I laugh, sharp and mean, the sound ricocheting off the creek. “Rules? You dumb bitch.”

Her face drains. Panic makes her scramble again, wrists clawing into mud as she drags herself forward, useless ankle scraping behind.

I let her crawl a few feet. Enough for the cameras to drink in every pathetic sob and twitch.

Then I grab her by the hair and rip her back, her scream splitting the night wide open. I wrench her chin up so her cam catches every inch of terror in those violet-gray eyes.

“You’re not even fun,” I rasp, knife sliding free with a hiss of steel. “Discount damsel. No chase. No spark. Just filler.”

She claws at my arm, nails snapping in the mud. I slam the blade up under her ribs, hard, angling it deep.

Her body bows hard, spine curving under me. Eyes bulge wide. Hot blood erupts over my glove in thick spurts, pumping with every frantic beat of her heart. It bubbles up her throat in gurgles, choking out half-formed screams that die wet on her lips, her mouth trembling crimson.

I twist the knife slow, savoring the resistance—the drag of steel grinding through muscle, the sudden give when tendons snap like overstretched wire.

It’s work and it’s music all at once. Her body jerks against me, nerves firing blind, legs kicking mud.

The vibration runs up the hilt into my hand, a shudder I feel down my fucking arm.

I lean closer, voice low and cruel. “Not like her. Not like my little clickbait. She runs. She fights. She makes me hard every time.”

I wrench the blade free, feel the sticky suction of her flesh trying to keep it, then ram it back into her stomach with another brutal plunge. The blade punches through skin, tears hot muscle apart, the sound wet and obscene. The dirt darkens, painted black beneath her twitching body.

“You?” I growl, twisting again just to hear the fibers scream. “You’re nothing.”

Her head lolls, eyes glazing. Blood drips from her lips in sticky ropes as her chest stutters, then stops.

“Fine,” I mutter. “Here’s your fucking show.”

I stage her against a boulder, moonlight pouring over her slack face. Curl her lips into a grotesque grin with two fingers. Smear blood across her cheeks in crimson streaks. Puppet for the feed.

“Smile for the camera,” I whisper, brushing her hair back mock-gentle.

Better. Always better posed.

The drones blink red, zoom in close. The producers will be foaming at the mouth.

I step back, admiring the carnage. It’s almost art. Almost. But art is alive. This? This is just noise.

Then a sound. Sharp, small, but real. A gasp.

I whip around. My heart rate spikes with excitement.

And there he is.

We lock eyes across the clearing. His throat bobs. Then instinct takes over and he bolts.

I smirk under the helmet, pulse kicking, cock still heavy from the last kill. Oh, this is going to be fucking good.

Malik tears through the trees, panic making him loud. His breath rips ragged from his chest, spilling curses and broken prayers into the dark.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck?—”

I let him go, just long enough to taste the desperation crack. Then I follow.

My boots chew up the ground, wet leaves snapping, pine needles spitting under my weight.

Rifle slaps against my back, pistol thuds against my side, knife riding hot and familiar against my thigh.

All of it weight I barely notice now—the hunt drowns everything else.

The trill’s in my blood, sharp and electric.

I stalk when I want silence. I thunder when I want him to know I’m right behind him.

Close enough that he can feel me breathing down his spine, but never close enough to give him hope.

“Run,” I snarl into the night, loud enough to cut through his ragged breaths. “Make it worth my time.”

He stumbles harder, sneakers sinking into the soft ground, a strangled cry tearing from his throat.

“You think you’re fast?” My laugh is sharp, manic, bouncing off the trees. “You’re fucking loud. Every step is a countdown.”

He risks one glance back. Just one. Rookie mistake. His brown eyes catch mine for a split second—wide, terrified, knowing.

I surge forward, fist snagging the back of his shirt, yanking him straight off his feet. He screams as we slam into the dirt, rolling through mud and tangled roots. His long limbs thrash, sneakers kicking clumps of dirt and fallen pine needles, fists clawing at anything that isn’t me.

“Yeah, fight me,” I growl, pinning him down, helmet grinding against his cheek as he bucks beneath me. “Give them something to fucking watch.”

An elbow cracks across my helmet, hard enough to smear blood across the visor in a red arc. My grin stretches under the mask.

“Now that,” I snarl, pressing him down by the throat until the ground itself caves beneath him, “is more like it.”

He bucks hard, fights like a man who doesn’t want to die easy, and it makes my blood sing. The trill of the hunt burns through me. Finally, a runner who doesn’t just fold, who makes me work for the break.

I let him slip free. Watch him stumble up and limp into the brush, bleeding, panicked, still stupid enough to think distance will save him.

I don’t chase. Not yet.

I stalk.

Because Malik Carter just turned himself into my next fucking hunt.