Page 8 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER SIX

Jaxen

Night one

T he tree creaks beneath me like it knows what's coming. A black pine, maybe forty feet up, its bark rough beneath my gloves. Resin-stained. Cold. Perfect.

I perch motionless in the crook of two thick limbs, surrounded by dense canopy, branches jagged like splintered teeth. The wind whistles, dragging the scent of fear to my nose like perfume. Smoke. Sweat. Metal. Pine needles. The coppery tang of blood just starting to dry on a distant body.

Naomi’s scream echoed around the forest twenty minutes ago.

Not just a scream—a fuck-you-to-God kind of scream. Wet. Shredded. It tore through the trees like a bone saw and split this game wide open. The kind of sound that doesn’t just echo, it infects. Gets under the skin and rots your certainty from the inside out.

Most of them still think it's part of the show. They're clinging to that illusion like it’ll keep their brains from melting down. Running around with false panic, throwing dramatic gasps at the camera, playing to the feed like good little clout-chasers. But it’s there, beneath the surface—the ones who know.

I can feel it radiating off them. That scream didn’t come from a soundboard or a producer’s desk.

That was a throat being peeled open mid-beg. That was real.

And now?

Now they’re scattering like insects from a kicked log, but I’m not fooled by all the noise. Some are still acting. Others are waking up. The smart ones, the ones with gut instincts felt that scream in their marrow. They’ve stopped performing.

They’re surviving.

I watch the chaos bloom from above like a god in the branches, one leg hooked around the limb, the tablet balanced in my lap. Every heat signature, every misplaced breath, every snap of a twig below—all mine.

To stalk, to break, and to end.

Around the forest, the contestants are grouping up. Pack mentality. They’re slamming together like broken magnets—rattled, breathless, trying to convince themselves they’re not prey. That they’ve still got some kind of control here.

It’s amusing to watch, but they don’t.

I do.

I thumb through the feed on my tablet, wrist cam signals flickering. Every angle, every whimper, every heartbeat is mine .

Trent—what a fucking dip-shit. Tank-top tucked under his jumpsuit, sweaty blonde curls, arms bigger than his IQ. Loud. Cocky. Chest-puffed like a steroidal peacock. “We gotta stay calm, man! Breathe in, breathe out. This is just a test. A mental game. The producers are fucking with us.”

He does jumping jacks while two girls cry. Actual fucking jumping jacks.

I mark him for later.

He’s the kind that won’t shut up until his jaw’s broken in two.

But not yet. He’s useful for now. He draws attention. Soaks up confidence like a sponge, and when I finally squeeze, I want everyone watching. I want his death to be the end of all hope.

So I skip him.

Flip through feeds.

And there she is.

Brooke.

Alone.

Eighteen or nineteen. Small frame, maybe five-three.

A wisp of a thing in the standard-issue black tracksuit.

Light blonde hair twisted into a fishtail braid that swings down her spine like a nervous tick.

Her sneakers are muddy, one untied, and she’s tripping more than she’s walking.

Eyes wide, glassy. Every little rustle has her jerking around like a marionette with its strings tangled. She doesn’t know where to go.

Doesn’t know who to trust.

Which means she’s mine.

She kneels suddenly. Drops like her bones give out. Her little knees hit fallen leaves and mulch and she clasps her hands under her chin like some fucking church painting.

Oh.

Oh, this is better than I expected.

I swipe up her file. Contestant info. Hometown—Raleigh, North Carolina. Activities—Sunday women’s choir, local community outreach, Church of Grace volunteer.

She’s a believer.

A real one.

The kind that doesn’t fuck before marriage and closes her eyes when they kiss in movies.

This forest is going to eat her alive.

No, scratch that.

I’m going to.

I click the tablet screen off and pocket it. No need for feeds now. I already know where she is—#13, Brooke. Caught alone, muttering her soft little prayers to a God who’s not listening.

She’s not directly below, but close. East quadrant. A jagged rock formation juts out like a broken tooth, moss curling over its base. She’s just to the left of that, crouched in the shadows, knees pressed to mud, hands clasped.

I move like smoke.

Every step is calculated. Down the trunk, boot to bark, one hand gripping a softened crevice where rain has chewed through the grain. No rope. No harness. Just bare instinct and a spine full of sin.

When I hit the forest floor, I crouch low and freeze.

The trees freeze with me.

It’s darker in this part of the woods. The canopy is thicker. The branches woven like ribs, crowding out the moon. The clouds smear any leftover light. The air is wet. Heavy. It smells like decomposing leaves and musk.

Every leaf here wants to be quiet. Every root listens.

The forest doesn’t breathe unless I say so.

Then, I hear it. A whisper. Just one. A girl’s voice, warbling through a psalm like she’s trying to baptize herself in the shadows, and she’s trembling. I don’t have to see it to know. I can hear it in her breath. The catch. The quiver.

She's scared. She should be. I fucking love the fear. It’s what gets me off.

“Dear Lord, protect me from evil.”

My cock twitches.

She thinks this is evil?

She doesn’t know what evil is.

She’s repeating phrases like a spell. A girl who’s never seen the inside of a back alley at night. Who thinks “bad boys” are guys who vape outside Sunday school.

She deserves better.

She deserves the truth.

I slip closer, my boots silent against the damp earth. I smell her before I reach her. That nervous sweat layered beneath cheap drugstore shampoo. Peach-scented, sickly-sweet. It makes me salivate. My blood feels sharp.

She hears me too late.

A twig cracks, maybe on purpose, maybe not.

She jerks upright. Her braid swings. “Hello?” she whispers.

Her eyes scan the trees. Her breath hitches. She sees nothing. I’m a fucking shadow.

“Is someone there?” Her voice cracks.

She stumbles backward, almost falling. Dirt stains her knees. Her fingers tremble on her wristband, like she’s debating whether to activate a panic alert.

But even if she presses that button, there is no one coming. They won’t save her.

Just a blinking light, capturing every inch of her terror.

She turns slowly in a circle.

Her chest rises and falls in panicked jerks.

“I’m not afraid,” she whispers.

Liar.

I step out from the black.

One step.

Then two.

She sees the helmet and goes rigid.

My boots squish in the mud, slow and deliberate.

I don’t rush. There’s no need. My body is a ghost among the trees, swathed in forest-patterned camo, designed to vanish into the tree line and bark.

Reinforced vest. Tactical gloves. Every inch of me is geared for war.

My helmet gleams dully under the moonlight, the visor blank and unforgiving.

Night vision tech juts from the crown like the eye of some mechanical god, trained on her as she trembles.

No face. No soul. Just the reflection of her own panic staring back at her.

Her scream gets caught somewhere in her throat.

It never makes it out.

She turns and runs.

I let her.

I give her enough time for her brain to scream run , for the blood to drain from her face and dump adrenaline into her veins like gasoline. She bolts between the trees, panic racing through her, limbs flailing, braid whipping behind her.

I don’t move right away.

I savor it.

That raw, flailing desperation. The sound of her sneakers slapping against the forest floor. The way she gasps for air like it’s burning her lungs. She thinks she’s fast. Thinks she’s clever. Thinks the darkness might swallow her up and keep her safe.

Poor little disciple.

Running through the trees like God might pluck her out of the fucking dirt and drop her in heaven if she prays hard enough. Like some hymn’s gonna stop a hollow-point from blowing her kneecap open.

She’s not a contestant.

She’s a martyr-in-training, bleeding for a religion that won’t bleed back.

But no one told her the shadows belong to me.

Then I move.

Like a weapon . Like death. Boots silent.

Breath slow. Rifle cradled against my chest, angled down but ready, like a third arm I could shoot blind with.

The forest bends around me. Branches make way.

The ground softens under my step. I’ve done this before, in places colder and crueler than this.

Bulgaria. Fog thick as gauze, blood freezing on my knife.

I’ve stalked through snowstorms and slit throats while their lips still tried to form the word mercy .

This?

This is fun .

She stumbles through a wall of brambles, curses tearing from her throat in ragged sobs. I hear her voice crack, just a whimper now, raw and thin. There’s no control left. No strategy. Just survival and poor instincts, but fear makes a shitty compass.

I lift the rifle, exhale, and pull the trigger.

Thup.

The silenced round hisses through the trees, striking her in the thigh. She screams—not the shrill, girlish kind that slices the night into pretty shards. No, this one’s lower. Guttural. Torn straight from the gut like it’s trying to crawl up her spine and escape her mouth before death does.

She crumples. Knee to damp earth, palms skidding through wet mulch. I see the panic twitch across her shoulders, the realization that she’s not alone, and not fast enough.

But she scrambles back up.

Good.

Bleeding now. That thigh’s fucked. She’s favoring it, limping like a wounded fawn still trying to outrun the wolf. The pain keeps her sharp. The dread keeps her honest. Her pace falters but doesn’t break, and I’ll give her that, she wants to live so badly it almost turns me on.

Almost.

I fire again.