Lords of Pong

Chapter 1

ONE

TASH

Wicked high ponytail? Check.

Thigh-high boots with stiletto heels? Check.

Tight black jeans and a corset top? Also check.

Mascara and a dash of eyeliner? Absolutely.

A swipe of poison red lipstick across my lips? Priceless.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, hoping I was the only one who saw the trace of desperation in my eyes.

Not desperation, I told myself. Determination. With a hint of 'what the absolute fuck was I about to do?'

I teetered over to grab up my phone and wobble out the door. I could do this. It wasn't like I had a choice. No way out. Only through.

I ignored the glances and wolf whistles from the construction site across the road as I made my way down the street. An ordinary street in Dusk Bay.

Ordinary from the outside. Crazy as fuck on the inside.

I glanced at my phone. Checked the email again. Blue door. No number on the building. No windows facing the street. A box of bricks.

Inconspicuous.

Harmless.

Deadly.

I found the place. Three buildings from the corner. 'Knock on the door three times,' the email said.

I knocked and waited.

And waited.

I was about to risk the cracks in the pavement and wobble home when the door swung inward.

A man stood just inside, dark hair falling across the side of his face. He regarded me with dark eyes. A lip ring glinted in the afternoon sun that slanted across the rooftops.

"Hi," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "My name is…"

He turned and walked deeper into the building, leaving me to hurry along behind.

"Natasha Clay," I finished. Speaking to myself, apparently.

This wasn't the welcome I expected. But then again, I wasn't sure what to expect. Not confetti and champagne, that was for sure. Maybe a hulking giant like Lurch, gesturing the way with a huge hand.

This guy was no Lurch, but I had to admire the curve of his ass in faded jeans.

I reminded myself he might be my competition, but my gaze kept dropping down anyway. Hell, these might be my last hours on earth. I might as well enjoy a good ass while I could. Right?

He led me toward a single elevator that looked as though it predated the extinction of the dinosaurs. Was that rust on the door? He pressed a button beside it and slouched down to wait, not meeting my gaze.

"Is that safe?" I asked. "Because it doesn't look safe."

Was he leading me to my death prematurely? If he was going to travel down with me, he'd be going to his death as well. That would suck. His ass was too pretty to die. So was mine, come to think of it.

"It's safe," he said simply.

As if to punctuate his assurance, the door slid open without a sound. Inside, the elevator looked as reassuring as the outside. Relatively clean, but the carpet was so worn, the steel floor was visible in patches.

I didn't want to know what those white stains in the corner were. Or the red ones next to them.

Deciding to throw caution into the wind, and because I had no choice, I stepped into the elevator beside him. In the corner of my eye, I watched him press the down button.

That is to say, the only button. There wasn't even one to call for help if the elevator stopped. I assumed the button would work for traveling upward as well. Or maybe this was a one-way trip.

For a moment, I considered leaping out of the elevator and getting the hell out of here, but then the door slid closed on my thoughts. The elevator started to rattle and squeak as it moved down through the building.

"Sounds like it needs a good oiling," I remarked.

Mr Friendly didn't respond. What a shock.

He offered me a faint curl of his lip before looking away, his eyes firmly on the elevator door until they slid open again.

He tucked his hands into his pockets and stalked out, leaving me to hurry along behind him down a dingy corridor and into a wide room.

This room was also dingy, but full of people. A few were talking and laughing. The rest seemed lost in their own thoughts.

Some turned to look at me as I stepped into the room. A tall man with a shaved head and ears full of earrings looked me up and down, as if he might swallow me whole.

I managed a smile. "Hi." Being friendly might work with these people, even if it didn't work with Mr Friendly.

"Are you in the right place?" Mr Shaved Head strode over to me like he had all the time in the world.

"Absolutely," I said cheerfully. I held out my hand. "Natasha, but my friends call me Tash."

He looked at my hand. I thought he was going to scoff. Finally, he wrapped my hand in his huge one.

"Logan. You met Sanun." he nodded toward Mr Friendly. I followed his gaze, offering Sanun a smile.

What is it they say? If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours?

He didn't give one back. Judging by the smooth skin around his mouth, he didn't waste his time on unimportant things like smiles.

Another one of the men stepped away from the group he was talking to and grinned like he was at a garden party.

"Hey, I'm Bruno.” He offered me his hand, and a look like he wanted to make up for Sanun's unfriendliness.

“Hi." I shook his hand quickly. His wasn't as big as Logan's, but he seemed to be a lot more sincere. Which, under the circumstances, didn't matter too much. None of us were here to make friends.

A ripple passed through the room as Hunter Brantley himself strode in, followed by his twin, Parker.

Unless I had them backwards. They were identical, after all.

Dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, Hunter cleared his throat, as if we weren't already silent.

He was infamous here in town. The whole family was.

Which was why every one of us was standing in the dimly lit room, savouring the smell of fear and old donuts.

Why donuts? I had no idea. I might be projecting my hunger.

"Now everyone is here,” Hunter slid me a look like it was my fault that I was late, even though I was five minutes early, "welcome to… The Tournament." He milked the words for every spare scrap of ominous nuance.

After most of us shivered and eyed the exit, he continued.

"Once it starts, there's only two ways out." He paused to increase the tension further. "You win, or you die." He actually rubbed his hands together.

Parker nodded and stifled a yawn with his fist.

A knot of fear went down my spine.

Not that me, or anyone here, was given a choice.

All of us had gotten on the wrong side of the Brantley family in one way or another.

Me by discovering my ex-boyfriend was stealing from them, and not telling them as soon as I should have.

They could have killed me right off. They'd given me this chance instead.

What had everyone else here done?

"Hunter is enjoying this too much," Bruno whispered sotto voce.

Hunter smirked at him, but Bruno didn't flinch. He stood his ground as if this wasn't the craziest thing he'd ever done.

It was by far the craziest thing I'd ever done, and that bar was pretty high.

"Do you know how to play?" Logan asked me.

I knew how to answer this question. I shrugged one shoulder, dipping my head to the side to meet it.

"I played a little bit at university. How hard can it be?"

Just as I suspected, he gave me a look like I was toast. With a hint that he knew, maybe, just maybe I was bullshitting.

We'd see.

"Do you know how to play?" I asked sweetly.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear: "Baby, I can do it in my sleep."

If his words and heated breath on my ear was supposed to make me wet, mission accomplished. Yeah, he was here to play dirty.

Fortunately, two could play at that game. I adjusted the front of my top, pushing my breasts up a little closer to my chin.

Logan raised an eyebrow in response.

Bruno looked at them shamelessly.

Sanun gave me a slow glance, and the faintest of eye rolls. He was going to be the most difficult one to get around or distract. That was okay, I'd worked with harder than that before. I could do it again.

"We'll start by drawing for opponents," Hunter was saying. "The draw is completely random."

He picked up slips of paper from a table at the side of the room and offered them around to all of us, along with a pencil each.

"No stabbing anyone with the pencil. Anyone who does, your life is immediately forfeit. Don't tempt me. Put your name down and put it in the hat," he said, pointing to a literal hat. One that, like the elevator, had seen better days.

So much so that, when I dropped my slip of paper inside, I made sure not to touch the rim. It looked as though half a dozen generations of people had sweated onto the fabric. Gross.

I didn't want to survive this only to die of some nasty disease caught from the inside of a hat.

When everyone's name was inside, Hunter gave the pieces of paper a good stir with his hand. He must have more faith in the cleanliness of the hat than I did.

"Everyone will draw a name," he said. "Needless to say, if you draw your own, you put the paper back and choose another."

"But I wanted to play with myself," Bruno said jokingly.

"You can play with yourself after this," Logan told him. "If you live long enough."

"Oh, I will," Bruno assured him. "All of you are going down." He gave me a wink, and an idea that I tucked away for later.

Hunter cleared his throat, glancing at Bruno for his interruption. Possibly tempted to kill him right now

"When your name is chosen, move to the side of the room with Parker. You will not be choosing for yourself." He moved around the room, offering the hat to person after person.

When it was my turn, I held my breath and reached in, pulled out a piece of paper and read the name on it. "Nolan."

Logan glanced over at it and grunted, but I couldn't tell what that meant. Did he think it was a good match-up? Or was I completely fucked?

No, I told myself. I'm not completely fucked. I'm going to win this.

I had to. One way or another. I was walking out of here with the prize. My life.

A man a few years younger than me glanced in my direction. He pressed his lips together before he shuffled over to the side of the room, where Parker leaned against the wall, his eyes half-closed. Nolan should consider himself lucky; he wouldn't have his hand near that germ factory. AKA the hat.

"Now we draw the order in which you'll play." Hunter wrote numbers on another set of paper rectangles and offered them around.

Mine read number three.

"You know there are apps that would do this for you," Bruno offered.

"This is the way it's always been done," Hunter told him. "Technology can be tampered with."

He was right there. With so much at stake, someone would try to mess with the system to make things work in their favour.

Looking around the room, appraising everyone here, I wouldn't even know what would work in my favour. Apart from male, with a healthy libido, preferably straight or at least bisexual, with functioning eyeballs.

There was an equal combination of brawn and a few that looked like they were here to outsmart the muscle. Fixing a competition like this would be difficult at best.

Bruno shrugged, seemingly unworried about the rebuke.

"Let's move into The Arena," Hunter said grandly. "It's time for the games to begin."

Heart in my throat, I followed everyone through a wide doorway to the side of the room and into a huge space with bleachers against the wall on either side.

In the dead centre of the room was the table we'd be playing at, long and high with a net in the centre.

"This is it," Bruno said, sounding reverent. "The most dangerous game on the face of the planet. Ping pong."