11. SIREN
11
SIREN
W e’re ten days into War Games, and I’m itching to get a few more kills under my belt, but now that so many of us have been eliminated, the game is getting harder. The weak ones have been sniffed out, leaving us with only ten, including me. We’re officially halfway through, but something tells me that each day, the stakes are going to rise. It’s been nothing more than a vacation so far, but the contenders are starting to get antsy now that the FBI found some DNA evidence that links Sharkbait’s death to The Boneyard Slayer. Things are going to move fast and be messy from here out.
Sharkbait’s body was found dismembered in an alleyway a few nights ago, and since then, everybody has been laying low, but not anymore. I’m sick of sitting by and waiting for something to happen. It seems that everybody is waiting for others to make a move, and so far, nobody is doing shit. They’ve gotten too comfortable, wanting to bide their time until the final few days in the hopes that someone else will do all the dirty work and they can swoop in at the last minute and take the win. But I’m not about to let that happen.
Tonight, I’m rocking the boat.
Giddiness pulses through me as I follow Eagle through the streets of Blue Springs. It’s clear why she hasn’t been taken out already. She’s good, more than just a strong contender in the games, and taking her out now is nothing more than a power move. By this point in the competition, everybody should have more than enough information on the other contenders to know who and what they stand for. They should know about their kills, what their style is, and how they even landed their ass in a game like this. They know who their biggest competition is and who they need to watch their backs around.
Eagle is the underdog. There’s nothing mysterious about her or how she made a name for herself in the industry. As far as her reputation suggests, she’s a sure shot. She never misses a target. She makes clean, precise kills. She’s someone to watch, and maybe given another few years, she might have even managed to steal my crown. The only thing she lacks is experience.
Taking her life tonight will rattle the other contenders. I’m making a move they won’t expect, eliminating a player who’d otherwise be here until the very end. When someone steps outside their comfort zone and doesn’t act as expected, it leaves them unsteady. I don’t like predictability; that’s when people end up dead, and I won’t be just another number forgotten about after War Games.
Eagle reminds me of myself, and while I expect her to put up the kind of fight that will engage my mind in ways that others like The Boston Maneater or 343 could never even begin to understand, actually taking the final blow to end her life will be bittersweet. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today, but for whatever reason, I feel heavy about this one. Maybe it’s because Eagle and I could have been amazing friends in another life. If things were different, or if we’d met outside of this bullshit, I just know we would have hit it off and swapped war stories while annihilating a bottle of tequila.
Shit.
I need to focus.
I caught wind of Eagle a few nights ago after she made an attempt on Gasoline. However, in true Gasoline style, the building went up in flames and she slipped away. Eagle didn’t get out of that one unscathed, and having no other choice, she broke into the local veterinary hospital to steal all the first aid she could get her hands on. It was a colossal mistake, but after I almost scalped myself earlier in the games, I no longer feel it’s my duty to judge people for their fuck ups. We’re all desperate, and none of us are thinking straight.
There are two separate bandages wrapped around her left arm, and I can only imagine how much that must hurt. I haven’t had to deal with burns before, but I know women like Eagle, and they only succumb to first aid when the pain is almost too much to bear. This will make things interesting, but I pride myself on being fair. If I need to subdue her, it’ll be done without targeting her injuries.
From the way she leads me through the streets, she’s more than clocked me behind her and is attempting to lead me to a location she’s already checked out. It doesn’t matter though. She can lead me wherever the hell she wants. I’ve done my research on this town, and I know it better than the back of my hand. There’s nowhere she can lead me where I won’t have the upper hand.
Eagle takes a left, and her plan becomes clear. The local butcher.
Fucking disgusting.
A meat locker isn’t exactly somewhere I wish to spend any of my time, but I applaud her creativity. I just hope this isn’t where she’s been crashing at night. However, I’m grateful that this is purely the butcher store and not actually the local abattoir. I can handle a lot of things, but a slaughterhouse is not one of them.
Just as I suspected, Eagle slips in through the back of the butcher store, and my stomach begins to cramp at just the thought of walking in there after her, but I do what I have to do and take the plunge.
As I follow her inside, I look left and right before walking through the door, expecting her to jump out at me at any chance. Instead, I find her standing dead center of the butcher’s large human-sized refrigerator.
“You’re following me,” she states, her sharp stare locked on me as the smell of fresh meat assaults my senses and makes my cramping stomach begin to turn.
“Yes.”
“You’re not very good,” she says. “I clocked you over thirty minutes ago.”
I smile. “You were supposed to. You think I was following that closely out of sheer stupidity? I wanted a fair fight, and that wasn’t going to happen if I got the drop on you. Besides, I was curious. I wanted to know where you’d bring me, and to be honest, I’m surprised. This isn’t exactly a location I’d pick.”
Eagle shrugs her shoulders. “Butchers have a way of making some people feel . . . queasy, and judging by the way your face has drained of color, I’d say you’re one of those people.”
I shake my head, swallowing over the bile rising in my throat. “Nope. Not me.”
“Right,” she says, casually striding toward me. “You know, my daddy was a butcher for thirty years before—”
“You killed him?”
“What?” she gasps in horror. “No. I loved my father. He was a great man. He died after an incident with the cartel.”
“Well, shit,” I say with an awkward cringe. “Sorry, it’s just that most of us killers turned out the way we did because we have daddy issues.”
She watches me through a narrowed stare. “What’s your trauma?”
“Oh, you know. The usual.”
“What’s the usual? He raped you all through your childhood and the second you could, you gutted him like a fish.”
Horror blasts through my chest. She couldn’t be further from the truth, but I understand why she went there. Reality is, it happens a lot more than anyone thinks it should. “Shit. I don’t know you nearly well enough to trauma dump on you, but what I will say is that for me, my life wouldn’t be the way it is now if it weren’t for my piece of shit father, and if I were so lucky to get the chance to take his life, I’d make a fucking holiday out of it.”
Eagle nods. “So, you said you wanted a fair fight?”
I nod in return. “That’s right.”
“How fair?”
I arch a brow and slowly reach for the gun holstered around my thigh. I hold it up and release the magazine, letting it fall to the ground before tossing the gun aside. I kick the magazine, letting it slide toward the empty gun that just happens to be positioned right under a big piece of meat that’s hanging by a giant hook in the ceiling.
“Okay,” Eagle says, taking her own gun and doing the same. “Knives?”
Reaching for the knives hidden all over my body, I start tossing them aside, while being extra careful with the two blades of Reaper’s. “You don’t strike me as the type who requires weapons to get the job done.”
“I’m not,” she agrees before disarming herself.
I feel naked without my weapons, and I can only assume that she feels the same. The only difference is that on top of feeling naked, I also feel like I’m going to hurl at any point. While Eagle here looks as fresh as a daisy, probably reminiscing about all the good times she had with her father.
After tossing my last knife aside, I rotate my cat-ear ring, hiding the sharp points on the inside of my palm. She comes for me, her fists already balled into weapons of their own. Excitement cracks like lightning in my chest, and I immediately spring on the defense, evading her with ease.
We trade punches, fists flying with skilled precision as knees and high kicks are brought into the mix. It’s a mesmerizing dance, and honestly, this is the type of shit I love.
I’ve gotta give it to her, she’s good. Better than good. She’s got strong punches with fast reflexes, and if this were nothing more than training, I’d keep her around simply to keep me on my toes, but she’s not better than me.
“You’re good,” I say, getting through her defense and landing a shot right at her ribs.
She grunts in pain, but it doesn’t slow her down as she hurls a punch toward my face. “Thanks, that means a lot coming from you,” she says in a chipper tone, switching things up and grabbing my wrists as I throw another punch. She yanks me forward and uses my momentum against me, letting me stumble right into the cold meat hanging from the ceiling, my face smacking right against it.
I whip around, not allowing her another chance to get the drop on me as I desperately hold back a gag. “Low blow.”
“I know, but you’re faster than me. I did what I had to do,” she says unapologetically as I ram my knee into her thigh with the power of a freight train. “Holy fucking shit.”
Eagle stumbles back, and I go with her, relentless in my attack, throwing a few more punches and knocking her off balance. I was more than happy to drag this out to allow us both to enjoy this fight before inevitably ending it, but I’m not a forgiving person, and after yanking me into a meat carcass, it was over for her.
Her ass hits the ground, and as I come for her again, I deliver the blow to her temple that has her tapping out. “Fuck. Shit. Stop, please,” she begs, knowing I could end her life in a matter of seconds.
I hold back and watch as she crumbles with exhaustion, tears filling her eyes. “I can’t . . .” she says. “I can’t die like this. This isn’t what I want. I . . . I . . . ”
I let out a sigh, glancing around the massive refrigerator before finding a chair, and as Eagle curls up on the floor, completely defeated, I grab the chair and drag it to the center of the room.
“Here,” I say, reaching for her and helping her to her feet before wrapping my arm around her waist. I walk her over to the chair, and as she hobbles, I take the majority of her weight. Reaching the chair, I lower her into it, and she lets out a heavy breath, in more pain than I had originally thought. “You okay?”
“Think you broke a rib.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
With Eagle barely able to move, I fetch all of my weapons, putting them right back into place as I keep an eye on her. Once everything is secured, I find heavy chains and drag them over to Eagle before wrapping them around her ankles and wrists. “Sorry,” I say, still feeling so heavy about all of this.
“I get it,” she says. “I’d be doing the exact same thing if roles were reversed.”
“Do you need water or something?”
She gives me a small smile. “So I can piss myself when I die? No thanks,” she scoffs. “Can I just ask one thing? No—wait. Two. Can I ask two things?”
“Like what?”
“My little sister,” she says. “Is there any way you’d be willing to check in on her every now and then? She doesn’t know what I do for work, and she’s going to be crushed when she realizes I’m gone. I just . . . I need to know she’s going to be alright. Both our parents are gone, and it’s just been the two of us for so long. She’s not going to have anybody.”
I cringe, not really sure about this. “I don’t know. I’m not a babysitter.”
“She doesn’t need babysitting. She’s not a child. She’s twenty-two. She just needs someone to check in on her every few months to make sure she’s not making any terrible life decisions, which she will. She does it all the time, and they mostly have something to do with stupid boys who only want one thing from her.”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “I can check in on your sister.”
Eagle lets out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she says.
“Dare I ask what the other thing is?”
Her gaze darkens as she lifts her head, staring me right in the eye. “Gasoline. I want you to end that bitch’s life as though she’d personally wronged you. She deserves the worst kind of death.”
“What happened with her?”
Eagle clenches her jaw and glances away, clearly not wanting to talk about it, but there’s no disguising the flash of fear that darkens her stare. Something terrible went down, and while I might never know what that is, that doesn’t mean I can’t get sweet revenge for Eagle. “Consider it done,” I tell her.
“Thank you, and Siren?” she murmurs, a heaviness entering her tone, realizing this is it. “Watch your back with that one. She’s not only clever, she’s vindictive and angry at the world. She’ll do what she can to make it as brutal as possible. And that includes burning you alive.”
My brows furrow as my heart starts to race. “Is that what she did to you?”
Eagle purses her lips. “Just watch yourself when it comes to her. I have high hopes for you. I think Reaper and Shadow might be an issue, but I like you. If anybody should come out of this alive, I want it to be you.”
A shiver sails down my spine just moments before a deep tone fills the room, the sound making my heart race. “Why are you dragging this out, Little Siren?”
Ahh fuck.
Eagle sucks in a gasp, her sharp gaze flicking around the room until Reaper makes a point to step out of the shadows, and all I can do is let out a heavy sigh. “You again? Really? Are you stalking me?” I ask, unable to keep from noticing the way his tight black shirt fits his body or the way his tattoos peek out from the neckline of that very shirt, leaving me desperate to see what’s underneath.
His gaze locks on me, barely noticing Eagle who can do nothing more than gawk. “Yes,” Reaper states flatly, not a hint of deception in his voice—a voice that just so happens to have me needing to relieve the ache between my thighs. “Why wouldn’t I? A beautiful woman who thinks she has the ability to take me down. What can I say? You’ve piqued my interest.”
That was more than clear when he had his body pressed up against mine in that back alley, but all that memory has done for me is send me spiraling every time I close my eyes. “Oh, lucky me,” I throw back at him, doing the bare minimum to act as though his very presence doesn’t have an effect on me, but this is Reaper we’re talking about. He can see right through my bullshit.
“Uhhh . . . What the fuck is going on here?” Eagle asks, looking between the two of us, unsure if she needs to be confused or terrified.
Glancing back at her, I risk taking my eyes off Reaper, but something tells me that he means me no harm. After all, he just admitted to stalking me, which means he’s been more than close over these past few days. If he wanted to kill me, he could have at any point, and yet, for whatever reason, I’m still here.
Holding Eagle’s stare, I give it to her straight. “Someone—not naming any names—clearly wants to fuck me,” I tell her. “He saw me make one kill and now the arrogant prick is obsessed.”
“Fuck, girl. I know you’re incredible at what you do, but you realize who the fuck it is you’re taunting, right? That’s Reaper. The fucking Reaper. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
I shake my head. “The man’s been following me for days, camping outside my villa, searching through my trash, sniffing my underwear. If he wanted to kill me, I’d already be long gone,” I explain. “Which only leaves one option—the asshole wants to fuck me.” Reaper simply stares back at me, not denying it, but he doesn’t need to. After what went down in that back alley, we both know it’s true. “It’s flattering,” I tell him. “But I didn’t take you as the stalker type.”
His eyes seem to light up, making something clench deep in my stomach. “I see that smart mouth of yours wasn’t just a once-off. It’s more of a core personality trait.”
I can’t help but grin. “And?”
“You’re right. I would very much like to fuck it out of your system.”
Well damn.
“Holy fucking shit,” Eagle breathes beside me, gaping at Reaper as though she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “The fuck are you waiting for, girl? Get on your knees and let him fuck it out of your system. Give a dying woman her last wish.”
I can’t help but laugh, as I pull one of his knives free from the sheath in my top, just to let him know I have it. “Now, why on earth would I go and do that?” I taunt, spinning the tip of the blade on my fingers, desperately wishing I was already on my knees, giving him exactly what we both want. “He can go and fuck his hand for all I care. Though, after our last meeting, I suspect he’s already been doing a lot of that.”
A stupid grin stretches across my face, and I let out a sigh as though Reaper’s very presence in this butcher’s shop means absolutely nothing. “I’m here to win War Games and get back to my normal life,” I add, knowing damn well it’s a lie because I have no intention of harming Shadow.
Eagle scoffs, gaping at me as though I’ve lost my mind. “Hell, if you’re not going to suck this man’s cock, at least give me a crack at it.”
I roll my eyes, unsure why I suddenly feel so possessive of this terrifying man across the room. “Oh please,” I say to Eagle. “With those broken ribs, you’d be lucky to even get on your knees and open your mouth, let alone come close to satisfying him.”
Reaper lets out a sigh, and it’s clear by his tone that he’s had enough. “Come on, Siren. I have better things to do with my night. Make your kill so we can leave.”
“Shit.”
My gaze slowly turns back to Eagle and a wave of guilt washes over me as she meets my stare. We really could have been good friends outside of this world. “Make it quick,” she whimpers as a single tear rolls down her cheek.
I nod. And with that, the blade in my hand flies through the air in the blink of an eye and sinks deep into her throat, severing her spine and instantly taking Eagle out of the game.