These Deadly Games
Diana Urban
To Mom and Dad,
for always believing
CHAPTER 1
I was going to kill Zoey.
Heat simmered in my belly as I crept up behind her. She was oblivious to my presence, gazing over the stone balcony toward the forest. Rotting tree stumps littered the field below, but nobody lurked in the shadows.
Now was my chance to take her out.
My fingertips tingled as I slinked closer, the desire for vengeance flooding my veins. How should I do it? I could shove her over the balcony’s edge, but that wouldn’t guarantee a kill. We weren’t high enough from the ground, so it would depend on how she landed. I could shoot her, but my trembling fingers couldn’t guarantee my aim. And I needed her to die.
I sounded like some homicidal maniac, didn’t I?
Well, trust me—she didn’t deserve my mercy. Not after what she did.
A dagger should do it. Sinking a blade into her back would be the most gratifying way to take her down, anyway. God knew she’d stabbed me in the back enough times that killing her now wouldn’t even the score.
I unsheathed my blade and closed the distance between us, steps stealthy and silent. Zoey was still except for her long blond tresses fluttering in the breeze as she stared into the distance. Focused. Unwavering. What the hell was she waiting for? It didn’t matter—I inched closer, raised the dagger, and plunged it into her back.
“Dammit, Crystal!” Zoey shouted from the squishy recliner. She threw off her pink gamer headset that matched her blond hair’s pink ombre tips as the alert ShardsOfGlass eliminated DaggerQueen29 with a dagger popped up on-screen. My cat, Whiskers, leaped from the nook between her socked feet and zoomed upstairs. Poor fuzzball—it was bad enough my esports team had invaded her turf in our basement den at the crack of dawn.
I rubbed my lips together, trying to suppress a grin and failing miserably. I couldn’t decide which was more satisfying: the fact that I was the last player standing in this round, scoring fifty extra MortalBucks on top of ten for killing Zoey, or that it was one last chance for her to earn them before the statewide MortalDusk tourney on Sunday.
I couldn’t believe it was only two days away. Two days until we’d know who’d win the tourney’s solo and team prizes, each $250,000. Two days until we’d know who’d advance to the annual MortalDusk Crown in New York City next month along with the other states’ winners. I could see it now: standing onstage at the tourney with my friends in our costumes, accepting the prize in front of a cheering crowd and all those cameras—not to mention the all-expenses-paid trip to New York for the crown and the sponsorships that’d roll in. Sponsorships I’d kill for.
And did I mention the crown’s solo and team prizes were $3 million? That’s right. Three. Freaking. Million. Dollars. Can you imagine having that kind of cash at sixteen years old? You’d be set. I mean, sure, I personally had no shot at winning the solo competition, and if we won the team prize, it’d be split five ways. Still, though! I was no math whiz, but even I knew that amount would change my life.
We had a legit shot at winning the team tourney, too, and not just statistically speaking, since Vermont had the fewest competitors. We’d monopolized our state leaderboard for months.
Problem was, only five of us could play on a team at the tourney … and all six of us wanted in. So we’d decided to compete for it: the first five to earn twenty thousand MortalBucks would claim a spot.
And I refused to be the rotten egg.
“Welp, Crystal’s not messing around,” said Dylan, our newest recruit. We sat cross-legged on the couch, his knee an inch from mine—not that I’d noticed or anything. Was he complimenting my badassery, or implying I was a traitor? He met my gaze over his tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and lifted the corner of his mouth, revealing a dimple in his cheek. God, why was he so hot—I mean, so hard to read?
“Well, we are down to the wire—”
“Guys, get down here!” Zoey screeched. The rest of our team was upstairs; Dylan had been the only one to stick around to watch after getting killed in this round. “Next round’s starting—”
“Shhh,” I said. “My family’s still asleep.”
Zoey’s sharp features twisted into a scowl, our main form of communication these days. Ugh, I hated competing like this. But winning the tourney would be the difference between my family living in this house and, well, not. My parents’ divorce last year had been quick—too quick—and Mom had been struggling to pay our mortgage ever since. It was my fault Dad took off so fast, so I had to win that prize money. I couldn’t let Zoey keep me from competing. We’d do fine without her blade combat skills, anyway.
My bestie, Akira, was first down the stairs, her heart-shaped face so flushed you could’ve fried an egg on it. “What happened?” I asked, but she wordlessly curled up on my other side, stuck her headset over her chin-length, shiny, jet-black hair, and perched her laptop on her hip. In MortalDusk, she was our top architect, a harbinger of death to anyone who got lost in her structures. But right now, she looked like she wanted to erect a fort around herself and hide until the end of time.
Her boyfriend, Randall, came downstairs next, chuckling as he raked back his shaggy light-brown hair that looked sun-kissed at the ends—a blatant lie, like his tan complexion, as he hardly ever got a lick of sun.