Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
My heart shattered into a million pieces, and I haven’t been able to put it back together. She was my only family, my only friend, and while I knew this was a very real possibility, I always saw her as greater than life. She never messed up, never faltered, and despite knowing the chances of her coming home after the games, I believed with every fiber of my soul that she would beat the odds and stride back through my door.
I reviewed the surveillance footage from that house a million times over, watching as Reaper and Siren laid down to go to bed, watching as she fell even more in love with him before Shadow came in and brutally betrayed them.
They wanted to love her as their own, wanted to give her the kind of life that was stolen from her the moment she was born, but her instincts took over. I’ve been so angry, and honestly, I don’t know if I can even blame her. She was raised in a damn training camp. There’s no telling what kind of values they drum into those children, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s nothing good.
She was sent to War Games with one motive: to win. And that’s exactly what she did. I suppose I should give her a round of applause. She won. She outsmarted them all.
Shadow aligned herself with the strongest players in the game, and just when she had gained their trust and manipulated them into loving her, she betrayed them in the worst way.
None of us saw it coming, and that much is clear by the image of Siren’s face when Shadow pulled the trigger. Her expression will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
I watched that footage so many times that I could replay the whole thing on a loop inside my head, watching over and over again as my best friend screamed for the man she loved, desperately trying to save him before being shot herself. I can clearly picture the way her body rebounded off the mattress as she fell, the way Shadow dropped to her knees and cried afterward, and the way Reaper bled out onto the white duvet.
It’s not fair. It shouldn’t have ended like that.
I sit and stare out at the cityscape until the night air begins to chill, then just as I go to get up, somebody sits down beside me, a tissue in their outstretched hand.
I suck in a breath, my gaze lifting from the manicured hand to the familiar face staring back at me.
“What?” I breathe, staring at the face I never thought I’d see again, certain I’m seeing a ghost.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come see you,” Siren murmurs, offering me a small smile.
“I . . .” I throw myself into her, crushing her as I wrap my arms around her slender body. Heavy tears stream down my face as my heart breaks a million times over.
Siren holds me, letting me get my tears out as they quickly morph into deep sobs. “It’s okay, Mills. Get it all out,” she says, her hand rubbing up and down my back, and for just a moment, I wonder if I’m going crazy. If my grief is forcing me to imagine the whole thing, but she’s really here. She’s alive, but that’s not possible because I saw her die on the footage. I saw the moment she took her final breath.
“You were dead,” I say into her shoulder.
“Yes,” she agrees.
My brows furrow, and I pull back, taking the tissues from her hand as I shamelessly try to wipe the tears from my face, only the second they’re gone, they’re replaced by new ones. “I don’t understand,” I say. “I watched you die. I saw your name appear on the death toll right under Reaper’s.”
“I know. I did die, right there next to Reaper. It was as real as it gets,” she tells me, pulling the neckline of her shirt aside and showing me the angry scarring on her chest. “Shadow shot us, but she also saved us.”
I shake my head. “No. No, that’s not what happened.”
“She put the footage on a loop after she left the room. It was the only way. We were being watched so closely. With Graves, Reaper killed him in the hotel, and within six minutes, his name was already on the death toll. We had to move fast, and yes, I have to admit that Shadow surprised us, but she had one hell of a good plan. It needed to look real.”
“I’m not understanding.”
“After she shot us, she called for an ambulance, and as we laid in bed, slowly bleeding out, she looped all the feeds within the house. To you and to anyone watching, it looked as though we bled out on that bed. It looked as though we died. When in reality, the paramedics were already working on us.”