A DARK SENSATION TINGLED in my muscles, as tiny beads of sweat dewed my forehead.

Did he really just say that? With that tone?

I let out a squeak. "You're not making this better."

"What do you mean?" he asked, face like a sculpture.

"Your blank demeanor is making this feel like a prison movie. Either you're a guard about to stick your hand up my ass to see if I have drugs, or you're a prisoner whose about to make me their bitch."

An unknown emotion entered his eyes, lightening them for a second before the blankness on his face began to crack, a chuckle leaving his lips. "Sorry. I'm trying not to make you uncomfortable."

"You cannot not make this uncomfortable," I said making myself laugh. The laughing made me relax and kind of forget that I was half-naked. "Where do you want me to... bend?"

"Over the arm of the recliner," he said, bending down for the peroxide and a clean cloth.

Learning over the recliner arm, my nails clenched the suede fabric, holding myself in place. If anyone walked in, this would totally look like doggy-style.

A long exhale left my lips, waiting for him to start. Teeth sank into my bottom lip when his soft fingers finally touched my ass cheek, lifting up the edge of my panties. I lowered my eyes to the carpet, trying to stop the warmth spreading to my face.

A few moments later, short torrents of pain skittered up my ass and back, killing the fresh warmth in my cheeks.

"I got shot in the ass?" I winced as he dabbed at my left ass cheek with the peroxide-covered cloth.

He stifled a hearty chuckle. "Guess Gmie is a good shot."

I winced. "It-t wasn't her. Her flunky Demo shot me."

"Who was the third person?" he asked, still dabbing.

"I don't know..." That unanswered question circled my mind, making me block out the pain for a second. Who was it? "They never took their mask off nor did they ever talk. It had to be Chi or Aries though. They're all really good friends."

"Gmie's created a nice group for herself," Khan said as he took out a bandage, smacking it on my ass. And then he did the same for the other two wounds on my right thigh and calf.

"Yeah, people flock to her for some reason," I said before letting out a long breath.

"People like strong personalities. And she definitely has one," he said, closing up his kit before dropping two Tylenol packets in my hand. "Some people like to be led around instead of thinking for themselves, especially in this type of environment."

I eyed his room as he put away the giant first aid kit. "How'd you get all of this?"

"Requested it," Khan said. "And built everything myself. I like being comfortable, and I like being prepared for everything. Plus, it's nice never having to leave for anything."

I tried putting my sweatpants back on, but it hurt to lift my legs. "I couldn't do it. It felt...wrong to request things."

"Why?" he asked, staring into my eyes. "I consider it all payment for what they're putting us through. Consider this game a job. And requesting things is how they pay us."

"I guess."

"Or consider requesting things as a tool for survival," he said with a shrug. "If I didn't have this kit, you'd be in serious trouble by now."

True.

"You only have to do it until you win the game," he said.

I snorted. "Yeah, winning. Escaping would be much better."

"That's impossible," he said, nodding his head for me to follow him. He sat at the glass desk, turning to the giant computer monitors.

The bright lights of the three monitors hit me in the face, blinding me for a second until the black booting up screen came on. Once that faded, he clicked on something and the middle screen mimicked the screen of my iPad. Same apps.

"How'd you do that?"

A mischievous smirk spread across his thick lips. "I'm a professional hacker — I can do anything." He clicked on the live camera app and started circling the house.

As he shifted through the different cameras, I spotted Gmie, Demo and the third figure stalking the halls, still looking for me.

How the hell was I going to get back to my room?

"Stay here tonight," he said, answering my question. "There's no way you're getting to your room tonight. Not without some bloodshed."

"You don't mind?" I asked, brushing a long curl behind my ear.

"No. You can take my bed."

"I'm not kicking you out of your bed. I'll sleep on the floor," I said.

He stared at me, making me feel like I just said that two plus two equaled sandwiches. "You're taking the bed. I have an air mattress."

"You really are prepared for everything," I said. "I'll take the air mattress then."

He narrowed his eyes, blinking at me slowly. "No. You need your rest. We have a new challenge in a few hours."

I forgot about that. Fuck. "Fine," I said, watching him continue to shift through the live feed. "Are you sure there's no escape?"

He shook his head, causing his thick hair to move carelessly. "I've been around and around. Nothing. But from looking at the wiring, I can tell that we're underground."

I thought about telling him about the hidden room I found in the pantry, but we were on camera at the moment. But Khan was smart. He was probably telling me things that weren't important, things he didn't care that the people/viewers knew.

"Find out anything else?"

"We're not the first bunch of contestants," he said, typing away on his keyboard. "They do this in seasons. And we're at least season two or higher."

"How'd you find that out?"

"My fans," he said, clicking on the chatting app. Thousands upon thousands of comments flowed in. Kissy faces from girls. Love letters. Fan art.

I looked at him, dumbfounded. "You have fan art? Really?"

He gave me a grin. "The ladies love me. Which is beneficial because many of them like to talk. Really talk. I talked to this one girl for hours, and she told me that I was her favorite this season."

"So there had to be at least one season before us," I said, getting it.

"Before I could ask her anything else, she was banned."

"That means everything is constantly being monitored," I said, wiping my forehead. "At all times. But that's a lot of work. They must get thousands of comments by the minute — per contestant."

"This whole operation must be worth millions," he said. "We're not dealing with amateurs. Our anklets use technology that I haven't even seen before." He shook his head. "This game was planned out perfectly. With no faults and no way of escaping."

"Okay, so we can't escape, but what about someone finding us?" I asked. "Like the authorities. FBI, maybe?"

He arched a brow. "Maybe if they were streaming this in the United States, but they're much smarter than that."

"Wait, we're not in the US, anymore?"

"I was never in the US. I was in London when they grabbed me. And I asked the others, they were in different places too. Gmie was shopping in Paris. Aries was in Cancun. Fee was in Canada."

"If everyone was in different countries and places that means they could've put us anywhere."

"Right," he said, nodding. "We're probably in some remote, underground place — maybe a private island or woods or a jungle in some third world country where they are paying off the officials. Probably so they could set up their own ISP."

"If they set up their own ISP..."

"That means that they could keep this game hidden. No one could trace it. Not the US or any country, except the one we're in. But if you pay off the right people, they'll look the other way." He shrugged. "That's probably not the only people they paid off though."

"But even with their own ISP hookup, things can still be traced."

"True, but they're probably on the dark web with private password access or on their own server. But all of this is only relevant if someone is actually trying to find the game. It's probably not common knowledge."

"Yeah, I would think that one viewer would spill the beans. There has to be at least one good Samaritan in the bunch?"

"The creators of this game aren't stupid. They probably only released this game to a certain audience who are probably betting on us like animals."

"That audience being other filthy rich people."

"Who don't give a shit about us. Only money," he said.

"You're right," I said before sighing. "Plus, if this is the second season. That means the first one must have gone by without any problems."

"Yeah, the first season was probably a trial-run, so they could fix all the errors so that this season and future seasons would be perfect."

They really did think of everything.

"This is all just my theories, of course. None of this can be proven, but I wouldn't get your hopes up about being rescued," he said.

So the only way to leave this place was to win the game. Great.

I leaned closer to him, reading his comments on the screen. "Why does this one say that your entry was the best. What entry?"

"Remember when you first woke up? How you were stuck in that abandoned room?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Well, how we escaped that room was our entry into the game," he said, clicking away on the keyboard.

Clicking on the Battle of the Killers app, a homepage appeared, and he clicked on the directory at the bottom of the page. Pictures of every contestant showed up in a list.

Clicking on his own picture, a bio showed up, along with a video. He fast-forwarded the video, but I saw that it started off with him waking up in an abandoned room like me.

A deja vu feeling entered me when he picked up a red book bag in the video, but instead of getting the gifts I got, he pulled out a flash drive and a beautiful exotic flower. He stared at the beautiful flower for like ten minutes before he walked over to the locked door, crumbling the flower in his hand.

The door in my room had been old and raggedy, but his was chrome-metal and lit up like a neon chessboard. A ten-minute timer was displayed in the corner.

"I had to hack the door open," he said as I watched him play dance dance revolution with his hands and feet on the neon door until all the color aligned, and the door swung open. It looked hella fun, but I couldn't understand how he completed it in under two minutes.

"How did you do that so fast? It would've took me two minutes to just figure out how the game worked."

"I created it," he said, leaning back in his chair. "With an old friend a long time ago. It was our secret project. I already knew the mechanics of the game. I just needed to figure out the algorithm of the colors and numbers, which was the easy part."

Doesn't sound easy.

"If it was so secret, how'd they create the same game then?" I asked.

"That's the big question, isn't it? How do they know so much about us? Our secrets, our pasts..." he trailed off before shrugging.

Clicking off his page, he went to mine. A detailed blurb of me popped up, along with a video of my glorious fire escape.

"Your entry was a favorite too," he said, clicking on my video. "People couldn't believe that you set the whole door on fire instead of just burning the lock or something."

I watched the video, seeing myself charge through the door like a fearless maniac. "Guess I really didn't think it through at the time."

"It worked. And the fans voted for you to stay."

"Fans," I said, shaking my head.

"You should try talking to them," he said before leaning in to whisper in my ear. "You could learn something beneficial."

"I don't know."

He paused before speaking. "This is a game. And it's not just about challenges. They wouldn't have added this social aspect to the game without a reason. Fans voted before, and they'll probably do it again. You need these people on your side. Over Gmie. Over Demo and over everyone else. If you want to win — to leave this place, you need to play the game. All aspects of it."

I never thought about it like that before. Why would they have us interact and do social things with the viewers without a purpose? They wouldn't. It was another way for us to compete with each other. And I was utterly failing in that category.

I tried to use my arm to reposition myself on the desk, but a sharp pain went up my arm, making me stumble, but I caught myself.

"You need to take a painkiller and rest," he said, clicking off his computer before getting up.

My eyes glanced down at my bloodied clothing and then to his. "Umm, I don't want to mess up your bed."

"Take a shower." He went over to the dresser again, grabbing me a towel, a new pair of boxers in the packaging and a long tee.

"Thank you," I said, grabbing the stuff from him.

"The bandages are waterproof, so don't worry about getting them wet," he said.

I hurried into the bathroom, closing it behind me. My back leaned against the closed door, sliding down it until I plopped onto the cold floor.

If you would've told me that I would be in Khan's bathroom about to wear his clothes, I would've smacked you silly.

I stared around the bathroom, still not believing I was here. Khan's room. About to use his shower — his soap.

His was a nice guy, but was it real? So far, Khan's been all quiet and mysterious, but not now. Not with me. But hey, being in this place was making me slip too, making me show my true self.

But this was a game. Was he just buttering me up? Making me trust him so that he could stab me in the back later? Like when I walked through that door?

♟♙♟