CHAPTER 2

Kaitlyn woke to the sound of someone screaming.

Her eyes snapped open, her body jerking upright before her mind had fully processed where she was. The floor beneath her was hard, cold concrete. Her neck ached from sleeping at an awkward angle, and her mouth tasted like copper and fear.

The screaming continued—high-pitched, ragged, the sound of someone whose sanity was fraying at the edges.

She scrambled to her feet, her vision swimming as the events of the previous night came flooding back. The mall. The game. The app. Charity's head smashing against the wall over and over until—

"Make it stop!" The voice belonged to Savannah, who was curled in a ball near one of the boarded windows, hands pressed over her ears. "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop—"

"Savannah." Marley was kneeling beside her, one hand on her shoulder. "Savannah, it's okay. It's morning. It's over."

"It's not over!" Savannah's eyes were wild, unfocused. "She's still doing it! I can still hear it! The sound—"

"That was last night," Marley said gently, though her own voice shook. "Charity's... Charity's gone."

Kaitlyn looked around the foyer. The group had scattered during the night, finding whatever spaces they could to sleep—or try to sleep. Most looked like they hadn't managed much rest. Travis was sitting with his back against a pillar, his face gray and drawn. Samantha had dark circles under her eyes. Lexus was pacing near the entrance, her movements jerky and agitated.

The body was gone.

Kaitlyn's stomach lurched. She'd passed out before seeing what happened to Charity's corpse, but now there was just a dark stain on the wall where her head had struck, and a smear of dried blood trailing across the floor toward—

"We moved her," Samuel said quietly. He was standing near the convenience store entrance, arms crossed. "Couldn't just... leave her there."

"Where?" Kaitlyn's voice came out hoarse.

"Storage room in the back. We found some tarps." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Jesus Christ. I can't believe we're having this conversation."

Kaitlyn's phone chimed.

The sound cut through the space like a gunshot, and everyone froze. Around the foyer, phones began lighting up simultaneously, that now-familiar black screen with white text appearing on every device.

GOOD MORNING, PLAYERS.

"Oh God," Travis whispered. "Oh God, here we go again."

DURING THE NIGHT, THE POLICE HAVE EXERCISED THEIR POWERS.

Kaitlyn felt her heart hammering against her ribs. The police. That was one of the roles the game had mentioned. Someone in this group had the ability to—what? Investigate? Protect?

She looked around at the faces surrounding her, trying to read expressions, searching for any hint of who might be the police. But everyone looked equally terrified, equally confused.

THE MOBSTERS HAVE EXECUTED TAMIKA STRADER.

The name hung in the air for a moment before the reality of it crashed down.

"No," Ricky said. "No, that's not—Tamika!"

He was already moving, running toward the bathrooms where Tamika had gone the night before, saying she needed space, needed to think. Others followed—Kaitlyn found herself swept along in the surge of bodies, her legs moving on autopilot.

The women's bathroom was at the far end of the main corridor, its door hanging slightly ajar. Ricky pushed it open, and the smell hit them immediately.

Blood. Copper and iron and something else, something organic and wrong.

"Don't," Samuel said, grabbing Ricky's arm. "Don't go in there. Let me—"

But Ricky had already stepped inside.

His scream was immediate, visceral, the sound of someone confronting a nightmare made real.

Kaitlyn pushed forward, needing to see, needing to know. Samuel tried to block her, but she ducked under his arm and stepped into the bathroom.

Tamika was in the last stall.

She sat on the toilet, fully clothed, her head tilted back against the wall. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. Her throat had been cut—a single, deep slash that had opened her neck from ear to ear. Blood had poured down the front of her shirt, soaking the fabric, pooling on the floor around her feet.

But what made Kaitlyn's stomach heave was the warmth.

The body was still warm. She could see steam rising faintly from the blood, could smell the fresh copper scent that meant this had happened recently. Very recently.

"She's still warm," Samantha said from behind her, his voice barely above a whisper. "That means—"

"That means whoever did this was here while we were sleeping," Crystal finished. She'd appeared in the doorway, her face pale but her voice steady. "The mobsters were moving around while we were unconscious."

"How?" Lexus demanded. "How did we not hear anything? How did no one wake up?"

"The game," Kasey said. She was standing at the back of the group, her expression thoughtful. "Remember how we all passed out at the same time last night? After Charity died? I think the game forces us to sleep. Keeps us unconscious during the night phase so the mobsters can do their work."

"That's insane," Travis said. But he didn't sound like he disbelieved it. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself it couldn't be true.

Kaitlyn forced herself to look away from Tamika's body. "We need to get out of here. We need to—"

"Need to what?" Sev's voice cut through the group. He was leaning against the bathroom doorframe, his expression dark. "There's nowhere to go. We're trapped."

"We don't know that," Kaitlyn said. "We haven't explored the whole perimeter. There might be a way—"

"There's no way out." Sev pushed off the doorframe and stalked toward her. "You saw what happened to Peter. The boundary kills anyone who crosses it. We're stuck here until this game ends."

"Then we end it," Kaitlyn said, meeting his gaze. "We figure out who the mobsters are and we vote them out."

"And how many people die before we figure it out?" Sev gestured toward the bathroom stall. "Tamika's dead. Charity's dead. Peter's dead. Siobhan's dead. Four people in less than twenty-four hours. At this rate, we'll all be corpses before we identify a single mobster."

"Not if we work together," Marley said. She'd joined the group, her face set with determination. "Not if we share information and actually try to solve this instead of turning on each other."

Sev laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "Share information? You want to trust these people? Any one of them could be a mobster. Any one of them could have slit Tamika's throat while we were sleeping."

"The game said mobsters," Crystal interjected. "Plural. There's more than one."

"Great. So multiple people here are murderers. That makes me feel so much better."

"Fighting isn't going to help," Samuel said. His voice was quiet but firm. "Sev's right that we can't trust everyone. But Marley's also right that we need to work together. We're not going to survive this if we tear each other apart."

"Some of us aren't going to survive this anyway," Charlotte said. She'd been silent until now, watching the argument with cool detachment. "That's the point of the game. People die until only one side is left. The sooner everyone accepts that, the better."

Kaitlyn felt a chill run down her spine. There was something in Charlotte's tone—not quite satisfaction, but close. As if she'd already accepted the violence, already made peace with the idea of people dying.

Or maybe she's one of them, a voice whispered in the back of Kaitlyn's mind. Maybe she's a mobster and this is all just a game to her.

She pushed the thought away. Paranoia wouldn't help. Suspicion without evidence would just lead to more deaths like Siobhan's—innocent people voted out because of fear and guesswork.

"We should move the body," Samantha said quietly. "Put her with Charity. It's not... it's not respectful to leave her like this."

"I'll do it," Samuel volunteered. He looked at Marley. "You don't have to—"

"I'll help," she said firmly. "We do this together."

As they moved to handle Tamika's body, Kaitlyn stepped out of the bathroom, needing air, needing space. The corridor felt too narrow, too confining. The walls seemed to press in on all sides.

She found herself walking toward the main entrance, drawn by the promise of open space, of sky visible through the gaps in the boarded windows.

Peter's body was still visible in the parking lot.

He lay face-down on the pavement, maybe fifty yards beyond the white line. From this distance, he looked almost peaceful, like he'd simply decided to take a nap on the asphalt. But Kaitlyn knew better. She'd seen him collapse, seen the way his body had simply shut down the moment he crossed the boundary.

"Thinking about making a run for it?"

Kaitlyn turned to find Kasey standing behind her, hands in her pockets, expression unreadable.

"No," Kaitlyn said. "Just... trying to process."

"It's a lot to process." Kasey moved to stand beside her, looking out at Peter's body. "Four deaths in one night. That's more than most people see in a lifetime."

"You sound very calm about it."

"Would panicking help?"

"No, but—" Kaitlyn struggled to find the words. "Doesn't it bother you? Tamika was alive yesterday. She was talking, laughing, playing that Mafia game on the bus. Now she's dead because someone cut her throat while she sat in a bathroom stall."

"Of course it bothers me," Kasey said, but her tone was still that same measured calm. "But being bothered doesn't change anything. Tamika's dead. Charity's dead. Peter and Siobhan are dead. We can't bring them back. All we can do is try to make sure we're not next."

"By voting out mobsters."

"By voting out mobsters," Kasey agreed. "Or by refusing to play and seeing what happens."

Kaitlyn looked at her sharply. "You think we should try the no-vote strategy again?"

"I think we should consider all our options. Last night, we voted and an innocent person died. Maybe if we don't vote, no one dies."

"Or maybe the mobsters just keep killing people every night until there's no one left."

"Maybe." Kasey tilted her head, studying Kaitlyn with those sharp, intelligent eyes. "But we don't know that. We don't know the rules well enough yet. We're making decisions based on incomplete information."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we learn more. Explore the mall. Test the boundaries—carefully. Figure out exactly what we're dealing with before we start making life-and-death decisions."

It was logical. Reasonable. Exactly the kind of thing Kaitlyn herself would have suggested.

So why did it make her uneasy?

Before she could respond, a commotion erupted from deeper in the mall. Shouting, the sound of running feet.

Kaitlyn and Kasey exchanged a glance, then hurried toward the noise.

They found a cluster of people gathered near the base of the main staircase. Peter Vaughn—no, not Peter, he was dead—it was Ricky, his face flushed with panic.

"He's going to do it," Ricky was saying. "He's actually going to do it!"

"Who?" Kaitlyn demanded. "Who's going to do what?"

"Peter!" Ricky pointed toward the entrance. "He's—wait, no, not Peter. Peter's dead. I mean—" He shook his head, trying to clear it. "There's someone at the boundary. They're going to try to cross."

Kaitlyn's blood ran cold. She sprinted for the entrance, Kasey close behind.

Outside, a figure was walking across the parking lot with determined strides. As Kaitlyn burst through the doors, she recognized him: it was one of the quieter members of the group, someone who'd barely spoken since they arrived. She struggled to remember his name—

"Stop!" she shouted. "Don't cross the line!"

The figure didn't slow down. He was maybe thirty yards from the white boundary now, walking with the steady pace of someone who'd made up their mind.

"Please!" Marley's voice joined hers. "Please, you saw what happened to Peter!"

"I saw a trick!" the man shouted back. He still didn't stop walking. "I saw special effects and bullshit! This whole thing is fake! It has to be fake!"

"It's not fake," Kasey called out. Her voice was calm, almost gentle. "You know it's not fake. You saw Tamika's body. You saw Charity die."

"Actors!" He was twenty yards from the line now. "This is all some kind of sick reality show! They're trying to scare us, but I'm not falling for it!"

"Even if you're right," Kaitlyn said desperately, "even if this is all fake—why risk it? Why not wait and see?"

"Because I'm not playing their game!" Fifteen yards. "I'm not voting to kill people! I'm not participating in this nightmare!"

"Then don't participate," Samuel said. He'd come outside with the others, his voice urgent. "Stay here, refuse to vote, but don't cross that line!"

Ten yards.

The man—Kaitlyn suddenly remembered his name was Marcus, though she didn't recall seeing him on the initial roster—was almost running now, his pace increasing as he approached the boundary.

"It's fake," he was muttering, more to himself than to them. "It's all fake. It has to be fake. It has to be—"

Five yards.

"STOP!" Multiple voices screamed in unison.

Marcus stepped over the white line.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. He took another step, then another, and Kaitlyn felt a wild surge of hope—maybe he was right, maybe it was all fake, maybe they could just walk away—

Marcus collapsed.

It was exactly like Peter. One moment he was upright and moving, the next he was face-down on the pavement, motionless.

The woman's voice echoed across the parking lot, emanating from speakers hidden somewhere in the mall's exterior.

"Marcus Chen has left the game play area and has been executed. Marcus Chen was a Civilian."

Silence.

Then Savannah started screaming again.

They didn't retrieve Marcus's body. No one wanted to risk getting close to the boundary, and besides, what was the point? He was dead. Adding his corpse to the growing collection in the storage room wouldn't change that.

Kaitlyn sat in the main foyer, her back against a pillar, watching the group fracture into smaller clusters. Some were crying. Others sat in stunned silence. A few were arguing in low, tense voices about what to do next.

Travis approached her, his hands shaking as he clutched his phone.

"I need to tell you something," he said quietly.

Kaitlyn looked up at him. "What?"

He glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear. "My role. The app assigned me a role."

"We all got roles," Kaitlyn said. "I'm a Civilian."

"I'm the Doctor."

Kaitlyn's breath caught. The Doctor. That was one of the special roles the game had mentioned. "What does that mean? What can you do?"

"I don't know yet. The app just says I'm the Doctor and that I'll receive instructions when the time is right." He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wild. "What if I'm supposed to save people? What if I could have saved Tamika or Charity or—"

"You couldn't have saved them," Kaitlyn said firmly. "Charity died from the game's compulsion. Tamika was killed while we were all unconscious. There was nothing you could have done."

"But what if there is something I can do? What if I have some power that could help and I'm just not using it right?"

"Then the game will tell you. That's how these things work, right? The roles have specific abilities that activate under specific conditions."

Travis didn't look reassured. "I shouldn't have told you. The rules said not to disclose our roles."

"I won't tell anyone," Kaitlyn promised. "But Travis—if you do have an ability, if there is something you can do to help people—you need to be ready to use it."

He nodded, but she could see the fear in his eyes. The weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders like a physical thing.

After he walked away, Kaitlyn pulled out her own phone and stared at the app. The black screen with white text seemed to mock her.

CIVILIAN

No special powers. No abilities. Just a target waiting to be eliminated.

She navigated through the app's menus, looking for any information she might have missed. There were tabs for RULES, ROLES, VOTING, and STATUS.

She tapped STATUS.

A list appeared, showing all the players and their current state:

ALIVE: 16

DEAD: 4

Below that, the names of the deceased were listed:

Charity McLeod - Civilian - Executed (Voted)

Siobhan - Civilian - Voted

Peter Vaughn - Civilian - Executed (Boundary Violation)

Tamika Strader - Civilian - Executed (Mobster Kill)

Marcus Chen - Civilian - Executed (Boundary Violation)

Five deaths. They'd lost five people in less than twenty-four hours.

At this rate, they'd all be dead within a week.

"I'm going to the roof."

Crystal's voice cut through the murmur of conversation. She was standing near the staircase, her expression determined.

"Why?" Sev asked.

"Because I want to see the perimeter from above. Get a sense of how big the play area is, whether there are any weak points in the boundary."

"The boundary kills anyone who crosses it," Sev said. "There are no weak points."

"You don't know that. None of us know that. We've seen two people die from crossing it, but we don't know the mechanism. Maybe there's a way to disable it. Maybe there's a gap somewhere."

"And if there isn't?"

"Then at least we'll know." Crystal looked around the group. "Anyone want to come with me?"

Kasey stood. "I'll go."

"Me too," Jace said. He'd been quiet since the previous night, sitting apart from the others, but now he moved to join Crystal and Kasey.

"I'll come," Sean added.

The four of them headed for the stairs, and Kaitlyn watched them go with a mixture of envy and relief. Envy because they were doing something, taking action instead of just sitting around waiting for the next death. Relief because she didn't have to be the one to do it.

Coward, she thought. You're a coward.

But she didn't follow them.

Instead, she found herself drawn to the convenience store that Savannah had mentioned. The door was propped open with a broken piece of concrete, and inside, the shelves were still partially stocked.

Most of the food was expired—years past its sell-by date—but some of it looked salvageable. Canned goods, bottled water, packages of crackers and chips that were probably stale but edible.

Charlotte was already there, examining the shelves with a critical eye.

"Finding anything good?" Kaitlyn asked.

Charlotte glanced at her. "Depends on your definition of good. There's food, but most of it's garbage. We're not going to starve immediately, but we're not exactly living in luxury either."

She moved toward the back of the store, and Kaitlyn followed. Behind the counter, there was a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Charlotte pushed it open, revealing a storage area with more shelves and, in the far corner, a large chest freezer.

"This could be useful," Charlotte said, walking over to the freezer and lifting the lid. Cold air wafted out—the thing was still running, powered by whatever electrical system was keeping the lights on in the mall.

"Useful for what?" Kaitlyn asked, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.

"For the bodies." Charlotte's voice was matter-of-fact. "We can't just leave them lying around. They'll rot, attract insects, spread disease. If we store them in here, they'll stay preserved."

The casual way she said it made Kaitlyn's skin crawl. "You're talking about putting people in a freezer."

"I'm talking about basic sanitation. These aren't people anymore, Kaitlyn. They're corpses. And if we don't handle them properly, we're going to have bigger problems than just the game."

She was right. Kaitlyn hated that she was right, but she was.

"Fine," Kaitlyn said. "We'll move them here. But we do it respectfully. We don't just... throw them in like garbage."

"Of course." Charlotte's expression softened slightly. "I'm not a monster. I just think we need to be practical about this situation."

As they left the storage room, Kaitlyn noticed something odd. Charlotte's hands were completely steady. No shaking, no trembling. While everyone else was falling apart, Charlotte seemed almost... calm.

Too calm, Kaitlyn thought. Like she expected this. Like she's been preparing for it.

She filed the observation away, adding it to the growing list of things that didn't quite add up.

On the roof, Crystal stood at the edge and looked out over the perimeter.

The white line was clearly visible from this height, forming a rough circle around the mall with a radius of maybe two hundred yards. Beyond it, the landscape stretched out in all directions—parking lot giving way to scrubland, trees in the distance, and to the east, a road with what looked like a gas station maybe half a mile away.

So close. Freedom was so close.

"There," Jace said, pointing. "That's what Peter was running toward. That gas station."

"He almost made it," Sean said quietly. "If the boundary wasn't there, he would have made it."

"But the boundary is there," Kasey said. "And it's not going away."

Crystal pulled out her phone and opened the app, navigating to the RULES section. She read through them again, looking for any loophole, any exception.

Rule Six: Attempting to leave the designated play area will result in immediate execution. The play area is marked by white painted lines. Do not cross them.

"Immediate execution," she read aloud. "Not 'may result in' or 'could result in.' Immediate. Guaranteed."

"So there's no way out," Jace said.

"Not across the boundary, no." Crystal looked around the roof, examining the structure. "But what about up? What if we could signal someone? Get help from outside?"

"With what?" Sean asked. "We don't have flares or radios or—"

"We have phones," Kasey interrupted. "Even without service, they have flashlights. We could use them to signal. Morse code, maybe."

"To who?" Jace asked. "We're in the middle of nowhere. Who's going to see it?"

"Planes," Crystal said. "Helicopters. Someone flying overhead might notice."

It was a long shot, but it was something. They spent the next twenty minutes experimenting with their phone flashlights, trying to create a pattern that might be visible from the air.

While they worked, Sean wandered toward the edge of the roof, looking out over the perimeter. He was quiet, thoughtful, and Crystal noticed him staring at something in the distance.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"That cliff," Sean said, pointing. "See it? Just beyond the boundary to the north."

Crystal followed his gaze. There was indeed a cliff—a sharp drop-off where the land fell away into what looked like a ravine or valley.

"What about it?"

"I'm wondering how far down it goes. Whether there's a way around the boundary from that direction."

"You're not thinking of—" Crystal started to say.

"No, no," Sean said quickly. "I'm not going to cross the line. I just want to walk the perimeter, see if there are any variations in the boundary. Maybe it's weaker in some spots."

"I'll come with you," Jace offered.

"Me too," Kasey said.

Crystal hesitated. She wanted to keep working on the signal, but she also didn't want them going alone. "Fine. But we stay on this side of the line. No one gets within ten feet of it."

They descended from the roof and made their way outside. The parking lot was vast and empty, the white line a stark contrast against the dark asphalt. They began walking along the perimeter, staying well back from the boundary, examining it for any signs of weakness or variation.

The line was perfectly uniform. Exactly the same width, the same brightness, all the way around.

"It's like it was painted by a machine," Kasey observed. "Too perfect to be done by hand."

"Maybe it was," Jace said. "Maybe whoever set this up used some kind of automated system."

They continued walking, the mall growing smaller behind them as they circled around to the north side. The cliff Sean had spotted from the roof loomed ahead, and as they got closer, Crystal could see how dramatic the drop was. The land simply ended, falling away into a steep ravine maybe fifty feet deep.

"Jesus," Sean breathed. "That's a hell of a drop."

"And the boundary goes right to the edge," Jace noted. The white line ran straight toward the cliff, stopping just at the precipice.

Sean moved closer, peering over the edge. "I wonder if—"

"Don't," Crystal warned. "Don't even think about it."

"I'm just looking," Sean said. But he took another step forward, then another, drawn by curiosity or desperation or some combination of both.

He was maybe five feet from the white line now.

"Sean," Kasey said, her voice sharp. "That's close enough."

"I just want to see if there's a path down," Sean said. "If we could climb down into the ravine, maybe we could get under the boundary—"

"The boundary probably extends vertically too," Crystal said. "It's not worth the risk."

But Sean wasn't listening. He took another step forward, craning his neck to see over the edge of the cliff.

Four feet from the line.

"Sean!" Jace moved toward him. "Come on, man. Back up."

"Just one more—"

Jace reached out, his hand extended to grab Sean's shoulder and pull him back.

But his foot caught on something—a rock, a crack in the ground, Crystal couldn't tell—and he stumbled forward.

His body collided with Sean's.

Sean's arms windmilled, trying to catch his balance, but the momentum was too much. He staggered forward, one foot crossing the white line—

And then he was falling.

Not from the game's execution. From the cliff.

His scream echoed across the ravine as he plummeted down, his body bouncing off the rocky slope before disappearing into the shadows below.

The woman's voice spoke, calm and pleasant as ever.

"Sean Parker has left the game play area and has been executed. Sean Parker was a Civilian."

Crystal stood frozen, her mind struggling to process what she'd just witnessed. One moment Sean had been standing there, alive and talking. The next he was gone, his scream still echoing in her ears.

Jace was on his knees, his face white with shock. "I didn't—I didn't mean to—it was an accident—"

"You pushed him," Crystal heard herself say. The words came out flat, emotionless.

"No! I stumbled! I was trying to pull him back and I tripped and—" Jace looked up at her, his eyes wild. "You have to believe me. It was an accident!"

Kasey was standing very still, her expression unreadable. She was looking at Jace with an intensity that made Crystal's skin prickle.

"We should get back," Kasey said finally. "We need to tell the others what happened."

"What happened is that Sean is dead," Crystal said. "What happened is that Jace pushed him over the boundary."

"I didn't push him!" Jace's voice cracked. "I swear to God, I didn't push him!"

"Then what did you do?"

"I—I stumbled. I lost my balance. It was an accident!"

Crystal wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that this was just a horrible mistake, that Jace wasn't a murderer.

But she'd seen the way he'd moved. The way his hand had extended toward Sean's back. The way Sean had gone over the edge.

It could have been an accident.

Or it could have been murder.

The walk back to the mall was silent and tense. Jace kept trying to explain, to justify, but Crystal wasn't listening. Her mind was racing, trying to piece together what she'd seen, what it meant.

If Jace had pushed Sean deliberately, that meant he was a mobster. It meant he was one of the people killing them off one by one.

But if it was an accident, if he really had just stumbled...

She didn't know. And that uncertainty was almost worse than knowing for sure.

When they reached the mall, the others were waiting in the foyer. Someone must have heard the announcement about Sean's death, because they all looked tense and frightened.

"What happened?" Samuel demanded.

"Sean fell," Jace said quickly. "He got too close to the boundary and he fell off a cliff."

"He didn't fall," Crystal said. "Jace pushed him."

The reaction was immediate. Voices erupted in anger and accusation, people surging toward Jace, demanding answers.

"I didn't push him!" Jace shouted over the noise. "I stumbled! I was trying to pull him back and I lost my balance!"

"Bullshit," Sev said. "You killed him."

"It was an accident!"

"Convenient accident," Charlotte observed. "One less person to compete with."

"I'm not competing with anyone! I'm trying to survive, just like the rest of you!"

Kaitlyn stepped forward, her voice cutting through the chaos. "Did anyone else see what happened?"

"I saw it," Crystal said. "I saw Jace reach toward Sean. I saw Sean go over the edge."

"But did you see him push?" Kaitlyn pressed. "Did you see deliberate force, or could it have been an accident?"

Crystal hesitated. "I... I don't know. It happened so fast."

"I was there too," Kasey said. All eyes turned to her. "I saw Jace stumble. I saw him reach out to catch himself. I saw Sean lose his balance."

"So it was an accident?" Marley asked hopefully.

"I didn't say that," Kasey replied. "I said that's what I saw. Whether it was deliberate or not..." She shrugged. "I can't say for certain."

The group fell into uneasy silence. Without clear evidence, without proof, they couldn't know the truth. And that uncertainty would poison everything going forward.

"We need to be more careful," Kaitlyn said finally. "No one goes near the boundary. No one takes risks. We've lost too many people already."

"Six," Travis said quietly. "We've lost six people. Out of twenty."

"Thirty percent casualties in twenty-four hours," Crystal said. Her analytical mind was already doing the math. "At this rate, we'll all be dead in three days."

"Then we need to change the rate," Samantha said. She'd been quiet until now, but her voice was firm. "We need to figure out who the mobsters are and vote them out before they kill anyone else."

"And how do we do that?" Sev demanded. "We don't have any evidence. We don't have any proof. All we have are suspicions and paranoia."

"We have behavior," Crystal said. "We have patterns. The mobsters have to act during the night phase. They have to coordinate. If we pay attention, if we watch for inconsistencies—"

"If we start watching each other like hawks, we'll tear ourselves apart," Samuel interrupted. "Suspicion breeds suspicion. We'll end up voting out innocent people just because they looked at someone wrong."

"Like Siobhan," Ailyn said softly. She'd been sitting quietly in the corner, but now she spoke up. "We voted for Siobhan and she was innocent. Charity died because of our vote."

The reminder hung heavy in the air.

"So what do we do?" Lexus asked. "Just sit here and wait to die?"

"We survive," Kaitlyn said. "We stay together, we stay alert, and we try to make it through each day. That's all we can do."

It wasn't much of a plan. But it was all they had.

As the afternoon wore into evening, the group settled into an uneasy routine. Some people explored the mall, searching for supplies or anything that might help them escape. Others stayed in the foyer, too afraid to venture far from the group.

Kaitlyn found herself in the convenience store again, helping to inventory the food supplies. It was mindless work, but it gave her something to focus on besides the growing dread in her stomach.

Ailyn joined her, moving quietly among the shelves.

"Can I ask you something?" Ailyn said after a while.

"Sure."

"Do you think we're going to make it out of here?"

Kaitlyn wanted to lie, to offer reassurance, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I hope so. But I don't know."

Ailyn nodded, as if she'd expected that answer. "I keep thinking about my family. My mom, my sister. They're probably wondering where I am. They probably think I'm just on vacation, having fun." Her voice cracked. "They don't know I'm trapped in a nightmare."

"They'll find out," Kaitlyn said. "When we don't come back, when the bus company reports us missing—someone will come looking."

"Will they find us in time?"

Kaitlyn didn't have an answer for that.

They continued working in silence, and Kaitlyn found her mind drifting to her own family. Her parents, her younger brother. What would they think when she didn't come home? Would they assume the worst, or would they hold out hope?

Her phone buzzed.

She pulled it out, expecting another announcement from the game, but instead she saw something odd. The battery indicator showed 100%.

She frowned. She hadn't charged her phone since before they'd arrived at the mall. It should be dead by now, or at least close to it.

"Ailyn," she said slowly. "Check your phone's battery."

Ailyn pulled out her device and looked at the screen. Her eyes widened. "It's at 100%. But I haven't charged it."

"Mine too."

They looked at each other, the implications sinking in.

"The game is keeping them charged," Ailyn whispered. "It's controlling our phones."

Of course it was. The app had installed itself without permission, had taken over their devices completely. Why wouldn't it also control the power supply?

It was just one more reminder that they weren't in control. That every aspect of this nightmare was being orchestrated by someone—or something—they couldn't see or fight.

As darkness fell, the group gathered in the foyer again. No one wanted to sleep, but exhaustion was setting in. Bodies needed rest, even if minds were too terrified to allow it.

Kaitlyn sat with her back against a pillar, watching the others. Travis was pacing, unable to sit still. Sev was glaring at Jace, who sat alone in a corner, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Marley and Samuel huddled together, whispering to each other. Charlotte examined her nails with apparent disinterest.

And Kasey... Kasey was watching everyone. Her eyes moved from person to person, observing, cataloging, analyzing.

She's studying us, Kaitlyn realized. Like we're specimens in an experiment.

The thought should have been disturbing. It was disturbing. But there was something else there too—a sense that Kasey understood the game in a way the rest of them didn't. That she was thinking several steps ahead.

"We should set up a watch," Crystal suggested. "Take shifts staying awake, keeping an eye out."

"For what?" Sev asked. "The game forces us to sleep during the night phase. You saw what happened. We all passed out at the same time."

"We don't know that will happen every night," Crystal countered. "Maybe it only happens during the execution phase. Maybe if we stay alert—"

"We can't stay alert if we're unconscious," Sev interrupted. "Face it, we're helpless. The game controls everything."

"Then what do you suggest?" Crystal's voice was sharp with frustration. "That we just give up?"

"I suggest we accept reality. We're trapped in a death game with no way out. The only way to survive is to identify the mobsters and vote them out before they kill us all."

"And how do we identify them?"

"We watch. We listen. We look for patterns." Sev's gaze swept over the group. "The mobsters have to coordinate somehow. They have to communicate. If we pay attention, we'll catch them."

"Or we'll just become more paranoid and start seeing threats everywhere," Samantha said.

The argument continued, voices rising and falling, but Kaitlyn stopped listening. Her attention had been caught by something else.

Lexus and Melinda were standing near the entrance to one of the corridors, whispering urgently to each other. As Kaitlyn watched, they glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, then slipped away into the darkness.

Kaitlyn hesitated, then stood and followed.

She moved quietly, staying far enough back that they wouldn't notice her but close enough to keep them in sight. They were heading deeper into the mall, away from the main foyer, into areas that hadn't been explored yet.

The corridor grew darker as they moved away from the lanterns. Kaitlyn pulled out her phone and used the flashlight feature, keeping the beam low.

Ahead, she could hear Lexus and Melinda talking.

"—heard it again," Melinda was saying. "I swear, there's something down here."

"It's probably just the building settling," Lexus replied, but she sounded uncertain.

"Buildings don't settle in footsteps."

They'd reached a stairwell leading down. A sign on the wall read LOWER LEVEL - MAINTENANCE.

Lexus pushed open the door and they descended, their footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. Kaitlyn followed, her heart pounding.

The lower level was even more decrepit than the main floor. Water had leaked through the ceiling in places, creating puddles on the concrete floor. The walls were covered in mold and graffiti. The air smelled of damp and decay.

"There," Melinda said, pointing.

In the far corner of the basement, barely visible in the dim light, was a phone mounted on the wall. An old landline, the kind that had been standard in the '90s.

Lexus hurried over to it and lifted the receiver. She pressed it to her ear, her expression hopeful.

Then her face fell. "It's dead. No dial tone."

"Damn it," Melinda breathed.

Lexus hung up the phone and turned—and froze.

"What?" Lexus asked. "What is it?"

"I saw something," Melinda whispered. "Over there. In the shadows."

"It's probably just—"

"No. I saw someone. A person."

Kaitlyn felt her blood run cold. She pressed herself against the wall, trying to stay out of sight.

Lexus pulled out her phone and shone the light in the direction Melinda was pointing. The beam swept across the basement, illuminating empty space, old equipment, stacks of boxes.

Nothing.

"There's no one there," Lexus said.

"I saw them," Melinda insisted. Her voice was rising, panic creeping in. "I saw someone standing right there, watching us."

"Melinda, you're freaking yourself out. There's no one—"

"I know what I saw!"

Lexus grabbed Melinda's arm. "Okay. Okay, let's just get out of here. This place is creepy and we're both on edge."

They hurried back toward the stairs, and Kaitlyn had to duck into a side corridor to avoid being seen. She waited until their footsteps had faded, then emerged and looked around the basement.

Empty. Completely empty.

But as she turned to leave, something caught her eye. On the wall near where Melinda had been pointing, there was a mark. A handprint, dark against the concrete.

Kaitlyn moved closer, shining her light on it.

The handprint was small. Too small to belong to any of the adults in their group. It looked like it had been made by a child.

Or someone with very small hands.

Kaitlyn's skin prickled. She thought about the photo Kasey had mentioned finding—the one with the scratched-out faces and the mysterious girl.

Is someone else here? she wondered. Someone we don't know about?

But that was impossible. The game had announced twenty players. They'd all been on the bus together. There was no one else.

Unless the game had lied.

Kaitlyn took a photo of the handprint with her phone, then hurried back upstairs. Her mind was racing with possibilities, none of them good.

When she reached the foyer, she found the group settling in for the night. People were claiming spaces, spreading out blankets and jackets to sleep on. The lanterns had been dimmed to conserve battery.

Kaitlyn found a spot near Kasey and sat down.

"Where did you go?" Kasey asked quietly.

"Following Lexus and Melinda. They found a phone in the basement, but it was dead."

"Anything else?"

Kaitlyn hesitated, then showed Kasey the photo of the handprint.

Kasey studied it for a long moment, her expression unreadable. "Interesting," she said finally.

"What do you think it means?"

"I think it means we don't know everything about this place." Kasey handed the phone back. "Or about this game."

Before Kaitlyn could respond, her phone chimed.

Around the foyer, every phone lit up simultaneously.

NIGHT PHASE BEGINS IN 10 MINUTES. PREPARE FOR SLEEP.

"Here we go again," Travis muttered.

Kaitlyn looked around at the faces surrounding her. Sixteen people left. Sixteen people who would go to sleep not knowing if they'd wake up.

Sixteen people, and at least two of them were killers.

She lay down, her phone clutched in her hand, and waited for the forced sleep to claim her.

The last thing she saw before darkness took her was Kasey's face, illuminated by the glow of her phone screen, wearing that same calm, analytical expression.

She knows something, Kaitlyn thought. She knows something the rest of us don't.

Then the world went black, and the night phase began.

Eliminated:

Tamika Strader (Civilian) (Executed by mobsters)

Peter Vaughn (Civilian) (Executed for boundary violation)

Sean Parker (Civilian) (Pushed off cliff by Jace)