Michelle Maddox - Countdown

I felt the color drain from my face and I glanced at Rogan.

'That's not true," I said.

His expression was guarded. "All of it or most of it?"

"Most."

The camera then whirred over to block Rogan's path.

"Rogan Ellis, twenty-nine years old, was convicted of three counts of rape and nine counts of first-degree murder in what was to be known as the Dormitory Murders. After his one-night rampage that left nine female university students dead, he was sent to Saradone Maximum-Security Prison over four years ago, narrowly escaping the death penalty with a last minute plea of insanity."

Rogan glanced at me with an unfamiliar expression playing across his face, but I'd gone cold and silent.

"That's not true, either," he said, his voice dull and suddenly void of emotion.

"All or most of it?" I asked shakily.

"Most."

Rape and murder. Was that really what the voice said?

I felt ill. I felt like dropping to my knees on the cold, hard pavement and puking, but I knew there was nothing in my stomach to throw up. It was one thing to imagine what he was really guilty of, but another to have it sent across the airwaves directly into my brain.

He was horrible. He was a monster, like the man who'd murdered my family.

And if I didn't stay with him I was going to die.

The thought made me even sicker than I already felt.

Touch him, a small voice in my mind told me. Why would you believe what they say? They totally exaggerated who you are. Maybe they're lying. Maybe he didn't do it. He just told you most of it wasn't true.

Why? Because he had nice eyes? Because he was vaguely charming and injured and I wanted us both to make it out of this alive? Because, despite my brain telling me to run as far away from this freak as I could, something else was telling me that there was more to the story?

Yeah, something like that.

"Tell us, Rogan Ellis, do you feel any remorse for what you've done? And now do you feel your sociopathic tendencies will serve you in The Countdown, especially now that you 're teamed with Kira - a woman who lost her own family to a brutal murderer?"

I tried to catch his eye, but now he wouldn't look at me, instead staring daggers at the camera, refusing to answer any of the get-to-know-you questions the voice was asking on behalf of the subscribing audience.

Rape and murder.

No. My gut was telling me there was more to him. I always depended on my gut to help me discern the real from the bullshit. It rarely failed me, but this? This was too much.

"Five minutes now remain in this level of The Countdown."

The update was like a slap in the face.

There was no time to think about anything. Only time to run.

I grabbed Rogan's shirt again. "We have to get going. Fast."

The camera moved to block our way and I swatted it with the back of my hand.

"We're not far," Rogan said.

"We better not be."

"What…" His brow furrowed. "What the voice said back there about me-"

"Forget it"

I saw him moisten his lips with the tip of his tongue as we hurried along the sidewalk. "I just want you to know-"

"Let's get one thing straight. I don't give a damn who you are or what you did. I just want to live. And if it means that I have to put up with a piece of shit like you then that's exactly what I'll do."

"I understand."

"And one more thing." I squeezed his shoulder hard, under the collar of his shirt just above his wound, and he let out a small gasp of pain. "You try anything or you even look at me funny? And I swear to God I'll kill you, myself."

He nodded with a stiff motion of his head. "Sounds fair enough."

I pulled my hand away from him, wiping off the bit of his blood I'd gotten on myself and ignoring the mild flash of pain in my head. I'd touched him. Touched his skin. I'd concentrated as best as I could, considering the situation I currently found myself in …

… and I'd flexed my mind.

I hadn't gotten very much at all, and what I did get was very jumbled and unclear. Just a brief flash of insight into the mind of Rogan Ellis.

I knew my gut had been right. There was more to Rogan's story. Much more. But right now there was no time to figure it out.

If we didn't hurry up, in less than five minutes we were going to die.

"How much farther?" I took a quick look over my shoulder to see that Rogan was well behind me, probably twenty feet. I ran fast. Currently he didn't. Since I couldn't let him lag too far behind at risk of death-thanks to the implants from hell-it was proving to be a problem.

His already strained face creased into a deeper frown. He stopped walking and looked around the gray, deserted street.

"We should almost be there," was his final proclamation.

"We better be," I muttered. "Which way?"

'Take a left up there."

I took the left along the street up ahead. None of it looked familiar to me. All I knew was that the area we were now in looked like it was recovering from a nuclear bomb attack. The buildings were mostly rubble, crumbling like old ruins. It was deserted; there was no one around- unless you counted the silver camera ball whizzing around that I already hated enough to fantasize smashing into a million little pieces.

I'd even taken a swipe at it a minute ago when it got too close. Damn thing was faster than it looked-and it looked pretty damn fast. Another thing I'd never seen before in my life. A flying camera?

This whole situation was so bizarre I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was actually happening to me. But it was. If my heart weren't pounding so hard it hurt and I hadn't experienced stress and pain enough to fill up five lifetimes already, I would swear that I was dreaming.

"Shit."

I looked back at him. "What now?"

He was staring around the dead-end alley we'd just walked into. "It's not supposed to be like this."

"Like what?" I couldn't hide the hard edge of panic in my voice. "And hurry up, because we're almost out of time."

As if in reply, the voice in my head announced, "There are two minutes remaining in this level of The Countdown."

Rogan brought a hand up to his wound and visibly swayed on his feet. I ran to his side before he keeled over.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"I heard it."

"So?"

"I could have sworn this was the right turn. I know this neighborhood. At least, I used to know it. It's been four years. Things change. I can't… I can't figure out…" His dark brows drew together.

I was now bracing his full weight against me to keep him from toppling over. "Yeah, you're a whole hell of a lot of help."

"I guess we won't be winning the grand prize, will we?" He said it so wryly that I knew he was joking.

Joking. At a time like this? The guy was crazier than he looked.

He was very pale, and there was a sheen of perspiration on his grimy face. My hand was on his chest to hold him steady, and I could feel his heart beating fast and erratically. I pulled at his shirt to take a quick look at the wound underneath. It looked raw and open, as if it had been inflicted with a sharp object, like a big butcher knife. Definitely not a bullet wound. I'd seen those up close and personal before, unfortunately. Blood oozed steadily out of his shoulder.

"You're a mess," I informed him.

'Tell me something I don't know."

"You stink, too."

"Again, well aware. Like I said, they didn't give me a few hours at the spa before locking me up in that room so I could smell like a flower for you, sweetheart."

My throat thickened with panic. "You really think this is where we should be? Are you sure?"

"I was. But there aren't any doors. There's nothing. And if we'd already reached the finish line you'd think there'd be some sort of indication." His words finally betrayed an edge of strain.