Crowed (Team Zero #2) - Rina Kent Page 0,14

barely noticeable to the likes of me.

A different type of pain, however, is digging its way to my head. Soon, I’ll be worse than a paralysed person, so I need to do this fast.

After throwing my T-shirt on the chair, I sit on the bed and dial Paul. He was my contact when I came to France. His only job was to get me into the country, and therefore, he had no idea about my mission. However, I’m hoping he has some clue about the traitor.

Voicemail.

Again.

Fuck.

I’ll have to visit him in the slums. If he has anything to do with this, I’ll bestow him with the Joker card.

The card is Team Zero’s tradition. Whenever one of us wants to play with a target, they’d place a Joker card on said target. Whoever retrieves the card is the winner and gets to play with the target whichever way they like.

If Paul is involved with the traitor, I’ll glue a fucking card to his forehead.

A throb starts at the back of my head and shoots to the front with a crippling force. I groan, gritting my teeth. I use the antique bedpost to stagger to my feet.

Lying around always makes the symptoms worse.

A gutting pain snaps in my chest, and it’s a lot a worse than being shot. Or attacked by a fucking axe.

I jerk back against something wooden. Drawers open at the force of my fall. Pictures and books scatter on the ground.

Unable to stop the pain, I follow them. My body splays on the hard wooden flooring, covered by a thin carpet. Sweat drips from my forehead, and a full body shake takes hold of me.

My fingers spasm. This is bad. It could mean a seizure is about to follow.

My blurry, disoriented vision falls on the duffel bag. On Omega. My salvation and my fucking damnation. One shot and all this will be over. No more suffering on a daily basis.

I’m dying anyway, so who cares if Omega does it or an enemy’s bullet?

But then, the thoughts that stopped me from taking the shots this entire month stab my head.

One shot and I’ll be a mindless machine, only designed to kill.

One shot and I will start forgetting who the fuck I am in my blind search for blood.

One shot and I will become the type of person who only felt alive when taking lives.

Not anymore.

I hold my head, focusing on the washed-out carpet. It takes every particle of energy to drag my body into a sitting position, back against the bed. This is a better alternative than lying down.

A few more minutes and the symptoms will be gone. At least the seizure will. The pain is a lot less intense than when I first stopped taking the shots. Besides, the bullet wound is meddling with my pain receptors. This is worse than it’s supposed to be.

My gaze falls on the scattered pictures on the floor. My lips part. The excruciating pain almost filters to the background.

Almost.

A child version of Nurse Betty — or Eloise, or whatever the fuck her name is — holds an older man’s hand and smiles big at the camera. The man isn’t her grandfather. Oh. Abso-fucking-lutely not.

I wouldn’t forget that face even if it meant my death.

That man, the one smiling down at Eloise, like he has a fucking heart, is one of the founders of The Pit. The man who injected us with Omega until most of Team Zero died.

Doctor fucking Johnson.

Now, I have his daughter under my mercy.

Eloise

A loud thud pulls me from sleep. Or a mimicking of sleep; the phase where my eyes are closed but I still sense and hear everything around me.

I sit up in bed and hug Charlotte’s chubby body to my chest. She whines but continues her slumber as if nothing has happened.

My attention drifts to the ceiling as if it can magically become see-through.

Whatever I did today was such a bad idea. Who the hell rents their house to their potential killer?

I don’t even know his name.

But Papa’s house is at stake. I can’t just let that man destroy it. Judging from how he escaped from the hospital while practically delirious with fever, I have no doubt that he’ll fulfil his threat.

I don’t want to find out.

Besides, what do I have to lose?

He already paid me. I can start clearing my debts. If he changes his mind and kills me, then so be it. It’s not like I have any reason to cling to life aside from Papa’s