Their Vicious Games(56)

“Oh?” I ask carefully. “Why is that?”

“You know… before the Ride I asked to add a prize for the one second ranked, because I thought that you’d choose to ride Widow Maker. I didn’t think you’d beat Pen, but everyone else would’ve been in the dust,” Pierce says with a rueful smile. He shakes his head. “Anyone else would have taken Widow Maker out, but you didn’t. You had too much integrity.”

That word again. “Integrity.” He says it now like he’s decided it’s a good thing, not a blow to his ego. He doesn’t know I’ve decided to throw that away, just in a different way.

But I let him believe what he wants to believe about me.

“Why do you want me to win so badly?” I ask with a tiny smile. “You have a girlfriend competing.”

Pierce’s smile drops just a little. He busies himself with buttering his toast again and then seems to decide that he doesn’t want it. He sets it aside and pushes a bowl toward me. An a?ai bowl, the kind you order from a fancy breakfast place, because who makes a?ai bowls at home?

“Our chef made it. She’s gotten quite good at it,” Pierce says, confusing my disbelief for awe. “She knows I really like it.”

“Pierce…,” I start. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“I… I don’t want to,” he says, strangely petulant about it, but he gets past it, realizing how he sounds. “Fine. My aunt Leighton was going to go to community college before she won the Finish. But, when she did win, and my uncle began to court her, his gift to her was a place at Harvard with him. My father did the same for my mother. My father wants Pen there with me. Pen may be great, but no one has asked what I want.”

“He wants her to win,” I say, forcing a smirk and laugh, but it rings false even to my own ears. “Should I start writing my last will and testament then?”

“Don’t even joke,” Pierce warns, looking thoroughly unamused. He sighs to himself, shaking his head. “But, yes. He wants her to win. By any means possible.”

“So, he buys into it, then. The whole ‘there can only be one’ thing?” I ask.

“It’s not just him. It’s how the Finish is designed. You know, the Repartees change, but the events—the Ride, the Raid, the Royale—they never do. They’re exactly as Matilda designed it. And they’re designed so that there can only be one at the end, the most worthy. God, I can see why my mother hated this shit,” Pierce murmurs. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. He feels just a little less shiny now. “It isn’t how I want it, though. What’s happened so far has been… a tragic accident. I’m trying to make sure that there are no more.”

Accidents again. At least two of those deaths weren’t accidents.

“But you just said they were designed to do this,” I say. “How are you trying?”

“Giving you all training, for one. That was never a thing,” Pierce says earnestly. “And… broadening the circle of girls to include people who weren’t raised planning to kill each other. My brother came up with that one.”

My heart sinks. Neither of those plans has made any difference, but Pierce doesn’t seem to see the flaw in his brother’s glorious logic, instead turning back to the subject of Pen.

“My father thinks he can stop us changing it and choose the winner because he’s head of the family. But these things evolve, and it’s my life. I picked you,” Pierce says with a small smile. He looks down at his plate. “You were a decision I made on my own. Unlike Pen.” His smile drops again.

It’s in this moment that I realize that Pierce actually takes this seriously. That he sees me as a potential wife. My fingers curl into fists in my lap, nails cutting into the soft flesh of my palm. The sting grounds me. “So, what about Penthesilea attending Harvard bothers you that doesn’t bother you about me?”

It’s easier for me to frame it this way—confronting a future, not a marriage.

Pierce’s eyes widen and he looks out the window, his lower lip jutting just the slightest bit. “I’m not bothered.”

“You clearly are,” I snort. “So, is the issue her or your father?”

Pierce huffs dramatically. “I’ve never wanted to be part of that couple coming out of high school. The couple that goes to college together, that never grows outside of their partner.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“I told her that they’re holding a spot at Harvard and it’s not meant for her but for the winner. I broke up with her so the competition would be fair, and she responded quite reactively to that.” With each word, his voice sounds different, more distorted by a frustration that seems far too large for a petty argument between a former couple. All my pretend amusement drains from me. And then Pierce seems to realize how he sounds. He takes a deep breath, and suddenly, he looks kind again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get into this with you.”

“Why?” I say quietly.

“I told you. I want it to be you,” he says with a small smile. “You’re not fake like the other girls. You like me. And you’re not… overwhelming like Pen is. I feel like she’s always smothering me. Keeping me small.”

His cockiness, assuming he knows what I like, is rich, but for the first time, I have the odd thought that maybe we aren’t so different. I know what it is to feel small. But then I look at this house. This place, and I can’t imagine feeling small in a place where you can stretch out and be enormous. Still, true or not, it’s a victory.