Ruaan stood with everyone else on the field and scanned the faces of every officer around the edge.
No Harolin.
He checked again.
Still no Harolin.
He exhaled slowly and muttered under his breath. "Of course. After last night, he's not even going to show his face."
He didn't know if that was good or bad.
Then the speaker crackled.
"Silence!!!"
Everyone froze.
Ruaan froze.
He knew that voice. He knew that low, even and completely unbothered damned voice.
Harolin.
So he was here after all. Just not where Ruaan could see him.
'Of course.'
The voice from the speaker continued, welcoming everyone to what it called their doom, and the way it said it — like it wasn't even a joke — made several people around Ruaan go very still.
Ruaan's eyes moved across the field. Every rank was here. Grey uniforms packed together in one corner, dark blue spread out in the middle, black uniforms near the far edge. And right there, easy to spot, standing as he'd already won — Cullen Ray in full black, two of his men behind him.
And behind them, Finn.
Finn looked like he hadn't slept, or eaten, or existed properly in several days. He stood a step behind Cullen with his eyes on the ground and his arms at his sides and nothing on his face.
Ruaan looked away.
Harolin's voice came through the speaker again, steady and clear.
"Today's game is called Button Hunt. Every man in this field has to draw a button. There are three colours."
A pause. Like he was letting it land.
"Grey — you are a target. Hide your button. Do not let anyone see it or take it. If someone exposes your button, you are out."
"Black — you are a hunter. Find the grey buttons. Use whatever means necessary."
"Black and white — you are neutral. Nobody can touch you. But anyone can overpower you and take your button by force if they want it."
Another pause.
"If you are grey and you find another grey button before someone finds yours, you are safe. They take your place."
"The first ten grey buttons exposed lose. Those ten will face punishment."
"You have one hour."
He let that sit for exactly two seconds.
"And most especially, NO RULES."
.
The big guys cracked their knuckles. Ruaan heard at least three people near him make small, involuntary sounds of fear. He understood the impulse. He kept his face neutral and told his hands to stop doing what they were doing.
They didn't listen.
.
.
Twenty officers spread across the field, each one holding a wooden box. One hole at the top. Hand goes in. The button comes out.
Nobody looked at their button after they drew it.
That was the thing. You couldn't. The moment you showed your button, it was over. So everyone walked away from the boxes with their fists closed and their faces arranged into whatever expression said 'I am not worried about what is in my hand.'
Ruaan was extremely worried about what was in his hand.
He joined the line for the nearest box, reached in, felt around, closed his fingers around something small and smooth and round, pulled it out, and kept his fist closed.
He stepped back.
He did not look down.
Around him, people were doing the same thing — blank faces, closed hands, everybody pretending very hard.
Then Cullen Ray stepped forward.
He didn't even try to be subtle about it. He reached into his box, pulled out his button, and held it up in plain sight for the entire field to see.
Black and white.
Neutral.
The sound that went through the crowd was half gasp, half groan. Someone near Ruaan said a word that wasn't appropriate for any occasion.
Cullen smiled. Wide and slow. He looked at the field, as if everything he wanted already belonged to him.
His men behind him relaxed. Finn stayed exactly where he was, eyes still down.
'First place again,' Ruaan thought. 'Before the game even started.'
He watched Finn for a second. The way he was standing. The way he'd dropped to his knees near Cullen, saying something Ruaan couldn't hear from this distance, begging for something.
His stomach turned.
'That's not going to be me,' he thought. 'Whatever happens today. That is not going to be me.'
.
.
The buzzer went off.
Ruaan's legs did not move.
Everyone around him exploded into motion — grey uniforms bolting in every direction, dark blues going after them, the field turning into something loud and fast and ugly within seconds.
Ruaan stood there.
He could not move.
His whole body had decided without him. His legs were shaking — shaking from ten laps the day before — and underneath that was something else. Something colder. His hand was sweating around the button in his fist. He didn't even know what colour it was. He couldn't check. He couldn't move. He couldn't do anything except stand there and watch Blackmere show him exactly what it was. He gritted his teeth and told his legs to go and as he cursed Harolin with every single step.
'Ten laps,' he thought. 'He knew. He made me run ten laps yesterday specifically because of this.'
And it was bad.
Fifteen metres away, a dark blue had a grey uniform face down in the dirt, one knee pressed between the man's shoulder blades, wrenching his hand open finger by finger. The grey uniform was screaming. Nobody stopped or looked. The button rolled out and the dark blue held it up and stood up and walked away like it was nothing.
Near the wall, two dark blues had cornered a single grey. He had his back against the concrete, hands behind him, shaking his head. One of them hit him anyway. Then again. Then held his fist open.
Grey button.
Done.
Someone ran past Ruaan so fast the air moved. Three seconds later he heard the crash of a body hitting the ground somewhere behind him and didn't turn to look.
'This is what Blackmere is,' he thought. 'This is what it actually is.'
He was sweating. He could feel it at his collar, at the back of his neck, running cold down his spine. His legs were still shaking. His brain was telling him to move and his legs were saying absolutely not and together they were achieving nothing while the field turned into something he didn't have a clean word for.
He could not make it to the bottom ten.
He knew what the bottom ten meant. He had known since the first day, since Bandaged Arm's quietly explained things to him in cell 109. Bottom ten meant punishment. Bottom ten meant Cullen Ray had access to you. Bottom ten meant—
'Finn.'
His eyes found him without looking for him.
Cullen Ray was standing near the edge of the field, completely unbothered, watching his men work. And in front of him, on his knees in the dirt, was Finn. Head down. Hands pressed together. Begging for something Ruaan couldn't hear from this distance.
Cullen looked down at him like he already owned Finn.
And then Finn looked up.
And his eyes found Ruaan's across the field.
Just for a second. Just long enough.
Ruaan looked at Finn's face and understood everything in it. The two weeks of suffering. Nobody questioned the extra food. The vacant eyes at the dinner table. All of it.
'That is not going to be me.'
The thought arrived clean and final and his legs started moving before he'd finished thinking it.
He ran.
.
Ruaan kept moving. His legs were still shaking but moving was better than standing still.
He ducked around a corner of the field, pressed himself against the wall, and thought fast.
He didn't know where anything was. He had been here four days. He knew the cell block, the gym, the field, and the shower block. That was it.
He looked around.
Staircase. Against the far wall. Narrow, barely visible from the main field, the space underneath it is dark and low.
Not perfect. But it was something.
.
Under the staircase, it was cramped and cold and smelled like old concrete.
Ruaan squeezed himself in, pulled his knees up, and focused on breathing quietly. His legs were still doing the shaking thing. He ignored them. Outside he could hear the game going — shouting, running feet, the occasional thud of something he didn't want to think about too hard.
From the speaker, occasionally, Harolin's voice: "Seven found. Three remaining."
Then: "Eight found. Two remaining."
Ruaan pressed his back against the wall and let out a slow breath.
'Two remaining.'
He was still here. He hadn't been caught, which meant he was still in.
He almost smiled.
'Maybe,' he thought. 'Maybe—'
"Nine found."
His chest went tight.
"One remaining."
Ruaan stopped breathing.
One. There was one grey button left in this entire field and he was sitting under a staircase with his fist still closed around his button and his legs shaking and—
He heard a sound close by.
He turned his head slowly.
A shape was crouching low at the entrance to the staircase, looking directly at him. Ruaan's eyes adjusted.
He let out a breath.
Bandaged Arm.
He almost laughed. He opened his mouth to say 'get in here, quick, hide—'
"Found you," Bandaged Arm said.
His voice was dark and cold.
It was nothing like the voice that had handed him a water bottle on the field yesterday or slid over on the bench to make room for him.
Ruaan's mouth stayed open.
Then a fist came fast.