* * *

"I'm just going to note down 'Don't mess with Charlton' on my notepad, here. And underline it. Twice. While I'm doing that, let's check in on the city arena, and see whether Janet's spotted Teresa."

The camera cuts to the interior of a darkened building. Picking her way through the rubble, Sam carefully maneuvers around a fallen support pillar and smiles as she spots the golden pylon glittering in the faint rays of light. "Sam correctly guessed that the pylon was inside. Guess that's why she's a scholarship girl. She's also avoided all of the traps set so far with ease." Sam crosses the room, taps the pylon, and then doubles back the way she came, sidestepping a tripwire as she does so.

Several blocks away, Janet is slipping through the streets, following a set of footprints in the dust. Each print is several feet away from the next, but she doesn't seem to have trouble as she lopes along. The camera pans ahead, showing Adrienne walking down the street nervously. "Our favorite protester has given up on waiting, and gone out looking. I wonder what her plan is?" Adrienne sees motion ahead of her and ducks around a corner, peeking out to see Sam leave a ruined building and cross the street, heading towards the forest at top speed. She looks from Sam to the building, shivers, and starts towards it, entering the doorway carefully. A minute later, Janet passes down the street, looks over at the door, and frowns grimly at it. Unholstering her taser, she starts in after Adrienne.

A minute after that, Teresa arrives, just as quietly. Glancing around to make sure that she hasn't been seen, she shifts her grip on the sharp, rusty piece of metal that she's swapped out for the fencepost, with some cord wrapped around one end to serve as a hilt. She follows Janet after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, this is a surprise. Three girls in one building. Which reminds me… does anyone know where Clara went?"

The camera cuts quickly to the inside of an air vent. An angled shot shows that it is directly above the room with the golden pylon. Clara is in the vent, squeezed tightly into the narrow space, vainly trying to force off the cover under her so that she can get out - with no purchase or room to move her arms, she can't get the force she needs. Behind her, there are crossed bars, where a grate has fallen down as she crawled forwards. There are tears in her eyes, as she tries not to cry. "Oooh. Clara seems to have tried to be smart, and is now stuck. I guess that's the sort of thinking that leads you to go on Babehunt to show your ex that you're better than him."

There is movement below, and Clara freezes as Adrienne walks into the room, sees the pylon, and crosses to it. She quickly taps it, and turns to go… only to find Janet standing in the doorway. "Hello, honey." Janet says with a smile. "I think you were planning to kill me?"

"This would be a good time for Teresa to attack - two against one is… ohh, Teresa." The camera cuts to further back in the building. Not wanting to be noticed, Teresa paused for a moment too long, and took a wrong doorway, catching a sandal in a spring-loaded board. She is now cursing silently to herself as she tries to orient herself and figure out which way Janet went.

Back in the pylon room, Adrienne turns to run for the far door. As she does, Janet grabs what looks like a uselessly dangling rope and gives it a quick tug. The air vents above collapse downwards, catching Adrienne as she runs and pinning her under sections of vent. Janet laughs and struts over, leaning down and jamming the taser into Adrienne as she tries to push a section off of her. “Night night, dear.”

She straightens with a smile, and then stops and blinks as she sees another arm sticking out of a vent section. “Oh, my. I must have been a very good girl…”


The camera fades out, and fades in to Adrienne’s face. Janet’s voice is in the background. “Wakey wakey, girls.” Adrienne’s eyes snap open at the smell of gasoline, and she tries to struggle to her feet, only to let out a cry of pain as she moves too quickly. The Greek beauty is naked, with her hands cuffed behind her back. She is standing, as near as she can see, ankle-deep in gasoline. Her breasts are aching, and she looks down to see that there are clamps on each of her nipples, digging painfully sharply into her breasts and hooked so that they won’t be able to be pulled off. The clamps are attached to a narrow chain, which runs across the room. Across from her, Clara looks like a slighter mirror – her much smaller breasts sticking out as the chain pulls on them, she looks around the room in terror.

Janet is standing off to one side, with her arms crossed. “This was going to be a one-person trap, gotta admit, but I’ve made some changes.” The camera pans up to show that the two girls are standing in the outer ring of what looks like a bullseye, with four rings dug just over ankle-deep into the floor. Each ring is equally deep, and equally filled with gas. The chain loops through a small stake set in the middle, ensuring that for one girl to back up, the other would have to move forwards. “See, I’m about to light the middle ring.” Janet says cheerfully, as Adrienne and Clara stare at her in shock. “As the flame burns, it’ll send up sparks. Eventually, one will ignite the next ring out – probably take less than a minute per ring. I hope you can see where this is going.”

“You monster.” Adrienne hisses at her. “How can you…?”

“Want to see how far you’ll go to live, hon.” Janet blows Adrienne a kiss. “Here’s the deal. You’ve got to get out of those rings to live. If one of you survives, you get the clamps and the cuffs off, and a minute’s head start. Hunter’s promise, and I don’t break those. Bad publicity. If you both die, well… I don’t mind that.” She pulls out a lighter, flicks it open, and lights it, locking it to stay on. “And… go.” With an overhand toss, she lets the lighter fly through the air. It bounces off the small stake, and the center of the bullseye erupts into flame.

Clara and Adrienne stare at each other across the flames, and then down at the ground. Then, the two start to pull back. Almost instantly, the chain snaps taut, and Adrienne and Clara’s breasts start to stretch. Clara cries out in pain, and Adrienne bites back a curse of her own. As the second ring is engulfed in flame, she looks over to where Janet is watching, leaningly smugly against the wall. She looks back to where Clara is watching the flames, tears running down her cheek as she tries to make herself back away despite the agony in her chest.

Adrienne suddenly realizes that she’s more afraid of the flames than of Clara’s haunting look. She grits her teeth and pulls, the cruel clamps drawing beads of blood as she attempts to pull Clara forwards without her arms. Clara, with a scream of terror, is pulled towards the flame, staggering forwards. She hits the first barrier, and trips forwards. The sudden pull forces Adrienne two steps forwards, but she recovers and continues to retreat, dragging her opponent through the gasoline sputtering and screaming. As Clara’s head crosses the next barrier, it erupts, and Clara follows a fraction of a second later. The fire ignites her pretty hair, curls blackening and withering as she screams and thrashes in the small lake of flame. Adrienne continues to pull, as the fire spreads across Clara and into the final ring, racing towards her. She gasps in terror as she pulls… and Clara’s flame-charred breasts tear and give way, the clamps skittering through the flame as Adrienne leaps to safety with a small shriek of her own.

Clara is not dead yet. She tries to rise, but the pain is too much – having been pulled through the gasoline, her entire body is now on fire, cooking her as she screams in agony. Janet leans forwards avidly. “Good job, hon.” She says to Adrienne, her eyes not leaving Clara’s rapidly burning skin. “Didn’t think you had it in - shit!”

The last is yelled as Janet abruptly leaps forwards, very nearly taking her into the outer edge of the flames herself. In the same moment, two small prongs hit the wall where she was standing and ignite with electricity. Janet follows the lines to where Teresa is crouched in the doorway, holding the taser Janet set down while she was working on her two captives. “Close, kid, but no cigar.” She admonishes, looking Teresa over.

Teresa glares at Janet. “You butchered my mother.” She snarls.

“Then I’ll just have to go two-for-two.” Janet answers with a laugh.

Unnoticed by either woman, the heat and flame finally combines to cook Clara’s brain, and the girl shudders and dies, her screams dying with her. Across the way, Adrienne stares at Clara’s corpse in horror, then scrambles to her feet and retreats, desperately trying not to vomit. In her current condition, she’s no good helping Teresa fight, and she doesn’t trust Janet’s promise any more than she trusts the game. Instead, she races for safety, promising herself that she’ll come back and avenge Clara’s death.