Page 73 of Demon Hunger
“And the winner is Kody Jeong,” the announcer shouted over the microphone.
Kody lifted both fists up in the air, and the crowd went crazy. He ran across the stage at the beat ofWe are the Champions, doing the floss, the griddy, and dabbing. The crowd cheered as if in ecstasy, but no one loved it more than Kody.
“Shit!” Sage exclaimed. “This is bad. I told you we should have given him the stomach flu. He’s eating it up.”
It was pandemonium for several minutes until the announcer managed to calm the crowd down to present Kody with a huge check for three thousand dollars, and a golden trophy with a hot dog at its apex.
When it was all said and done, the crowd dispersed, wearing confused expressions on their faces as if they’d just woken up from a daze and had no idea what they’d been doing for the last ten minutes.
“It’s officially viral,” Jenna announced, holding up her phone once more. “His TikTok video has over a million views now.”
“Fuck!” Sage turned to Drevan. “Can’t you, like, delete his account or something?”
Drevan shook his head. “To play by the rules, Lucia would have to do it.”
“You haven’t turned into a genius hacker in the past hour, have you?” Sage asked sarcastically.
“Those rules are so unfair,” Benjamin said.
Sage huffed. “No shit, Sherlock.”
“Let’s go assess the damage.” Jenna pulled me along to the competitors’ room backstage.
As we walked in that direction, Drevan disappeared into thin air, and I felt his presence beside me as we went. When we showed our press passes and entered the room, we found Kody surrounded by several reporters.
He was talking animatedly, a smile stretched from ear to ear. From the dazed looks on the reporters’ faces, it was clear Jophiel had buttered them up too. Jenna gave me a defeated look, and I felt my heart sink. This was only going to make our job harder.
We hung back, waiting for our turn to interview—or pretend to interview—Kody. One of the last reporters left as they all dispersed started asking Kody questions in what I assumed must be Korean.
She leaned very close to him, resting her hand on his chest and batting her eyelashes. She was a pretty, petite Asian girl with chin-length hair. She wore a child-sized pink T-shirt, a checked schoolgirl skirt, and platform combat boots. She was very pretty, and it was obvious that Kody was taken by her.
“Oh, this is not fair play!” Jenna exclaimed. “How are we supposed to compete with that? The other side has it too easy.”
I cursed inwardly. We’d chosen the wrong path for redeeming Kody. Bringing him here had been a huge mistake, and it’d set us back for who knew how long. I finally understood how smoothly things had gone with our previous subjects. We had redeemed Solar in record time, but it wouldn’t be the same with Kody. If we didn’t figure out the correct strategy, getting him to change his ways could take months, if not years. It was like we needed psychology degrees to figure out how to correctly tweak someone’s mind to see their faults.
When Kody saw us standing back, waiting, he waved and smiled, then started walking away.
“Where is he going?”
—He has a date,Drevan’s voice said in my head.
“A date?!” I exclaimed.
—Yes, she asked him out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?” Jenna asked.
“Drevan says Kody has a date with the reporter,” I answered, my voice sounding tired and utterly defeated.
“Great! All we managed to do was make him go viral, earn him three thousand dollars, and get him laid. Way to go, us!”
I scrubbed at my face, overwhelmed by frustration. “We failed,” I said in a near growl.
Jenna came closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. We’ll try again. We just have to regroup.”
“How will we ever win if we’re the only ones that follow the rules?”
