by K. A Knight
“Good point.” He grins.
“Yeah, and what’s your fucking plan, model barbie?” the young girl spits and all eyes turn to us.
Kadian crowds closer, as do a few of the others whose names I haven’t caught yet, including an Asian man, an Indian man, and a dark-skinned man. “Plan, what plan?” the olive-skinned man asks.
“Natashia was just logically pointing out that whoever has taken us is going to come back at some point, so we should be prepared for when he does. He might have company, or try and take one of us or kill us, so we need to be ready for any eventuality. If it’s one man, we can overpower him, if not, we need to play it smart. Statistically, you are more likely to make it out alive from a kidnapping if you’re nice to them. Let’s see what we have to work with, okay?” Lucien suggests, taking charge, clearly used to it. There are nods all around apart from the young woman who snorts and leans her head back against the wall. Her dark eyeliner is smudged down her face as is her red lipstick.
“We are all going to fucking die,” she groans, and Dorris starts to cry harder at that, making the girl step forward threateningly towards the old woman. “Shut the fuck up, you crone. You will be the first to go, not like you can run or fight.” She smiles nastily and I step between them.
“What’s your name?” I query, unafraid, since I deal with nasty girls like her on a daily basis.
“Valerie,” she spits, glaring past me.
“Valerie, we need to stick together here, this is what he wants, so how about you step back and take a deep breath, okay? We’re all freaked out and scared, but turning on each other won’t help anyone,” I say, trying to reason with her in a polite voice.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Whatever, you know I’m right,” she replies.
I open my mouth, but I’m cut off by what sounds like an electronic buzz before the crackle of a mic booms loudly, making us all cover our ears and look around as a mocking, deep voice comes from speakers hidden somewhere in here, and what he has to say has me turning ice cold as I’m filled with fear. Maybe Valerie is right, maybe we are all going to die.
“Welcome to my game. The rules are simple. Complete the games given to you and you will survive. Fail and you die. The people or person who survives them all will walk free.” He pauses then. “There will be no help for you, no escaping or rescue, and the sooner you realise this, the better it will be for you all. The rules are simple, the games hard, and before this is through, you will learn just how far you will go to survive, and just how much strength you possess. When a human is pushed to their limits, they are capable of just about anything. Will you be able to? Or will you crack and die?” he sneers, then breathes frantically down the mic.
“What the fuck?” someone yells.
“Let us go, you crazy bastard!” Valerie shouts.
“The first game starts now. Not all of you will survive. Look to the people closest to you. Whom can you trust? I ask you this—when faced with death, will you lose your morality, or will you stay the same? The choice is yours, certain death for the life of a stranger…you have three minutes to pick someone to kill. I have unlocked the hatch in the floor, where you will find a gun. Take it and kill someone. If, at the end of the allotted time, you haven’t, I will kill two people. Time starts now, little mice.”
Chapter 3
There is an outcry of emotion, but I tune it all out, my eyes dropping to the floor when an audible click sounds. No one moves for a moment, the time counting down in our heads, each second closing in on us. This man can’t be serious, we aren’t killing someone for his sick games!
“Fuck it, I say let’s do it,” Valerie says, and heads to the floor, but Kadian blocks her.
“What the hell? We aren’t letting him control us like that, it’s a bluff!” he calls.
“And if it’s not?” she screams in his face, and swings to look at Lucien and me. “You both said it, give him what he wants, well, I plan to. I won’t fucking die down here for any of you,” she yells, her eyes cold but filled with fear as she turns back to Kadian. “Move, you prick.”
“No, you aren’t killing someone.” He crosses his arms, blocking her when Dorris screams, ducking and cowering into a corner, we all turn in horror to see the hatch open and the olive-skinned man holding a gun, staring at it in shock as he looks up at us.
“I-I can’t die, I have a family, two children, they depend on me, I’m the only one who works. I can’t die, I can’t.” He just keeps repeating his excuse over and over.
Lucien and Kadian step forward, moving to either side of him, and facing off with the man. “Put the gun down,” Lucien demands, holding out his hands in a peace gesture.
The man swallows, looking between them, but when Kadian steps forward he holds the gun up, pointing between us, swinging it wildly, his hand shaking. I step back out of fear, scared he will shoot by accident, but Lucien and Kadian don’t move, seeming to face the man down, but I see the slight tremor in Kadian’s muscles, and the stiff way Lucien is holding himself.
“What’s your name?” Lucien asks, his voice calm and collected.
“Miguel, my name’s Miguel,” the man replies, with tears in his eyes as he looks between us, all of us frozen in place and unsure what to do. We don’t know this man, will he shoot? How do we know it’s loaded? What if this is a test, all a game for some sick bastard to sit and laugh over. But it feels real, and the terror filling the air and desperation on everyone’s faces is anything but fake.
This is real and it looks like someone is going to die unless we get the gun from him. The dark-skinned man moves behind him, nodding at Lucien as the Asian man goes and sits with Dorris, comforting her. The sounds of her loud and echoing cries only seems to enhance Miguel’s desperation.
“Hi, Miguel, I’m Lucien. I’m a brain surgeon in the city. What do you do?” he questions—smart, smart man.
Miguel shakes his head, the gun wavering. “He said we had to, man, I can’t die, I can’t, I’m scared, please, I don’t want to do this.” Then he raises his voice. “Just let us go!” he screams. There is no response from the mysterious captor, but I have no doubt he’s watching and enjoying this.
“Miguel, don’t do this. Do you really want your kids to grow up knowing you killed an innocent person? You aren’t a killer, I’ve seen killers, I’ve had to operate on them, had to save their lives even though I didn’t think they deserved it, but I did it every time because it’s the right thing to do. We don’t have the right to choose who lives and dies. We don’t, he might kill us all, we don’t know, but shooting one of us will not give you freedom. Can you live with that blood on your hands?” Lucien inquires, distracting the man as Kadian and the dark-skinned man close in.
He drops the gun slightly and they both grab him, fighting for control. He goes down hard, with Kadian on top off him and the dark-skinned man holding the gun. He hesitates for a moment before looking up and meeting my eyes. He swallows before dropping the gun back into the hole and backing away, shaking his head.
Lucien looks around then. “We don’t do this, we don’t give in to his crazy demands, he can’t make us kill people. We aren’t animals!” he yells, looking around at us.
I nod and I spot a few others doing the same, but Valerie lets out a noise. “You just killed us all,” she yells, a laugh tumbling out. “I hope you can live with that blood,” she snarls at Lucien, who flinches but stands strong.
“We don’t kill anyone,” he repeats again, and it goes silent apart from Dorris’s low cries and the Asian man’s comforting words to her, all of us mentally counting down, becoming more and more tense with each passing second. Our eyes clash, all of us asking each other what’s going to happen when we reach the end of the countdown.
It’s the longest three minutes of my life. I find myself stepping closer to Lucien and when I realise it, I stop and wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold it together.
“I’m very disappointed,” comes his voice suddenly, making me and a f
ew others jump. “Time is up, yet no one is dead. The rules were clear, and now you will pay the price. Two people will die instead of one.”
It goes silent then before a spike suddenly comes from a wall, impaling the Asian man through the head. I let out a scream and more come from the right, making me turn to see blood blooming on the dark-skinned man’s chest through his white, short-sleeved t-shirt. He looks down at it in shock, his colour slowly draining as he drops to the floor and then to his side, blood pooling underneath him.
I stand frozen, unable to move. Lucien races to the dark-skinned man’s side, screaming orders as he rips off his suit jacket and balls it up, pressing it to the wound.
“Natashia!” he screams, not for the first time, so I raise my eyes to his. “Hold this!” he orders.
I stumble over to him, swallowing my gip at the blood, which I almost slip in, and drop to the other side of the man, pressing both hands to the jacket on his chest. “Hold it tight, I’ll be right back, keep talking to him,” Lucien orders, and waits until I nod before getting to his feet and rushing over to the other man.
“Hey, hey, look at me, you’re going to be okay. Lucky we had a doctor, right? I’m betting he’s good, well paid from the looks of it, so you’re going to be okay, and when this is over you can share a beer and laugh about how he saved your life,” I ramble, not knowing what I’m saying as the man’s eyes lock on mine, fear filling them as his mouth parts.
He rasps something too quiet for me to hear, so I lean down, pressing my ear to his mouth. “I’m scare—don’t want to die,” he whispers brokenly, and I pull back as he chokes, blood bubbling from his lips.
“Lucien!” I scream, looking up and spotting him with his fingers against the Asian man’s neck before he looks at me. He rushes to my side, checking the man’s eyes and pulse before sitting back. I press harder on the wound, looking at him with wide eyes, feeling blood seep through the jacket and stain my hands, it’s wet and warm, sticky almost.
“Help him,” I beg.
“Natashia, let go,” Lucien says sadly, and I shake my head.
“Help him! You’re a doctor!” I scream.
“It’s no use, look at him, Natashia, he’s dead. I’m sorry,” he murmurs, laying his hand on my shoulder, forcing me to look down in horror to see he’s right. His face is slack and his eyes empty, yet the blood slowly oozes through the fabric and onto my hands. Jerking back, I fall to my bum, raising my crimson stained hands in front of my face before I turn to the side and heave, sick splashing on the floor.
A comforting hand rubs my back as it pulls back my hair. “Get it out, it’s okay, get it out,” comes Lucien’s warm voice.
When I can’t throw up anymore, I wipe my mouth with the back of my arm, grimacing at the taste in my mouth before I raise my head and meet his eyes. “The other man?” I ask, my voice broken and husky from hurling.
He winces, shaking his head. “He’s dead too.”
Tears fill my eyes. “He’s going to kill us all, isn’t he?” I cry out, and he swallows before grabbing me and gathering me into his chest, holding me there but not replying. After all, what could he say?
Laughter echoes down the speakers, making me want to scream obscenities, but instead I cower into the man I just met, the man whose hands are covered in another’s blood just like mine.
“I told you what would happen. Would you like to know their names? Or maybe a bit about them? The young man with the spike through his head was an engineering student, very bright. The youngest to graduate, they were saying, and he had guaranteed job at NASA. The man on the floor owned his own corner shop. He had a wife named Maria and two children. Ava, aged ten, and William, aged thirteen. He wanted a better life for them, and he was working to achieve that. They are dead because of you,” he finishes, and then the mic cuts off.
I hear sobbing throughout the room, and when I look up, I spot the pale, shocked faces of everyone. No one expected that to happen. Who the fuck are we dealing with? My eyes lock on the dead form of the dark-skinned man and, pushing away from Lucien, I crawl towards him, uncaring about the blood getting on my knees as I move the jacket away.
“Natashia,” Lucien whispers, but I shake my head.
“He deserves to be covered up,” is all I say, my voice emotionless as shock settles in. I cover his face with the suit jacket, before sitting back on my haunches as I blink my tears away, unsure what to do. Kadian comes to my side, holding a bottle of water.
“Hold out your hands,” he instructs softly, and I automatically do as I’m told. He washes the blood away, rubbing it with his hands softly before looking up at me with a small smile, trying to reassure me. “It will be okay. We will get out of this, I promise,” he vows, before moving away to Lucien and handing him the bottle, but the promise rings empty. Is that what people do in these situations? Offer cheap lies and comforting words? We’re helpless, lost to the whims of a madman, and no matter how sweet the words, there is nothing anyone can do but play the game.
“We have to play,” I whisper, looking up and meeting everyone’s eyes. “We have to play, and we have to win.”
Chapter 4
I don’t know how much time has passed. It feels like days, but it was probably only hours. No words come from our captor and no one has been in to move the bodies, leaving a constant reminder of the situation we’re in and what might happen to us. I haven’t bothered to ask anyone else’s name, not wanting to know. It will make them human, make me care, and I’m starting to realise that down here that could be dangerous. One thing is for sure, Kadian and Lucien aren’t working with the madman. They were just as shocked and horrified as me. So were Dorris and Valerie, but I’m not sure about Lewis, the druggie, or the Indian man yet.
Sitting back on the wall, I pull my knees to my chest and stare up at the ceiling, almost helplessly, as we all wait around for the next game, the next challenge...the next death.
Kadian continues to try and find an escape, but the others have given up like me, realising how pointless it all would be. This man is smart, strong, and obviously has planned this well. He knew everything about those men, about us, this wasn’t random. This was targeted, we were his prey and now his little mice in his trap, slowly closing in on us. There will be no escape, only a winner.
Lucien comes and sits next to me after a while, his knees drawn up and his arms resting on top of them, his white shirt now rolled back to his elbows to hide the blood stains, but I can see the clearly defined muscles of his forearms and shoulders, the material tugging right across them. In another world, another life, I would be hitting on him right now. He’s an attractive man, no doubt rich, and has a good job, so I’m betting there’s no time for relationships. In my past life—how rapidly I’ve come to think of it as that, this unknown captor has changed my mindset and broke me—what was I saying? Oh yes, Lucien. I would have liked him...and then broke his heart.
“He’s calculating, he planned this. He knows everything about us, we are at a disadvantage,” I say softly, keeping my voice down so I don’t draw attention and wake Dorris, who is deep asleep. She took the deaths badly and withdrew, not saying a word as she curled up on her side with her back to the room and cried herself to sleep.
It was part of my job to assess weakness in others, to see their flaws and use it to get what I want, so I know she’s weak and will die, I know it. She can’t protect herself, so she will most likely die down here from the situation alone. At her age, her heart can’t be too good, and I’m betting from the shaking in her body she might even have a long-term illness. It makes me ache. She’s nice, I can see it radiating from her. She doesn’t deserve this, maybe I do, but a woman like her? She deserves to rest easily in her bed surrounded by her family and die at a ripe old age. She deserves that after living this long.
I spotted the locket around her neck earlier, undoubtedly filled with pictures of her kids or grandkids. I wonder if they miss her, I wonder if they know she’s missing. Are they looking? Are th
ey expecting the worse? Worrying and crying?
No one would miss me, no one would even search. Just another flaky model. My agent will replace me in a heartbeat, and there are no lovers or boyfriends to mourn me…no family to care. I’m all alone, just another statistic on a missing poster.
“I agree,” Lucien replies, dragging my eyes from Dorris and to him as I lean back on the wall and watch him.
“You’re surgeon?” I ask, trying to distract myself.
He nods. “At St. Christopher’s,” he answers.
“What kind?” I inquire.
“Neurological.” He grins.
I whistle. “Hard bloody job, you must be talented.”
“I like to think so. I’ve always enjoyed helping people, and I always wanted to be a doctor, but turns out surgeons get paid better, plus I love the thrill of it. I hold that person’s life in my hands, I can make a difference. The adrenaline, it’s addictive,” he admits, tilting his head to see me better. “What about you? What do you do for work?”
“Besides being kidnapped from sociopaths?” I tease and he laughs. “I’m a model.” I shrug.
His eyes widen. “Really? Wow, that’s incredible.”
“Is it?” I challenge. “The glamour fades after a while.”
“Do you love it?” he whispers, and I get lost for a moment in his brown eyes that have a dash of yellow towards the center, and the dark lashes surrounding them.
“Not really, I’m good at it though, and it pays the bills. I was scouted young, sixteen, I had just run away from home. When the money started rolling in, I kept at it, and when I got enough to get my own place, I guess I always wanted something more, and before I knew it, six years later I’m sitting on a runway with girls scared of eating, their bones sticking through their skin, staring at myself in a mirror wondering what happened.” I look away then, unsure why I’m sharing. Apart from the fact we could die at any moment, someone might as well know me, mourn me if he makes it out of here alive, and if anyone will, it’s him. I can tell now, he’s smart, likeable, and has an inner core of steel, something so many people lack and envy in others.