Creeper. Blake's lips twitched. So Lisa.
She was right about one thing, though. Jason was definitely the most ruthless of the three white players. His smile faded as his eyes swept the room, landing on the few empty soda cans and paper napkins strewn around the room. It was hard to believe that they had started out in such high spirits. Eat, drink, and be merry, he thought, For tomorrow we shall die.
His mouth hardened.
His father would be worried sick. Though Blake had no official curfew, he never came home later than midnight; it was an unspoken rule between them. According to his watch, it was a quarter past three.
What had GM said earlier? You have until dawn? Maybe that was good. It meant he wasn't counting on them dying right away. If they played their cards right, they had a shot—however small—at survival.
“Just out of curiosity,” Blake said, pushing those thoughts aside, “Who is on your paper?”
“Brent. The missing link,” she added, wrinkling her nose.
“Really? Because I'm beginning to think he k-killed James,” his ears flushed and he prayed fervently that she hadn't noticed the stammer in his voice, “I mean, they both went missing around the same time. Jason, on the other hand, keeps popping up. In fact, I've been seeing him and Charlie a lot with no traces of the other two.”
“You mean GM? But James was missing for a while—anyone could have gotten to him.”
“Speaking of missing, where's Val?” Blake asked slowly, “She should have gotten here by now.”
“What time is it?”
Blake looked down at his watch. “After three. Do you think we should go after for her? I don't think she should be left alone for too long.”
“I'm sure she's fine.” Blake shot her a look and her cheeks flushed. “Blake! I didn't mean it like that!”
Blake just shook his head, rolling his sleeve back over the watch. “We never should have let her go in that room alone. One of us should have gone with her. This Gavin guy is messed-up.”
“She said she wanted to go alone.”
“I don't think she did.”
Lisa's face grew pained.
Blake been referring himself, since Lisa had obviously been in no condition to go, but she was already standing with a hard, determined set to her jaw. “Fine,” she was saying, “I'll go look.”
“Be careful.”
“Of Val?” She arched an eyebrow, but Blake didn't smile. “Blake? What do you know?”
“Jason said she. Apart from you, Val's the only other girl. Be careful.”
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
The door was gaping open again, like a hungry mouth waiting to devour all who entered.
Unwilling to step inside, Lisa poked her head through the doorway, surveying the dark room. She imagined that she could see a dark stain on the floor that might have been blood. With effort, Lisa tore her eyes away from the spot. “Val? Are you in here? Are you…all right?”
Could Blake be right? Could Val be my killer?
To her surprise, the room was empty—James was gone and so was Val. It was as if nothing had happened, although even Lisa wasn't too far gone to overlook that, so what the hell was going on here?
“This just keeps getting creepier and creepier,” she whispered to herself, shutting the door securely.
When she moved, her shoe slid on something. An envelope. With shaking fingers, she pulled out the letter. As her eyes read the single phrase printed on the smooth, grainy surface, they widened.
Greenhouse. 3 o' clock.
No. Val wouldn't play the self-sacrificial martyr, not in a game like this. Would she? Lisa closed her eyes wearily, pressing the paper against her chest. Deep down, she knew the answer to that.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
A soft rain had started to fall, hitting the glass rooftop with a sound like polite applause. Though the greenhouse was quite warm, Val felt as though her body was encrusted in several layers of ice, rooting her to the soft, earthen floor. She already had several questions in mind, each more tempting than the last—but this game, like all his others, was terribly one-sided.
Two people had died in this room. If she wasn't careful, she could just as easily become the third.
“Why me?”
“Because I lie awake at night, dreaming of all the things I want to do to your body, of leaving marks on your skin so that everyone knows that you are mine. And only mine.”
He leaned back against one of the larger metal tables.
“But you fight yourself even as you fight me, and I love that, too. I love watching you squirm, because it gives me some idea of how you'll look when I'm inside you. I want to be your last thought at night, and your first taste at dawn. I want to teach you, own you, control you.”
Val could not speak; even if she could, she doubted she would know what to say.
“My turn,” he said, leaning forwards. “What is it that you are most afraid of?” An odd smile. “Besides me, of course.”
This new terror eclipsed the old one so completely that she simply moved from one into the other, like changing gears. Val choked, undiluted fear flooding her bloodstream like venom. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe. She was afraid of so many things—losing her friends, not getting out of here alive, of him.
And that fear was ever-present, malingering, and threatened to consume her with every growing moment, because she knew she couldn't control herself—not completely—when she was around him.
He knows me too well.
“Why do you want to know that?” she asked, unable to keep the panic out of her voice. Would he be above using it against her?
No.
“Curiosity. Personal…interests.”
On the other side of the tinted glass panes, she could make out his spacious backyard. Large mulberry trees shaded the rear of the house, their leaves dripping water, and on the far side, she could just make out the lit, aquamarine swimming pool shrouded in curls of mist and illuminated, silvery rain.
“If I refuse to tell you?”
He just looked at her.
She plucked at the lace of her shirt and said, “Water. I don't like water.” And then, in a faltering voice, she added, “I can't swim.”
“You never learned?”
“I almost drowned in a lake when I was six. It killed any interest I had.”
That was when she saw Lisa. Their eyes met through the glass. Her friend's eyes widened in panic and she started to reach for the door. No, Val mouthed. Run. Get back to the house.
A furrow formed between Lisa's tawny eyebrows. She frowned, comprehending, and backed away from the door—but GM had seen Val's lips move and started to turn around. “What was that?” he asked curiously but not, she thought, without suspicion. Or was she imagining it?
Disgusted with herself, and with what she was about to do, she grabbed him by the neck of his wife beater and kissed him—hard. Please understand, James. I did it for them. Forgive me, if you can.
His eyes opened comically wide and he took a startled step backwards, hitting the edge of the table he had used as his perch only moments before. His gaze shifted to his right and cold, cynical amusement swept over his patrician features like an ice storm.
With a smile as cool as the night-chilled glass behind them, he cupped her face, returning the kiss with equal heat. But the hands on her face were taut with restraint and when she looked up, his face could have been chiseled from stone. “Very good,” he said. “That was very convincing.”
“What are you talking about?”
That jaded expression on his face disappeared, replaced by a flat, dispassionate look as he let his hand fall back to his side. “Are you suggesting that you weren't trying to…distract me just now?”
She choked, taking a quick step back from him, horrified that she'd been so transparent.
“As I thought.”
Val shook her head repeatedly. How had he known? What had given her away?
“Don't look so shoc
ked, my dear. We're in a room of glass. I saw her reflection cast in your shadow.”
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Blake bit his lip. Half past three. The girls should have come back by now—both Lisa and Val knew what was at stake here. He pursed his lips. How long did it take to comfort somebody, anyway?
Not this long.
Maybe Val is the killer.
He stepped into the main hall, taking the path Lisa had taken scant minutes before, though in the opposite direction, when he heard an unpleasant voice say, “Blake, right?”
Blake spun around. A tall, thin boy was perched on the edge of the rail, one arm wrapped around the ornately carved wooden banister. For a horrifying moment, he thought the boy was GM—perhaps it was the sheer disregard for safety, or the insolence in his posture—and then he realized that it wasn't.
It was Jason.
“Yes,” he said cautiously, taking a subtle step back, “What do you want?”
Jason swung his legs off the rail, hitting the floor in a movement that was, if nothing else, threatening. “Nothing much.”
Blake edged back. This was starting to look bad. Jason was blocking his access to the hall, to Lisa, and the only other way down—Blake cast a nervous glance at the stairway, knowing that he would have to turn his back on this boy in order to safely descend the narrow steps.
“Oh, don't even think about it,” Jason said easily, “If you make a break for the stairs, I'll push you.”
“It's not very far,” Blake heard himself say.
“That's true,” Jason agreed, scratching his chin, “But even so, I have this.” And he produced a knife, which glinted in the light. Blake was surprised, though he couldn't say why. Perhaps he had assumed that the other players shared their qualms about taking a human life—or that they were too sane, too composed, to be dragged into the grandmaster's sick little games.
Clearly, he had thought wrong.
Blake wet his lips.
“I'm on your list.”
“That's right, rabbit.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Relative Pin
The rain was coming down in sheets, pelting the blond girl with water and soaking her long, blond hair. Wincing a little, she leaned one of the books from the library against the frame to keep the heavy door from slamming shut behind her. She stepped off the stone porch, which gave way to mud that sucked noisily at her shoes. Cold, persistent wind chilled her wet, bare skin and Lisa shivered violently wishing, not for the first time, that she had thought to bring a jacket.
Luckily, the greenhouse wasn't very far. She could glimpse the silvery edges against the darkness of the trees from where she stood. The backyard was surprisingly spacious. Trees bordering the property provided a discomforting sense of being penned in.
Was there a possible escape route out here? It was definitely worth looking into.
For now, she focused on getting to the greenhouse. The windows were slightly misted from the condensation inside. Dead, spindly plants blocked her view from the front door, so Lisa made her way along the side to get a better view of the interior. Val, how could you be such an idiot? she wondered. Val was just naïve enough to let herself be lured out here, for a chance to play the heroine.
Or maybe she's just devious enough to lure you out here to kill you, hissed the dark voice she'd only recently discovered. Who would suspect her? Not you.
Lisa teetered on the edge of the concrete ringing the greenhouse, peering in through the glass. No use. The glass was too dirty to see through. With a disgusted groan, wiped away the grime coating the window with her palm. Her resultant gasp was lost amid the hiss of the rain. She never expected to see the grandmaster in the greenhouse, so far away from all the action, in spite of the letter that he had left behind.
She relaxed a few inches when she realized that he hadn't seen her, yet. His back was facing her and she noticed that he'd discarded his white button-down shirt for a wife beater of the same color. That was odd. Why had he changed his shirt? Whatever the reason, if there was a reason, he still looked intimidating as hell, and Lisa wasn't going to wait around for him to discover her peeping.
But then GM stepped to the side, revealing Val. The red-haired girl was hugging herself and saying something. Lisa couldn't make out the words but she obviously wasn't happy. With a flash of green, her eyes cut away from GM towards the window, where they promptly widened in shock.
What are you doing? Lisa mouthed.
Val went rigid.
Lisa reached for the handle and that simple movement seemed to jerk Val out of her paralysis. She shook her head—only slightly; it could have been mistaken as a hair toss—and mouthed, No! Run! Get back to the house!
That sounded like a very bad idea to Lisa and she was about to say so, when GM started to turn around. Lisa's heart stopped beating. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
And then her best friend, whom she had known since middle school, pressed herself against that sadist and kissed him. Lisa could only stare, her face heating up in spite of the chilly rain. When Gavin's fingers slid up her friend's shirt, she glanced away.
She's distracting him. That's all.
Except—that kiss had been a little too convincing. Val had never kissed James like that. She didn't even know Val could kiss like that, because kisses like that led to one thing: a thing she knew for a fact that Val had never done.
Or thought she had.
What if whatever was between Gavin and Val wasn't entirely one-sided? What if she had that—what was it called?—Stockholm Syndrome? Shaking her head, Lisa turned and did as Val had asked.
She ran.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Val heard the rain pick up in its intensity as it drummed against the glass roof. The grandmaster's pleasant smile turned ironic before her eyes. She'd been caught and, worse, she'd exploited him; an offense she doubted that he would take lightly, given his sense of pride.
“If you knew, why did you kiss me?”
“I am not particularly easy to fool,” GM spoke casually, as though he weren't impeding on her personal space, but there was a snarl in the otherwise seamless quality of his voice, “And it isn't wise to try.”
Her arms brushed against the cold glass, causing her to jump. “Those are part of your rules,” she protested, rubbing at her arms and trying to hide her unease, “You—”
“Did you know, you always bite your lip whenever you're about to do something reckless?”
A protest was halfway to her mouth when she realized, with no small amount of mortification, that she currently was biting on her lip. Heat crawled up her neck and she hastily unclenched her jaw. A half-smile appeared on his face as he glimpsed her reaction, but there was no real humor in it and that scared her—a lot. Strangely enough, it made her angry, too.
Angry that he had called her bluff, angry that he had killed James, angry that he scared her so badly, angry that he didn't scare her enough. The anger was comforting and she wrapped herself into it like a warm cloak. “At least I'm not reckless with other people's lives,” she spat.
He grabbed her wrist when she was two meters away from the door and, with a not-so-gentle pull, twirled her around so she was propped against his chest. Lacing his fingers with those of her free hand he said, in a dark voice, “I wouldn't say that.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know very well what it means.” GM slid her hands down, so they were resting on the slight curve of her stomach. “I tire of these games. It's all I can do to keep myself from taking you right here…against the wall.”
And then Charlie's cruel words came fluttering back, like birds of prey.
(the only reason he made you queen is because he wants to fuck you)
Val made a strangled sound of disgusted horror.
“It doesn't have to be this way, you know. If you swear yourself to me, forever, I will end the game right now.”
She could keep the others from being killed?<
br />
“What exactly would that entail?”
“Use your imagination,” he said. “You know what I want from you. You know exactly what I want.”
He was right. She did.
“I might renege. I might run. What could possibly make you think that's even in the realm of possibility?”
“Because there is a very good chance one of your friends is going to die within the next half hour—if they haven't already.” He turned his back on her. “Think it over, Val. Then come find me once you've made a decision. I'll be waiting.”
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Blake took a very large step backwards, colliding with the wall. A picture frame behind him wobbled dangerously, nearly coming off the nail, but he barely noticed. “You're going to kill me.”
“Eventually,” Jason conceded, startling the other boy. “I have plenty of time before the game ends and there are a few things I intended to ask you before I checkmate you.” At Blake's pointed silence he added in a less pleasant voice, “The longer you talk, the longer you stay alive.”
His heart thudded against his ribcage, as if trying to break free. He's trying to talk himself into it, he thought wildly. He can't quite bring himself to kill me yet, those last vestiges of conscience are holding him back, but they're fraying fast….
“So,” the tall boy finished, studying his reflection in the blade for a few seconds before turning back to Blake, “What do you say? Shall I kill you now, or are you feeling chatty?”
Blake closed his eyes, feeling himself on the verge of panic that he couldn't give into. Jason was right on several counts; he was trapped and talking did appear to be the wisest course of action, although not for the reason he thought. Fine. If Jason wanted him to talk, then he would—at full-length—and possibly, if he was really lucky, an opportunity might arise.
Jason's arrogance might just lead to his downfall.
Aloud, he said, “I'll tell you anything you want to know.”
Jason blinked, but his surprise at such cooperation was quick to fade. “Then why don't we start with why you think you're so much better than everyone else.”
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