by J. D. Heath
Paisley wheezes out, “Well now we know what’s behind those doors. The players from the previous Dying Games. And death. That settles that one pretty definitely, in fact.”
The whole place is packed with skeletons. That turns my stomach. How long has this Dying Game been going on? How many years, how many bodies, lie hidden behind these walls?
And who’s Control that they can do this and get away with it for so many years?
I’m in the presence of killers, most of whom deserve the penalty that was levied upon them. Baumer definitely deserved lethal injection, and was slated for it. For him I have no pity. I don’t want to have pity for Paisley, for Clark, but I do.
Not just pity either. Empathy. I can see exactly why they did what they did. It was wrong, absolutely wrong.
There’s line and they crossed it. But so did Control.
This, this isn’t justice.
This is murder.
Gina’s fingers are caught in mine again and we’re slowing down, finally. Clark bends double, his hands going to his knees. He’s not winded, just in pain. I’m not too winded but Gina’s breathing hard and fast and her face is flushed bright-red. Concern swamps me. We’re running out of water. We just expended a lot of energy and we’re all sweating bullets right now. This isn’t good. We have to get into that control room and through it.
I gasp out, “Clark, I think we’re going to need to try your plan sooner rather than later.”
He nods. It’s the last thing any of us want to do and I know it. We’ve been staving off the inevitable. We have to get into that control room and through Norton if we’re going to escape. That also means we have to make ourselves targets for Baumer and Hampton, who’s either long since dead or clever enough to be out of harm’s way.
Norton’s the highest risk to all of us and we know it. He could just detonate the cuffs and kill us all. I say, “As long as it looks like there’s plenty of players left in the game he won’t detonate the cuffs, I think. But if we all try to rush the control room, we’re definitely going up. Norton has the advantage and it’s one we can’t deny. So our best plan is to try to take out Baumer and Hampton now. Right now. That way we know it’s just us in the game and we’ve all got skin in it and an interest in getting out of here too. So they have to die. Once they’re dead we’ll try taking out the implants.”
Paisley says, “One of us will have to be a guinea pig. I hate to tell you this, sugar beets, but I don’t want that little piggy to be me, not if I can help it.”
Clark says, “I’ll do it. I got nothing to lose anyway.” His laugh’s not pleasant. “Everyone I ever loved is already dead and there’s nothing for me out there, really. I just don’t want to die on Norton’s terms. I don’t want to die for someone else’s amusement. But to maybe save someone else? Now that I’ll do.”
Just a few days ago I would have said the very same thing. That there was nothing out there for me. That there was nobody left that I loved.
But that’s not true anymore.
There’s something between me and Gina and I want to know what it is. I want to live, and I want justice. I want the people who put us here to pay for this.
We hunker down again and take stock. We have the blades, a precious few bottles of water, and each other. That’s all we have to use against the three standing between us and freedom.
It’ll have to be enough.
CHAPTER 15: GINA
We’re heading for the cell rooms. Paisley says she needs a break, she has to pee and so do I. Morgan and Clark turn their backs while Paisley and I struggle to get our blood-stiffened coveralls down enough to do that.
She gets hers back up and on and she’s gone. Mine’s twisted and tangled, the arm of it somehow wrapped and twisted. I whisper, “Shit. Help.”
Morgan asks, “You okay?”
“I can’t get my coveralls…just help, okay?”
I turn my back and he comes to where I stand. His fingers graze over my skin as he yanks at the fabric. His fingertips move over the tattoo on my shoulder blade. “Nice tat.”
It isn’t a nice tattoo. Oh it’s pretty enough. A sickle-shaped half-moon surrounded by stars. But the reason that it’s there is not a nice one at all and I know that that tat is a dead giveaway to who I really am.
I’d forgotten that tat, and now I’m cursing my mistake. I get my arm into the sleeve and yank the zipper up. It makes a harsh purring sound. I turn to face him, searching his face to see if that tat has registered on him but he’s looking away, down the corridor to where Paisley and Clark stand, a few yards away. His hand takes mine and he draws me close.
He whispers into my ear. “I need you to do something.”
I go stiff. I won’t kill Clark or Paisley. I won’t. Is that what he’s about to ask of me? I say nothing.
Morgan whispers, “I’m not a vigilante. I’m undercover. My boss thought he saw a pattern in arrest records. People would get arrested but never make it to the station. They’d be cut loose somewhere along the way, or so on. Those things coincided with the sudden deaths of several high-profile inmates, and the transfer of others. Others he could never find on record. He knew it was something but we never imagined this. If I don’t make it and you do, I need you to tell him what happened here.”
I go stone cold. I can’t think past that truth he’s just leveed at me and onto my shoulders. I knew he was a cop, I just didn’t know he was here by choice. That this is an assignment, one he likely didn’t bargain for.
I nod. Morgan says, “His number is…” he whispers the numbers twice. I nod. Then I whisper them back to him. There’s deep hollows in his cheekbones and under his eyes, a clear sign of just how much strain he’s under.
We start walking. He says, “I’m going to do my best to get you out of here alive Gina. I swear it.”
Goddammit. This man. This impossibly beautiful, impossibly good man. He’s banking on my innocence and I’m not an innocent, not at all. I’m nothing that he believes me to be, and he wants me to live. Would he want that if he knew the truth?
Clark whispers, “I smell death.”
I sniff the air and my nose wrinkles. He’s right. The smell of our urine, too dark because we’re so low on water, lies on the air but over it there’s another smell. The smell of something rotten and bloated. A body lies somewhere nearby.
Whose body?
We move toward the hall that will eventually lead us to the cell room. My hand stays right above my blade. I’m ready to draw it, to slash, stab and hack my way through anyone and anything that comes at us.
Us.
I know better than to trust other people and I know, too well, the cost that must be paid for caring about other people too. But I do care. I care about Clark and Paisley and I care much more than that for Morgan, who’s somehow managed to worm his way under my very thick skin and armor and wipe my defenses clean with his goodness and his kisses and his need and want to protect me.
That caring is the dumbest thing I can let myself do. I know the cost. I’ve cared about people before and when I had to leave them, leave them to die so I could live, the guilt almost killed me.
I know Morgan’s guilt. I do. I wish I didn’t but I do. Watching those you love die while you live is the hardest thing, the worst thing. It’s a killing thing.
I can’t afford to care about him or the others. I can’t.
But I do, and I’m going to have to pay for that caring. Caring for them could very well be what gets me killed.
I have to live.
I have to.
Morgan’s undercover but I’m on a mission. A mission I have to live to finish. There may come a time when I have to make a choice between myself and that mission and Morgan and I can’t afford to care about him. I just can’t.
The corridor is empty. The smell of death thickens, a noxious brew that teases at my nostrils and makes my throat clamp shut against the sickness that wants to come up.
The body there is one of the guards, dragged
from the cell room. He’s not been gnawed upon so Baumer didn’t bring him out. Why’s he here? We all exchange nervous glances. This feels like a trap.
It is a trap. The whole goddamn place is a trap.
Nothing happens. That alone makes me nervous. We need to get to the cell room to try to kill Norton and get the hell out of here but that body’s making me shy like a scared horse and the tension just keeps growing with every second as we wait for something, anything, to happen, and it doesn’t.
Morgan speaks in a gruff voice, “Come on. Let’s move.”
Clark’s in pain and a lot of it. His legs aren’t great but the damage to his hips is what’s causing the small beads of sweat to break out along his face. His gait’s become a swinging, shuffling thing. It hurts just to watch it.
I wonder just how much he has left. If he can even make it through the walk much less the fight we’re going to have to have with Baumer, Hampton, and Norton.
It’s Norton that worries me the most and with good reason. He can kill us all with the push of a button. We have to be very cautious now. Very cautious indeed. I take allow shallow breaths through my mouth to keep from smelling the bodies but the funky, spoiled meat smell is everywhere now as we make the last leg of the corridor and turn into the next one. The smell is drifting to us from that cell room and I know it but there’s a sharp set of tingles in my spine and they keep running up and down, sending short flares of pain into the bundle of nerves at the small of my back.
I’m scared.
I am.
I’m scared that I’ll die before I can do what I must do. I’m scared that Baumer will eat me, literally feast on my flesh. I’m scared because I’m falling for Morgan. I’m scared I will have to watch these people I don’t want to care about but do die one by one or two by two and that I’ll die too and after having watched them die, after suffering through the pain that is knowing someone you care about is being killed before your very eyes and that there’s nothing you can do to save or help them.
That takes my attention back to Morgan. He’s been shaped and changed by that exact pain, by that guilt and that terror. I know all those things because I’ve done the same thing he did.
I escaped while someone I loved died.
I watched while someone I loved was harmed and hurt and murdered, piece by piece, and I was helpless to stop it.
That shaped Morgan into a cop, into someone determined to do such good in the world.
I went in the opposite direction and now that I know Morgan’s not a vigilante, not a cold-blooded killer, I need to tear away the feelings that I have for him because if we both get out of this alive, he’ll be the one person who can halt my mission, and send me to prison.
Hampton comes from nowhere. One minute it’s just the four of us in the hallway. The next, he’s there and his blade is punching into Paisley, and just as she must have heard something and turned to investigate.
Morgan’s furious scream ricochets off the walls as Paisley staggers backward, her eyes wide and shocked. The blade’s stuck in her chest, buried all the way to the hilt. Her fingers run up the handle and she stares at all of us, takes a few more steps, and then lands on her knees.
Morgan’s already there. His arms lock around Hampton’s neck. He’s going to strangle him to death. I can see bitter and artic fury in Morgan’s face. I want to do something but all I can do is reach for Paisley and lay her down on the floor, taking myself down beside her as I do. The concrete’s cold on my knees, rough and hard. I hate it. I want to feel grass, want to see the sky again.
I want to know anything and everything besides death.
Behind us I hear a low groan and then the sound of feet running. Clark shouts something but I can’t hear it through the roaring in my ears. Morgan releases Hampton, but not for long. His blade sinks into Hampton’s body and Hampton goes down.
I’m glad. I’m glad he’s dead. He killed Paisley.
Paisley lays on the concrete, her blood a bright red scream on that dull surface. She smiles up at me and I see, with real pity, that her teeth are dentures, and that she’s been very careful to conceal that fact. She can’t hide it now though, the teeth have somehow been pushed forward from her mouth and are overlapping her lips. I reach out and gently push them back up against her gums, unable to look her in the face while I do it.
Everything in me breaks apart and flies into pieces. Paisley didn’t deserve the life she’d lived. Abandoned by her mother at the age of twelve when her mother decided it was more important to protect the man she’d married than her daughter. The daughter who’s stepfather had raped her and gotten her pregnant.
I know Paisley’s never seen that baby.
The foster system took Paisley and the baby was put up for adoption. Paisley never even had the chance to protest. She and her child both belonged to the state.
I know Paisley ran away from the system at fifteen. Got married somewhere along the way. Got divorced. Got hooked on dope that aggravated her mental health issues. Became a prostitute on a highway known as a stroll.
And, after a john raped her she killed him, triggering a killing spree that only ended when the man she fell in love with betrayed her and turned her in to the cops in the hopes of getting the massive reward the state had offered for information on the killings.
Everyone and everything in Paisley’s life had failed her.
We failed her.
We were supposed to protect each other, and help each other get out of here alive.
Tears run down my face, salt my lips. “Paisley?”
She wheezes out a laugh. “The bastard got me.”
I reach for the knife in her chest but my hand stills. Pulling it out will just hasten her death. But maybe that’s the best thing. Her fingers, already growing cool, grasp mine. Her eyes are filming over. Death is two steps away, and gaining ground on her.
“You know what my mistake was?”
I shake my head. She coughs. Bloody bubbles form in the corners of her lips. Every breath in an exercise in agony, I can hear that breath rattling through her and when it comes from her mouth blood follows with it. “I should’ve killed my stepdaddy and right from the start. Then there would’ve only been the one body.”
Her breath whistles in and out, rising in pitch like a tea kettle left to long on the boil. She chuckles again but it’s weak and blood doesn’t just dribble across her lip, it flows down over her chin. “Don’t let them get you dumplin’.”
Her words rock me to the core, rake up the old burned coals of my hatred and pain. “I’ll try my best not to.”
She dies without saying anything else. One minute she’s whistling in air and the next, nothing. Her hand clutches down on mine and then falls away. Her eyes go blank. I fold her arms over her chest and step away from her body.
I look around and see that Morgan’s gone too. Where is he?
I take off running, my feet sliding in the gore and the blood. I careen into a wall, knocking my shoulder hard into the concrete but I run onward. I have to find Morgan! I skid into a T-shaped intersection, and right into a whole new level of Hell. Morgan and Baumer are facing each off. Clark, what’s left of him, is on the floor between Morgan and Baumer. It doesn’t take but a single look at Baumer’s bloody lips and chin and teeth to know what he’s been doing to Clark,
Baumer speaks. “I’m not armed. I have nothing to protect myself. I surrender.”
He’s smiling, his bloody teeth showing in a hard glowering grin that makes vomit rush upward in my throat. I don’t even try. I turn my head and throw up, empty whatever’s in my belly onto the floor. The disgust I feel is so huge that I can’t even process it, and it’s not all due to Baumer’s cannibalizing Clark.
It’s what he’s doing to Morgan that’s sickening me. Morgan draws the knife from his belt. It hits the floor and bounces, end over end to land at Baumer’s feet. Morgan says, “Pick it up. Pick it up you piece of filth.”
Baumer says, in a voice that holds real regret
. “I’m going to have to decline.”
God no. Baumer’s got Morgan’s number. Morgan’s no killer. He’ll kill in self-defense but this? This cold-blooded blood-letting that Baumer’s inviting? Not Morgan. Baumer wants that to be Morgan though, wants it because that’s his last chance to eradicate Morgan and he knows it. Morgan’s the victim who got away, and Baumer wants his life.
But he doesn’t want Morgan dead.
No, he wants him alive and suffering.
My head shakes back and forth. I try to meet Morgan’s eyes, to tell him no but I can see darkness gathering over him like a storm cloud. He’s set on revenge, he’s set on death, and there’s no stopping him. He’ll do exactly what Baumer wants if I don’t do something.
I have to do something. If Morgan kills Baumer, if Baumer allows Morgan to kill him while he stands there unarmed and not making a move to defend himself Morgan will have to live with that for the rest of his life.
This, this will change Morgan in a way that goes beyond fundamental. It will be soul shattering.
Morgan snarls, “Pick it up you motherfucker.”
“No thank you. If you want to kill me, go ahead. I’m tired. I’m weary of this game and well-fed. Let the gates of Hell open to let me pass through.” Baumer’s pushing all the right buttons, pressing Morgan forward, the heavy machete still in his hand and his hatred glowing through the blackness gathering in his soul.
I look down. There, in Clark’s hand, is the thin wire he used to strangle Brallen. My breath catches. My eyes go to the ankle cuff on Baumer’s leg. I move, fast.
I go down, one hand catching the floor as my lower body slides along the floor. I catch the wire as I pass by Morgan and Clark’s body. Baumer says, “What…?” But by then it’s too late. The wire’s in the cuff. This is a development that Baumer hadn’t thought of.
I’m on my feet, my hands coming out to hit Baumer in the chest, hard. He understands, a split-second too late, what’s happening.
He says, “Clever girl,” and then his body goes flying backward. The wire catches his cuff, and yanks at it.