by Paul Draker
Travis’s back arched.
Brent tumbled on to his backside, falling away from his patient, his hands covered with blood.
More blood jetted from the hollow of Travis’s throat, where the scalpel was now buried with only the last inch of handle protruding. A geyser of blood sprayed the wall, soaking Camilla’s painted diagram of the game, obscuring her green letters and arrows with looping red ribbons and spatters.
Travis’s boots kicked at the ground. His hands clawed at his throat. Brent stared up at Veronica, incomprehension darkening into fury as he scrambled to his feet.
Veronica spoke slowly, like she was explaining something to a dull child.
“Natalie should be your priority, Brent. Not this piece of human garbage. Now, let’s go find her.”
Brent’s hands shook. He turned away from Veronica and stumbled up the stairs, leaving them all.
With a last bubbling whistle, Travis’s body shuddered and lay limp.
Camilla’s arms and legs were blocks of ice. She met Veronica’s eyes. “You killed him.”
“He deserved it.” Something dark capered in Veronica’s luminous gaze. Glee. Her chest rose and fell in slow, deep breaths. Her mouth hung half open. She wiped the back of her wrist across one side of her mouth, and her eyes moved slowly from person to person. Camilla could see an awful relish in her gaze.
“All people like him do.” A threat.
The scoreboard on the wall flashed once. The box around Travis’s score dimmed to gray. His score changed, spinning down from thirteen, passing through single digits to stop at zero. Then the entire box and Travis’s name disappeared, wiped from the scoreboard. Just like Lauren.
Camilla raised a hand to cover her mouth.
Her own score blinked.
Needles of irrational fear skewered her stomach. She was about to fade and disappear, too. But instead her score spun upward to pass Juan’s. “WINNER” appeared in the frame around her name. She was now in first place, leading all the other contestants in points.
“No,” she said. Her voice sounded small in her ears, like a child’s. She shook her head. “No, I didn’t want this.”
Jordan stood up. Surprisingly, her face held a look of impatience, as if she was disappointed in Camilla.
“Don’t you get it?” she said. “Natalie is still alive.” She limped out of the room, turning her back on them all.
Camilla looked at the scoreboard again. Natalie’s name stared back at her from the monitor.
Alive.
Did Veronica realize what she had just done? On camera? Camilla glanced in her direction. She was surprised to find Veronica’s pale eyes lingering on her. But they flicked away immediately, turning up to stare at the monitor.
• • •
Mason tossed Camilla an MRE. As if she could eat right now.
“And then there were eight,” he said.
“Not funny, Mason.” She grimaced. “Besides, right now it looks like it’s just the two of us. Brent’s shooting up again.”
Jordan was next door, sitting on the stairwell of the Victorian, where she could see the other monitor. Camilla had tried to talk to her, but Jordan just looked away, acting annoyed. So she had given up and returned to the Greek Revival house.
Veronica was gone. Again she hadn’t waited for anyone to join her before resuming the search.
Mason nodded at Travis. “We can’t just leave him here.”
Camilla closed her eyes for a moment. “Help me, then.”
She walked over and grabbed a boot. Mason did the same on the other side. She pulled, and Travis’s lower body slid along the floor, but his head and neck didn’t move at first, resisting her. She pulled harder, and he came unstuck, sending her staggering backward. Sickened, she realized why.
“Mason, he was pinned to the flo—” Her throat convulsed. Dropping Travis’s leg, she clapped a hand over her mouth and ran outside, gagging. The remains of the morning’s MRE spurted through her throat and nose, spilling onto the muddy ground. She closed her eyes and drew a gasping, burning breath. Dropping to her knees, she heaved again, bringing up only a weak dribble of stomach acid this time.
Rain pelted the back of her poncho. Camilla refused to let herself cry.
Avery, Cassie, Davey, Pedro—all her kids—they needed her. The only thing that mattered right now was getting back to them. She had to be strong.
They had finished today’s game. Julian had promised them answers tonight if they did. And tomorrow he was coming to the island.
They would teach him what it meant to be afraid.
A gentle hand grasped her elbow, helping her up. Mason handed her a heavy plastic jug, its top cut away, sloshing with liquid. She took it in both hands, staring at the dark surface.
“Drink,” he said.
Camilla gulped. The water was clean and delicious, renewing her parched mouth and throat.
“More,” Mason said. “As much as you want. They’re overflowing.”
“Thanks,” she gasped.
“It’s your own jug. I refilled it. Oh, and I moved Travis into the next room, so you don’t have to see him anymore.”
Camilla put her jug down, threw her arms around Mason, and hugged him. Her body started shaking, but she wasn’t crying. She refused to cry.
Lightning flashed, and she felt Mason’s body tense. He patted her back—a warning—and she released him to step back. He was staring out into the darkness, with no expression on his face.
The lightning flashed again, lighting up the flat, muddy plain surrounding the houses. A pair of figures was approaching from the direction of the seal barricade. One of them was clearly Veronica. She jogged sideways next to the other one—a man, tall, covered head to toe in shiny black. Veronica kept touching something he held cradled in front of his chest, dangling on both sides. Then darkness returned.
The next lightning flash illuminated Juan’s face clearly as he stepped up onto the porch. Camilla grabbed Mason’s wrist, seeing the limp form Juan carried in his arms. Natalie’s lower legs hung loosely over Juan’s left forearm, bouncing with every step. Her head lolled back bonelessly over his right elbow. One of her bare arms dangled toward the ground; the other lay across her chest. She wore a white T-shirt, soaked through, and her eyes were closed. She looked so young, so very small.
Natalie’s breathing was shallow, her face milk white.
Camilla turned and ran inside. “Brent!” she called. “Brent!”
She found him in his room, sitting on his cot, his face in his hands.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he mumbled.
“Not good enough.” Camilla grabbed his hand, pulling him forward. “You must.”
Downstairs again, she watched Juan kneel and lay Natalie gently on the floor against the wall. He stepped back, crossed his arms, and looked down at her prone body lying below Camilla’s defaced diagram, like a sacrifice at the altar of Julian’s terrible game. Juan’s face was grim.
She pushed Brent forward, and he stumbled.
“You must,” she repeated.
Veronica looked up from where she knelt beside Natalie, one hand on her forehead, the other holding her wrist. Camilla was shocked to see tears streaming down Veronica’s face.
“Brent, help her. She’s fibrillating, I think.” Veronica’s voice was choked with emotion. “I don’t know what to do.”
Brent’s shoulders slumped, and then he straightened, moving forward. With practiced efficiency, he did a quick assessment, his face going grave as he held two fingers to Natalie’s neck. From the first-aid kit, he brought out a large syringe and a glass ampoule, which he shook once before drawing its contents into the syringe. Holding the syringe in one hand, he probed the ribs to the left of Natalie’s breastbone with the fingers of the other hand.
“What’s that?” Suspicion joined the anguish on Veronica’s face.
“Intracardiac injection of epinepherine.” Brent drove the needle deep into Natalie’s chest. “Not ideal, but s
he’s arresting and we don’t have a defibrillator.” He depressed the plunger.
Natalie’s eyes flew wide, and her body jolted. Her splayed fingers scrabbled at the floorboards as she took rapid, heaving breaths. Fear distorted her face, and she clamped both wrists between her thighs, curling onto her side. Her eyes closed, and her breathing slowed as her body slumped bonelessly again.
Brent thumbed an eyelid open, but Natalie didn’t respond. She was out.
“She’s got a fighting chance now.” A bitter expression twisted his features as he pulled the needle out of Natalie’s chest and tossed the syringe aside. “And don’t forget, she’s a survivor.”
Veronica pushed him away and pulled Natalie’s limp form onto her lap, wrapping her arms protectively around her. She lowered her forehead onto Natalie’s.
“I’m sorry.” Veronica’s shoulders began to heave, wracked by stifled sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
Camilla had to look away.
Juan stood with his arms crossed, staring down at the two women.
“I found her in a cave on the west side,” he said, “Near the end of the breakwater. The entrance was hidden behind a rock pile. But that’s not all I found in there.”
He pointed at the wide-screen monitor on the wall.
“It was so obvious, and we all missed it. Those car batteries should have died days ago. They were just window dressing—empty battery cases. The power cable ran underneath them, buried shallow. I followed it to the cave, where I found the generators that actually power these monitors.” His jaw clenched. “Gas-powered generators, along with plenty of gas. But it isn’t all that much use for sending a distress signal now.”
Camilla looked at the driving rain that lashed against the plastic-sheet windows and pelted the ground outside, visible through the open doorway. She closed her eyes.
“Four hours too late,” she said. “We missed our chance by four hours.”
Mason laughed.
CHAPTER 149
“Look.” Camilla pointed at the monitor. Large white digits now blinked at the corner of the screen, ticking steadily down from “15:00.” Fifteen minutes until their host appeared, she figured, looking at the others. Veronica had mastered her emotions after a few minutes. Sitting against the wall and holding the limp Natalie in her arms, she avoided Camilla’s eyes.
Juan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, seeming lost in thought.
“We must find Jacob, too,” Dmitry said.
“I covered the whole island,” Juan said. “He’s gone.”
Mason sat next to Camilla. Jugs of water lined the wall next to him. He had gone next door to retrieve JT’s and Travis’s, refilling them, too.
Brent sat apart from the others with his head back against the wall, eyes closed. Camilla could hear a quiet, ragged murmur under his breath—he was humming to himself.
“What about JT?” she asked.
Juan shook his head. “He’s on his own.”
“I’ll go get Jordan,” she said.
Juan seemed to wilt, but he didn’t say anything.
She found Jordan next door, sitting on the steps of the Greek Revival house, staring at the monitor with a bleak expression on her face.
Camilla squatted on the steps next to her. “You shouldn’t be in here all alone. Come join the rest of us.”
Jordan stared past her. “Go away.”
What had happened to the friendly, sparkly personality that Camilla liked so much? It was gone without a trace, set aside like a once-fashionable coat that its owner no longer felt like wearing.
“Fine,” Camilla said, standing up. “We don’t have to be friends. But we really should talk, Jordan.”
Once she was back in the Victorian, Mason stood up and dusted off his hands. He stood in front of her defaced diagram and, using a pink paintball, drew an arrow from the “T” to the “C.” But there were still no arrows pointing at Travis, and two arrows pointed at Jordan.
Intrigued again despite herself, Camilla joined him, like a co-presenter at a studio green-light meeting. Mason turned to face her. He tapped the diagram as if it were a whiteboard.
“What can we infer from this?” he asked.
“Number one,” she said. “By leaving Travis unassigned to be anybody’s target, Julian kept him in reserve until the very end.”
She looked around the room at Brent, Veronica, Natalie, Juan, Dmitry, and Mason. She had everybody’s attention now—except for the unconscious Natalie’s, of course.
“Number two. Instead, his assassin was reassigned to someone else. That’s interesting in itself, since it effectively doubled the odds against that person.
“Number three. Travis got loose. Or someone let Travis loose and put him into play, injuring Dmitry in the process.”
“So was Travis Julian’s spy?” Mason asked. “Or not?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have trouble picturing Travis setting up the flags and other games for Julian, but there’s no reason he couldn’t have. He was the one that supposedly found our luggage, remember? As for freeing himself—he was in the prison system for years, after all. He might have been able to. But I’m only speculating.”
Mason pushed his glasses higher. “So one of us might still be a spy…”
She nodded. “We can’t rule it out, I’m afraid.
“Number four,” she said. “I was Travis’s assigned target—”
“So for most of the game, no one was after you.” Veronica’s voice cut the air. “And you won. That seems fair, doesn’t it? But at least we know who Julian’s favorite is.”
Camilla felt her face flush. “Bear with me, please,” she said. “Number four. Travis was supposed to come after me. And he did, eventually. But first he got up to some extracurricular activity…”
“Natalie,” Mason said. “He grabbed her and stashed her for later.” He looked at Juan. “She owes you, my friend. Travis must’ve used her own stun gun on her—again and again, getting his revenge. It’s a good thing her heart was young and strong.”
“This man… this criminal,” Dmitry said. “I am glad he is dead.” His voice turned gloomy. “What about Heather?”
Face sober for a change, Mason shook his head. “I’m afraid he had more time with her. I’m sorry, Dmitry.”
“But why Jacob? I mean, Jacob is not woman.”
“I don’t know,” Mason said. “Travis definitely didn’t like men. I’m sure of that…”
Veronica interrupted. “Maybe he thought Jacob had seen him take Heather.”
“No,” Camilla said as a horrifying possibility occurred to her. “Travis set off my alarms from the first moment I saw him. What if he was something even worse than we know?”
Mason looked at her. “Like what?”
“Fava beans and a nice Chianti,” Brent rumbled from the corner without opening his eyes. “Travis? Now he was a serial killer, too, Camilla? And I thought I was the one on drugs.”
“Don’t be so quick to discount her,” Mason said. “These things are outside my experience—I just don’t know—but I’ve seen the same movies you have. Hollywood dresses it up some, sure, but there really are people like that out there.” He laughed. “Veronica, I think you might have done the world a service.”
“Because he liked to hurt men, too?” she said. “Great. Makes no difference to me. Typical that you men would see it that way, though. Now all of a sudden, he’s a real bad guy.”
“I didn’t mean it that way—”
“You think I have any regrets about what I did? Any at all?” Veronica’s eyes flashed. “If Travis stood up and walked in here, I’d kill him again.”
“You might want to watch what you’re saying,” Brent said. “You’re upset.” He opened his opaque, drugged eyes and pointed a thick finger at the ceiling and walls. “We should assume this is all being captured on video and will be admissible in court.”
“And I should give a shit?” Veronica snorted. “No jury would ever convict me. They’d g
ive me a fucking medal, instead. He had just kidnapped this poor girl, nearly killed her. Travis was a sadistic rapist, a child molester, a murderer, and now, according to you boneheads, maybe even a serial killer. Not a fine, upstanding, highly decorated police captain on a first-name basis with the mayor…”
Camilla froze in mid breath.
In the sudden silence, Veronica’s eyes widened in horror. Her jaw snapped shut, and she tucked her chin down to stare at the floor.
“Oops,” Mason giggled.
Veronica had killed her second husband, the police captain, too. Camilla found she wasn’t really surprised. Veronica had killed both her husbands.
Camilla felt a pang of sympathy for Veronica, trapped in an inescapable cycle of abuse and violence, driven to seek it out over and over again because it was the only love she knew.
“Serial killers are astronomically rare,” Camilla said, speaking to defuse the situation and take the focus off Veronica. “Maybe I am being silly. After all, what are the odds that Vita Brevis would accidentally recruit a serial killer as one of ten show contestants?”
“Perhaps it wasn’t an accident,” Mason said.
“Oh god, you’re not helping, Mason.”
“I can just imagine the Craigslist ad.” Dark amusement flickered in Juan’s eyes. “Serial killer with a preference for underage girls wanted. Must be proven survivor and look good on camera. Ten million for two weeks’ work, room and board included…”
“Look.” Mason sounded exasperated. “We know Julian recruited Travis specifically because he was a convict. They even made his résumé a prize for Lauren to find.”
He laid a hand on Camilla’s shoulder. “Besides,” he said, “the percentage of serial killers in a prison population, no matter what they were arrested for, would be much higher than in an average cross-section of humanity. So even if it was an accident, maybe the odds aren’t quite as astronomical as you seem to think.”
Mason tapped the “T” on the diagram. A streak of Travis’s blood looped beneath it, underlining it. “But like I said, I don’t really think it was an accident. We already know Julian deliberately recruited a convicted child molester for morbid entertainment value. So how much of a stretch is it to believe Julian actually wanted Travis because he was a serial killer?”