Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It’s been over twenty-four hours since I last had water.
At one point, I tried to maneuver my way to the bathroom to drink from the sink, but my kidnapper tied my hands and feet so securely to each other that I had no freedom of movement.
Once I was on the ground, I couldn’t see the clock.
And when I wormed my way to the bathroom, I realized there would be no way I could even get up on the toilet to reach the faucet.
Given that I haven’t been successful, I haven’t needed to pee.
Not for the first time, I think about the mystery food Oakley tried to give me. Why the hell didn’t I eat it?
I glare at the tile under my head, moving to a new cool spot. At one point, I think my fever broke, but I’m so thirsty I’m fairly certain it’s back. Everything feels warm and fuzzy, and I close my eyes to shut it all out.
When I wake again, I’m still on the floor. Alone.
There’s a bit of dirt on the tile in front of me, and listlessly I wonder what it came from. Outside? Did this hunter drag it in from his other killings? How many other players are dead?
The thought makes me tired, so I close my eyes again. My stomach grumbles, and I ignore it. It’s not even the lack of food. It’s the forgetting.
Did Oakley forget? Has he been looking? And what of the guy who took me? If he’s going to kill me, just fucking do it. But he’s forgetting me, too?
Tired rage burns behind my eyes, and I close them. Suddenly, I’m sixteen again, and it’s the weekend after Christmas. The tree blinks in the living room, covered in cheap balls and plastic stars.
I keep trying to convince myself the tree is pretty. The ornaments were all I could find on a delivery service. Luckily, I grabbed them ‘cause Mom’s card declined after that order.
Sighing, I go back to the pantry. There’s an old bag of rice and some stale, purple Peeps. I stare at them, and they stare up at the ceiling, all fluffed together as a unit. As a family.
My eyes burn, and I snatch up the packet. How dare they have someone, and I don’t? They’re fucking candy.
Ripping open the plastic, I viciously tear the marshmallows apart. They rip with little pfft sounds, groups tearing apart, squishing under my fingers, until they’re mangled and smashed and none of them are touching, some of their eyes ripped off, ears flattened, bellies ripped apart.
My hands shake, and I don’t feel any better.
I check my phone again, mostly out of habit.
I know there are no notifications. My parents haven’t texted back in a week, either because they don’t have service on their holiday cruise, or because they don’t care.
The holiday cruise they forgot to tell me was over two weeks long. The whole holiday season.
Technically, Grandpa is in charge of me right now. But we all know Grandpa is a drunk alcoholic.
“Don’t have any parties, and don’t open the door to strangers.”
The lights twinkle on the tree, and I snap my gaze up to look at it.
The plastic branches mock me with their warped ornaments, looking like they came from the clearance rack where families leave their discarded shit for other families to pick through and build their own trees from the discarded lives of others.
The tree looks like it knows my parents aren’t home.
Like it knows no adult has ever touched it.
My stomach growls, but I ignore it. I’m sure I could figure out a way to get food here. Apply for a card under Dad’s name or something. But as I stare at the sparkling lights, I can’t find the energy to care. I can survive off a bag of rice and some old peeps. That part doesn’t matter.
They forgot about me, and it makes my shoulders want to curl in on my body. Makes me want to lie in bed, close my eyes, and never get back up again. Would anyone at school care?
Doubtful. They treated me with pity for a few weeks after Connor died, and then they seemed to expect me to get over it. To forget it. They went back to their lives like nothing had happened. Like Connor’s kind, bubbly spirit never existed.
If something happened to me while they were gone, would they do the same for me?
As I stare at the floor, I realize with a sickening sensation that they would. In fact, it’s almost like they already have.
I’m not sure how long it takes me to come back to the present. I’m not sure what the present is anymore. He left me. Oakley, the man who took me…Elijah, Connor…it doesn’t matter.
No one has come. Because in the end, people always leave me, for one reason or another.
I stare at those same three grains of dirt. One is bigger than the rest. Did it get caught in a tread? Was it there to witness someone’s last moments? An end that was only seen by those who don’t care. An end that will be forgotten.
Against my will, tears prick my eyes. I’m shocked I even have any moisture left to get one out.
I spent years and years going through school to help other people not feel alone.
Learning every disorder I could and trying to understand their inner workings so people could heal. So no one felt forgotten.
So no one felt like I did.
And as I stare at those pieces of dirt, I can’t help but realize this is a fitting end for me. Alone, forgotten, on the bathroom floor.
There’s a noise outside. It’s a deep explosion, like a firework or…cannon.
I freeze. The floor shivers, like the building can feel the evil in this place.
Then there’s screaming. Yelling, like coyotes excited and giddy to rip their prey to shreds.
The hunters. There are so many of them. They have a community. Family. Even though they’re the worst people possibly to exist.
And that makes me angry. It makes me deeply, bone-achingly angry.
I want to dig my fingers into them and rip them apart.
Separate them from their clones and throw them all across the island like pieces of purple peeps.
I want to tear their eyes off, pull their ears off their heads, rip their bellies open. Separate them from what they love.
Show them how it feels to be me.
My breathing is heavy when I hear noise at the door, much closer than the normal noise of the hotel. I hold my breath. I’m not stupid enough to scream. No. I won’t give them the satisfaction.
The door opens. I scramble to face the door and sit up.
A man strides in, a half-skull mask on his face. Recognition makes me freeze. It’s the man from the golf cart.
Wyatt.
He almost passes the bathroom, does a double-take, and stops to face me. Something flashes in his gaze. He looks at me like a wolf looks at its prey, hungry and calculating.
Wyatt doesn’t give me a second to breathe, just rips the mask off his head and stalks toward me, with a short beard on his face and hair in a top knot.
He has a handsome face, all harsh angles and dark eyes.
He looks…slightly familiar. But not like I’ve ever seen him before, but like I’ve seen a version of him in a dream.
“What are you doing on the floor?” Wyatt strides into the bathroom with one giant step, snatching me by the arm and lifting me up. Not being able to stand, I trip, him holding all my weight with one hand. He doesn’t even falter, just carries me to the bed and tosses me there.
I hiss, throat hoarse, unable to get out words.
“No need for games, I know who you’re working for.”
I snarl at him, the man behind the skull mask who thinks he can cheat death. His eyes would look pretty smeared across the floor. He can’t cheat death if he unties me.
He just stares at me with a weight of hatred behind his eyes. Hatred for me. Like I’m the one who did something. Which just confuses me, but with the fuzziness from the lack of water, I can’t figure it out.
Water.
I can’t fight him without a drink. I open my mouth, my first word in I don’t know how long coming out rough, “Water.”
Wyatt doesn’t listen. “Why did he bring you here?”
I don’t have the answers. I just stare at the man, wondering if I could get his eyeballs up his nose. In my fuzzy state, I realize that he has the mean, bad-boy look down. Why does he have to be hot?
Hot? Oh my god, I’m hallucinating. I’ve officially lost my mind.
I think Wyatt continues to ask me questions, but the world is pretty fuzzy until, finally, I recognize a flash of rage settle over his face. I think for a second he’s going to kill me, but then he turns on his heel to leave.
“Wait!” I gasp. He can’t go without getting me water without at least giving me a chance to fight him in my death throes.
He doesn’t stop.
Slowly, my eyes roll to the clock. It’s seven AM. Again. “Two days?” I say it, not sure why. It doesn’t matter.
“I’ll die,” I rasp. I mean it as an emotionless statement. More of a statement of fact.
I’ll die before I get to kill him, and that makes me fucking sad.
Wyatt comes back from around the corner, and I force my fuzzy vision to focus on him.
For the briefest second, something flashes across Wyatt’s face. It looks a lot like…confusion?
Then, he’s gone.
Gone.
Walked away.
I can’t process it. Instead, I stare at where he disappeared. I wonder where they’ll bury me. I wonder if archeologists in a hundred years will dig up my bones. I wonder if they’ll be able to tell how I died. Can you tell if someone died from dehydration from their bones?
I start letting out bursts of air that are supposed to be a laugh. So silly. Dehydrated bones.
There’s movement in my periphery.
Oh cool. He’s back. Maybe they won’t have to water-test my bones. Maybe a cracked skull will do the trick.
When I open my eyes again, I feel like I can only focus one eye at a time. Wyatt is standing there, a cup in his hands.
A paper cup.
That sobers me enough to focus both my eyes. Water.
“Why are you here?”
I try to sit up to get to the cup.
“Why are you here?”
Slowly, I remember my arms are tied, so I can’t reach the cup anyway. Then, miracle of miracles, Wyatt brings the cup of water to my lips. At least, it looks like water.
I have one last rational thought: the water is poisoned. Vaguely, I recognize the centipede poisoned me already. Would this make a double poisoning?
I flick my gaze up to Wyatt’s, fuzzy tongue licking my cracked lips. I’d spit on him if I could, but I make sure to include all the hatred I can in my gaze.
I’m certain he’ll laugh in my face. Maybe hit me.
But he doesn’t. He just looks at me, eyes narrowing, darting all over my face, like he’s memorizing every detail.
“Your eyes are sunken.” He says it like it surprises him.
I just stare at him.
Then, he does something that I least expect. He grips my shoulder, leaning me forward. I can’t see what he’s doing, but I hear him put the water down. Something moves at my back. Wyatt steps away, and I blink. What did he just do?
It takes me a second to realize he cut the ties on my hands. My arms feel like thick blocks, and I try to move them.
Why did he do that? I stare up at him, but he’s just watching me impassively.
“Drink.” He nods at the cup.
I try to move my arms again, but they don’t move. A muffled bit of alarm rings in my brain. I should be able to move.
There’s a huff of annoyance. “I have limited patience.”
“I…can’t.” My shoulders are the only things that are moving; everything else feels numb.
There’s a beat of silence before Wyatt steps up, snatching up the cup and putting it to my mouth.
For a second, I consider refusing. But poisoning would be easier to detect in the bones, right? I can do the people who find me one last favor.
So I drink it, the cool water sliding down my throat. I suck the rest of the cup down, gone before I realize. When Wyatt pulls the cup away, I’m panting.
More. I need more.
I feel his gaze on me, heavy and calculating. “What was he planning?”
“Who?” I ask. Is he talking about Oakley? Oh god, did he get Oakley?
I feel the warning alarm of fear, but it’s like it’s muffled in a towel. It feels distant, and yet something I should care about.
He got Oakley.
Wait. Oakley is my enemy. Right?
Why doesn’t this make me glad? But I’m not glad.
Instead, that fear sinks through my entire body.
If Wyatt got Oakley, then he’d be the next on my roster of dead men.
And suddenly I’m thinking about Connor and Elijah, and reality hits me like a brick to the face.
Fear, grief, anger, loneliness, rage. It all hits at the same time, and now all I want is that numbness to come back.
I look up at Wyatt, who has been watching me this whole time. It feels like he’s looking deep into my soul and dissecting it, ripping it to shreds, and finding it lacking.
I flex one of my hands behind my back. It tingles, but there’s movement.
There’s another yip outside, and with the water, the rage settles back into my soul. Oakley didn’t deserve to die.
My stomach locks up like it’s frozen in ice, and I realize now how much I started to believe Oakley, even if I didn’t want to.
Another wash of cool terror slides through me. If Wyatt took Oakley like he took me, then Oakley was telling the truth. He was just trying to help me, and he’s not a bad person at all.
There’s a slight ringing in my ears.
What if I was wrong about Oakley? Now both of us will die here, nothing but a number. No one will remember me. They won’t remember that I love chocolate ice cream, or that I lost my best friend in the entire world, or that deep down I’m secretly an undercover spy.
No one will know that I fucking hate peeps. The only people who know that are either dead or will be.
A loud scream makes me blink and look toward the window.
Tears burn in my eyes, and as those tears burn, I feel the familiar well of rage. It burns hot, tearing through the tears and clearing a way for something easier: hate.
I hate these people. I hate them for taking this from me.
I blink back to the present. I’m not sure what happened, but the man is gone. Water from the sink is running. As I listen, a plan comes to mind. Slowly, I bring my bound legs out from under me.
I’ll make sure one person remembers me, and that’s this hateful fucker right in front of me.
Wyatt comes back with another cup of water, which I eagerly start to drink. With the hand that’s starting to get more feeling, I swing my arm up into the cup, splattering the water onto him. Just as quickly, I swing my other hand up to smack him as hard as I can across the face.
“Go to hell.”