13. Carey
Carey
Tate slowly clapped his hands. “Okay, Kiara. Nicely done with the scheduled texts. It’s all very convincing,” he said. “But can we end this charade now? I really don’t feel like playing a game.”
“It’s not me!” Kiara jumped up and slammed a fist on the table. “I told you, I have nothing to do with this shit!”
Evan piped up. “Sorry, but I have to agree with Tate. You’re the most obvious suspect apart from Carey.”
“You can’t be fucking serious!”
“I am.” Evan raised a brow. “Everyone else agrees, but they’re all pussies, so they can’t admit it.”
“That’s bullshit,” Maverick cut in. “I don’t think it’s Kiara.”
“Oh, yeah? Then who arranged this shit? Carey?” Evan asked, shooting me a dark look. I rolled my eyes in response before looking away.
“We already discussed this,” Maverick replied. “Brooke’s theory has to be right. The Game Master is someone outside of this room. Outside of the twelve.”
“Guys, can we not have the same fucking conversation over and over?” April said hotly. “You saw the message. The game could be starting any minute now. We need to eat and drink, or else we’re going to be exhausted and dehydrated all day.”
“Go ahead and pour yourself a coffee, then,” Kiara said in a saccharine tone. “Have fun getting poisoned.”
“The video said nothing on the table is laced, and Tate is still fine after eating that croissant,” I pointed out, lifting a brow.
Kiara turned her sneering gaze to me. “You know, it’s much easier to slip poison into liquids than solids. Just because the croissants are fine doesn’t mean the coffee and juice are fine too.”
Damn.She had a point. I still thought everything on the table was probably fine, but I wasn’t willing to risk my life for ‘probably’.
When I remained silent, Kiara smiled victoriously and waved a hand at the coffee pot. “So… who’s brave enough to try?” she asked. “Carey’s just proved she isn’t. April, how about you? You were just saying how much you need a drink, right?”
April gnawed on the inside of her cheek, eyes wavering between me and the coffee pot closest to her. “You really think it’s okay?” she whispered.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Maverick snapped. He stood and grabbed one of the coffee pots and one of the juice jugs. He poured himself a cup of each and gulped both down. “There,” he said, wiping his chin. “If I drop dead in the next couple of minutes, you’ll know Kiara is right.”
We waited with bated breath for a few minutes. Nothing happened. Maverick was totally fine.
With that, we all dug in, filling ourselves with delicious pastries, fruits, bacon, eggs, and coffee. I could tell everyone was still a bit worried about potential poison or drugs in the food, but April was right—if we were really going to be forced into some crazy challenge scenario in the next few minutes, we’d need our strength and energy.
“I’ll give these psycho kidnappers one thing,” Tate said through a mouthful of food. “They’re excellent caterers. These are the best damn croissants I’ve ever had. The bacon is top tier too.”
“Yeah, thanks for the grub, Kiara,” Evan said, smiling smugly at her before turning his attention to me. “Or should I be thanking you, Carey?”
“Oh my god, shut the fuck up!” I snapped, eyes narrowing. I was so done with these preppy assholes judging me when I’d never done anything to any of them, apart from Maverick. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you really need t—”
I was cut off mid-tirade by a shrill beeping sound, followed by an automated voice. “Please proceed to the gaming room in five minutes.”
Zach stood abruptly. “Where the hell is the gaming room?” he asked, eyes flashing with fear. “And where’s that voice coming from?”
Rhys stood too, narrowing his eyes as he moved around the left side of the drawing room. “I’m pretty sure all the statues and paintings in here are bugged,” he said as he leaned in to examine a large marble bust on a plinth. He stood up straight again and shook a finger. “Yeah, see? The eyes. There’s a small red light in one of them.”
“You think it’s a camera?” Brooke asked, forehead wrinkling.
“Of course it is. Looks like there’s a tiny microphone in the mouth, too.” Rhys looked back at the table. “I bet this whole house is filled with cameras and speakers so the Game Master can watch us and communicate with us. The phones are just an added touch.”
Maverick strode over to the other side of the drawing room and started examining the bronze sconces lining the damask wallpaper. “Rhys is right. And it’s not just the artwork. It’s the light fixtures too. There are surveillance cameras fucking everywhere,” he finally said. “I can’t believe we missed this earlier.”
“Well, we weren’t expecting to be forced into some weird hybrid of Big Brother and Squid Game,” April said. “So I don’t blame you for not noticing until now. None of us did.”
“So, my other question,” Zach chimed in. “The gaming room. Where the hell is it?”
I shook my head. “No idea. I guess we have to go and find it.”
“Let’s go.” Maverick snapped his fingers. “We can search the place for the rest of the cameras and mics later.”
Everyone murmured their agreement and stood. When we stepped out of the drawing room, a resounding gasp filled the hall. “It’s open,” Jasmine said breathlessly.
She was referring to one of the previously sealed hallways that ran out of the spacious foyer. The steel shutter had rolled upward, revealing a long hall lined with doors. Every door was sealed except for the first one on the right, which had a sign on it. Gaming Room 1.
“Well, there it is,” April muttered. “Who’s game to go in first?”
“Are you seriously making game-related puns right now?” Kiara said, rolling her eyes.
“No, I didn’t even realize,” April said, voice laced with anxiety. “I just meant… who wants to go in first? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“I’ll go,” Maverick said. He headed into the hall, opened the door, and stepped into the room. “Huh,” he said. “This is weird as fuck. Come and look, guys.”
We all marched into the room after him, eyes wide as we took in our new surroundings. The walls were painted black, and strange metal fixtures hung from the ceiling along with a series of gears and pulleys that were embedded in the ceiling itself. Each fixture hung directly above one of twelve large gray squares on the floor, arranged in a three-by-four grid. The squares had our names embossed in the center, and each was surrounded by four smaller squares—red above, blue to the right, yellow below, and green to the left.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Rhys said, heading over to the square with his name. “Anyone?”
“No idea,” Courteney murmured, heading over to her own square. She knelt to examine it. “I don’t see anything here, except the name.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Zach said, flashing a worried look at me, April, and Brooke. Our squares were all in different places. Mine was at the bottom right corner, April was in the middle of the second row, Brooke was on the left of the third row, and Zach was in the top left corner.
The door suddenly slammed shut behind us, and the thudding sound was followed by a loud click.
“We’re locked in now,” Brooke said. Her olive complexion had turned white.
A crisp robotic voice addressed us from a speaker on the front wall. “Welcome to Simon Says Survive,” it said. “All players must proceed to their squares now.”
Kiara snorted. “Simon Says Survive? What the fuck is that?”
“Ah, pretending you don’t know. Classic deflection technique so no one will suspect you,” Tate said. Evan nodded and snickered alongside him.
“What if we don’t do it?” I asked, frowning over at my square. “Like, what if we straight up refuse to play any of the games?”
The speaker crackled to life again a few seconds later. “Those who fail to participate in the games will be eliminated.”
Rhys whirled around. “He’s listening to us,” he said, voice edged with panic. “He heard what Carey just said.”
“Or maybe it’s an automated script playing,” Kiara said. “I was just wondering the exact same thing as Carey, and I bet the rest of us were too.”
“Ah. A script your employees wrote and programmed, right?” Evan asked, tilting his head. “Do you have a little button in your pocket that you can press to control things around here? Or are your employees working behind the scenes for you?”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not the Game Master, and I don’t have anyone working for me in this shithole!” Kiara shouted. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you?”
The robotic voice piped up again. “Here are the instructions and rules for Simon Says Survive. They will be read out twice to ensure you can all grasp them,” it said. “The challenge is loosely based on the game Simon Says. For those who’ve never played it before, it’s a classic children’s game that involves listening, memory, and following instructions.”
“A children’s game?” Maverick muttered from the square to my left. “This is so fucked up.”
The monotonous voice continued blaring from the speakers. “There are twenty levels in the game. All must be passed to ensure your survival. In the first level, one of the smaller colored squares around your square will briefly light up. When you hear a beep, you must tap your foot on the square that lit up. In the second level, two squares will light up, one after the other. The first will be the same one from level one, and the second will be a new one. At the beep, you must tap your foot on both squares in the correct order. Each subsequent level will introduce a new colored square in the sequence, and you must recall the exact sequence from previous levels while also memorizing the newest addition. If you step on an incorrect square, you will be eliminated. If you make it to the final round without any mistakes, you will survive.”
“They weren’t kidding about this being a dumb kid’s game,” Rhys said. “I literally played this at an arcade on my seventh birthday. It’s easy as fuck.”
“Was there any risk of you dying in that arcade if you lost the game?” Brooke snapped.
“C’mon, guys, we aren’t going to die,” Evan said. “I’m telling you, Tate is a hundred percent right. Kiara set this shit up for more followers.”
“I thought you said it was Carey,” Jasmine shot back, folding her arms. “Now suddenly you’re totally certain it’s Kiara? Make up your mind, dumbass.”
“Oh, I have made it up. Carey is out, Kiara is in,” Evan said. “This is all some stupid influencer bullshit to get views and likes. Pathetic, if you ask me.”
“Funny. I don’t remember anyone asking for your shitty opinion,” April said.
Evan opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by the robotic voice running through the instructions for a second time.
“The game begins in one minute. I hope you’re all ready. Have fun, players!” the voice concluded. There was a faint whirring sound from above, and I looked up to see several of the metal gears on the ceiling spinning in slow circles.
“What the hell is all that stuff?” I asked, pointing upward.
“No idea,” Zach replied, lifting his gaze too. “The hanging things look like pipes, but I don’t know what they’re for.”
He was right. When I craned my neck and squinted hard, I could see a hollow running through the center of the thick metal cylinder above my head.
“Could it be for some sort of gas?” Brooke said, lifting a brow. “If we fail the game, maybe we get knocked out with that.”
“Or acid could drop on our faces,” April said with a shudder. “Anyone else want to hazard a guess?”
“Why don’t we just focus on playing the game and hope we never have to find out what the pipes are for?” Maverick said. “Speculating like this isn’t going to do shit except scare everyone.”
“True,” Brooke murmured, lowering her eyes to the floor.
Our squares suddenly lit up around the edges, and a robotic voice reverberated throughout the room. “Level one.”
The blue square to my right lit up. I waited for the beep, and then I tapped my foot on it. Everyone else did the same.
“Level two,” said the voice.
The right blue square lit up, followed by the yellow square below. I waited for the beep and tapped my foot again. Blue right, yellow down.
“We all got the same squares, right?” Zach called out to the group. “Blue and yellow?”
There was a resounding chorus of ‘yes’, and my shoulders sagged with relief. At least we all had the same sequence to follow. The game would be much more confusing if we didn’t.
“Level three.”
This time, the new addition to the sequence was green left. Everyone passed easily, but the tension in the room had thickened. We were all worried about the upper levels, where we’d have to remember many more squares in the pattern.
“This is such bullshit,” Evan said. “Seriously, guys, nothing will happen if we step on the wrong square.”
Okay, I was wrong. We weren’t all worried about the game.
“Do it, then,” Hudson muttered. “See what happens.”
“I will,” Evan said as the robotic voice announced level four. “You’ll see in a few seconds. Nothing will happen to me, and Kiara will have to admit she arranged all this shit for views and followers.”
The new addition to the sequence was another blue square. After the following beep, I carefully tapped my foot in the correct order—blue, yellow, green, blue. At the same time, I watched Evan’s feet out of the corner of my eye. He chose to tap on the red square first, followed by blue, yellow, and red again.
A loud beep resounded through the gaming room, and the robotic voice spoke again. “Player six is out. Remaining players, please stand by.”
Evan grinned. “See? Nothing’s happening to me,” he said, lifting his palms. “Tate was right. This is all Kiar—”
His smug speech was abruptly cut off by a sudden mechanical hiss. A metal rod shot out of the pipe above his head, shaft slicing through the air with lethal precision. In an instant, it found its mark, impaling Evan through the skull with a sickening crunch.
Time seemed to slow down as the horror unfolded. Evan’s eyes widened in shock as the steel brutally drove through bone and tissue, and a spray of crimson erupted, splattering the squares surrounding him. He let out a strangled gurgle as the rod retracted with a metallic clang, and his body convulsed in a futile struggle before falling limp on the square below.
I stared at the grisly spectacle with bulging eyes, reeling with a mix of shock and disbelief. Adrenaline surged through my veins, pushing me to run, but that urge was paralyzed by the sheer terror of the moment, leaving me frozen in place and unable to tear my gaze from Evan’s body.
The stunned silence in the room was broken by a wailing scream. Jasmine’s spot was next to Evan’s, so she had the worst view of all, and some of his blood was seeping into her square. She fell to her knees and covered her eyes, strangled shrieks escaping her lips between gasped words. “I… I can’t. Can’t do this. Can’t…”
Her cries blended with a cacophony of shrieks and gasps from the others in the room as the crushing reality finally sank in.
That really happened. Evan was really dead.
“Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod,” I said in a ragged whisper, whole body racked with tremors.
The bone-chilling screams around me made my stomach lurch, and I fell to my knees on my square, suddenly too weak to remain upright. The realization that we were all minutes away from meeting the same fate as Evan if we failed a single step was constricting my chest in a suffocating grip, leaving me unable to breathe properly.
“Get up,” April said, voice thick with emotion. “Carey, Jasmine… get up. You have to. Please.”
I couldn’t reply. Still couldn’t breathe.
Someone hauled me to my feet and held my left arm in a firm grip until I stopped wobbling. It was only when he stepped away that I realized it was Maverick. “Get it together, Saracen,” he muttered.
“Level five,” the robot voice announced.
I could feel Maverick’s eyes lingering on me as the next level proceeded in a blur of colored lights. “Blue, yellow, green, blue, red,” he called out to everyone. “Come on, guys. We can do it.”
I followed his instructions, not even knowing if they were right. It felt like my head had been scraped clean from the shock of what I’d just witnessed, and it was almost impossible to formulate a single thought. Thankfully, I passed, along with the ten other remaining players, and a collective sigh of relief went through the room.
“I can’t believe it,” Jasmine choked out. She was still on the floor, but she’d used her hands to tap the squares around her. “He’s really dead.”
“I know.” April reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You should get up. Just in case. C’mon, I’ll help you.”
Zach joined April in helping Jasmine to her feet. At the same time, Kiara started shrieking all over again. “Do you fuckers believe me now?” she shouted, whirling around to look at Tate through bloodshot eyes. “Can you see it’s all fucking real?”
Tate’s face had gone stark white, and his gaze was fixed on Evan’s lifeless body. “I… I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“Sorry?” Rhys said sharply, hands clenching at his sides. “Your theory got Evan killed. You think sorry is enough to—”
He was cut off by the robotic voice announcing the beginning of the sixth level. Zach and April quickly returned to their squares, and Maverick guided us all through the sequence again, loudly calling out the colors.
“We’re going to get through this, okay?” he called out once we’d cleared the level. “I know you all want to cry and scream and freak out, but you have to save it for later. For now, it’s all about survival. Got it?”
Everyone nodded numbly. Maverick’s calm voice guided us through level after level, and after what felt like an eternity, the game was finally over.
“Congratulations, players,” the robot voice said. “You all passed, with the exception of player six. You may leave the gaming room now.”
There was a mechanical hissing sound followed by a loud click in the door. It swung open, revealing the hallway outside.
“Uh… let’s go, I guess,” Rhys muttered, looking around at everyone. He didn’t move, though. It seemed as if he was rooted to the spot in fear and confusion, just like me.
I looked upward, terrified that this was all some sort of cruel trick where the metal rod would shoot down to impale me as soon as I attempted to leave my square. Several of the others seemed to have the same concern, eyes fixed on the pipes above.
“Carey.”
My eyes snapped to the left at the sound of my name. Maverick was standing next to me with his right hand extended. He’d stepped off his own square in order to reach me, and he was totally fine. “Come on,” he muttered. “Time to go.”
I took his hand and let him lead me off the gaming floor. I was grateful for the warmth and support in this cold, terrifying place, and for those moments, our nasty history and mutual dislike was forgotten.
When we reached the doorway, I lifted my chin and met his eyes. His expression was unreadable. “Thanks,” I murmured. “I really thought I was going to—”
“I know.” He kept my hand in his and squeezed it. “I get it.”
His touch sent a jolt of electricity through me, and I shivered involuntarily. We were standing so close that our faces were nearly touching. Suddenly I felt a surge of desire; a heat spreading through me that had nothing to do with fear.
I quickly brushed it aside, chalking it up to the intensity of the game. We were survivors, loaded with adrenaline and clinging to whatever support we could get in the face of unimaginable danger. That was all. I wasn’t actually aroused by Maverick right now. No way.
I took a deep breath and pulled my hand away. “Thanks again,” I said.
“No problem.” He was staring down at me now, eyes flickering with indecipherable emotion. I had a feeling I knew what he was thinking, though. He was probably wondering if he did the right thing in helping me, given our bad blood along with the earlier suspicion aimed at me.
Then again, he seemed to be fairly convinced that the Game Master was an outsider, meaning he shouldn’t suspect me at all, even if many of the others did.
As my mind raced through the possibilities, I inhaled sharply and took a sudden faltering step back. It had just occurred to me that Maverick’s calmness and steady hand could be a sign of his own culpability in this situation. Perhaps he was able to remain so cool and collected because he knew he couldn’t lose. Knew he was always in control.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning as he registered the sudden shift in my energy. “I mean, apart from the obvious.”
I swallowed thickly and averted my eyes. “Just the obvious stuff, like you said,” I said. “This whole situation. The games. The cameras everywhere. Evan.”
“Right.” He dipped his chin in a curt nod. “I’ll try to help out with the games. Help everyone, I mean.”
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“I know most of us aren’t friends here, so that might be a little hard to believe,” he went on, still staring at me with that penetrating gaze. “But you can trust me. I swear.”
That wasn’t true. I still had no idea what was happening in this mansion or why I’d been selected as a player, but I did know one thing for sure.
I couldn’t trust anyone.