15. Maverick
Maverick
“Oh my god...” Jasmine inhaled sharply as she stared out at the seemingly endless ocean. “How is this possible?”
Brooke slowly shook her head, following Jasmine’s gaze. “I don’t know. I don’t get it,” she muttered. Her skin had turned pallid, aside from the purple half-moons beneath her eyes. She looked exactly how I felt—exhausted, confused, defeated.
This was what the Game Master wanted. He wanted us to feel hopeless and scared. Wanted to toy with us mentally, emotionally, and physically before bringing the hammer down. The twisted children’s games were just one part of the overall scheme to destroy us.
I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let him win. I had to stay strong. If not for my sake, for everyone else’s.
“It’s okay,” I said, lifting my chin. “We can figure this out.”
“How?” Kiara screeched, throwing her hands up. “Seriously, how the fuck are we going to figure out any of this shit? We’re trapped on a fucking island!”
I kept my voice and expression neutral as I replied. “Let’s try to approach this like we already know there’s a solution. That’ll help us stay calm, and that’s really important right now.”
“How the hell can we do that when we all know there’s probably no solution?”
I lifted a palm. “We’ll make a list of questions we have about everything, and then we’ll try to answer each one logically. That’s a good starting point to figuring out a way through this shit. All right?”
I wasn’t sure if my suggestion would actually help matters, but I figured it would bring some much-needed order to the situation and momentarily distract the others from the terror they felt. The last thing we needed right now was to give in to the crushing fear and hopelessness.
“Well… I have an answer to the question of how this is possible,” Carey said, lifting her hand like we were in a classroom discussion.
“How?” Brooke asked.
Carey raised her voice several octaves as the howling wind picked up again. “It was the drugs. They transported us to the island while we were all unconscious.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I said, dipping my chin in a brief nod. “We assumed they put us to bed at 4 Sutherland Drive because we didn’t have enough information to even consider that we might be somewhere else. But now we know better.”
“We don’t even know if we were only unconscious for one night,” Carey added. “For all we know, it was longer. We might’ve lost a whole day and a half to those drugs.”
Jasmine rubbed her arms as she shivered. “Can we talk about this inside? It’s freezing.”
“Good idea.” I turned on my heel and headed for the spiral staircase. The others marched after me in silence.
“So, they moved us when we were knocked out from the spiked drinks, and they set up the foyer downstairs to look like the one at Sutherland Drive,” Zach said once we were all settled back in my room. “That means they wanted us to think we were in the same mansion that we went to at the start.”
“But why?” Jasmine turned her wide eyes to him. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“To mess with us,” Brooke murmured. “It’s all to mess with us.”
“Agreed.” I nodded. “Earlier this morning, we all had hope that we could be tracked here by the cops. The Game Master only wanted us to have that hope so he could rip it away from us. It’s all part of his game.”
“Exactly,” Carey said. “No one is looking for us here. They’ll track our phones to 4 Sutherland Drive, and they’ll find nothing but an empty house.”
We all remained silent for a moment as we contemplated her words. Then I stood up and clapped my hands together to snap everyone’s attention back to me. “Let’s do what I said before. We’ll make a list of our questions. See if anyone has any solutions.”
“Okay. First question. If we aren’t at Sutherland Drive, where the fuck are we?” Rhys asked, cocking his head. “Anyone have any idea?”
Everyone bleakly shook their heads, including me. The Northern Californian coast was dotted with hundreds of tiny islands. Hell, the whole West Coast was like that. We could be fucking anywhere.
“Actually, forget that.” Rhys shook his head. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“We have access to this tower thing now. As in, we can get outside. So it doesn’t matter exactly where we are, because we can escape either way.”
Zach raised a brow. “How?”
“We can take the sheets off our beds and tie them together to make a sort of rope. Then we can tie it to something in the tower and use the rope to abseil down.”
April frowned. “That sounds really dangerous. You saw those rocks right at the base of the tower, right?”
“We can make it as safe as possible,” Rhys replied. “We can add knots all the way along the rope, like steps to put our feet on as we climb down. That way we can stagger the journey down instead of just sliding all the way to the bottom and burning the shit out of our hands from the friction.”
“What’s the point of climbing down?” Carey asked.
“Escaping this prison, obviously,” Rhys said, flashing her an incredulous look. “Is that not enough of a point for you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “There’s no point if we don’t have a plan for what to do once we’re down there,” she said frostily. “I also think you’re wrong about it not mattering where we are. It does matter, because we have no idea where the nearest land is. It could be a hundred miles away, for all we know. So what are we supposed to do? Swim away and just hope there’s something nearby?”
“No shit.” Kiara sniffed. “Even if we magically found a boat somewhere, we don’t know which direction the mainland is in. We could be rowing for days or weeks in the totally wrong direction, with no food or water.”
Rhys’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah. That’s true. I guess I got ahead of myself,” he muttered. He looked down and sighed deeply, rubbing at his temples. “Fuck. Sorry. I was just trying to think of a way out.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “This is exactly what we need to do. Keep thinking, talking, and trying. Like a team. We’ll figure something out eventually.”
“Drop the fucking act, Maverick,” Hudson said, rolling his eyes. “We all know the truth. There’s no way out of this place.”
“How do you know that for sure?” April said sharply. “Do you know something we don’t?”
Hudson scowled at her. “No. It’s just fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain. There’s no way out. Maverick’s only trying to keep us calm with his bullshit ‘let’s figure it out’ act so we don’t freak out and kill each other.” He paused and turned his sneering gaze back to me. “You know I’m right, deep down. We’re all fucked. Totally fucked.”
“Wait.” Carey sat up straight. Her face had brightened considerably. “Maybe we’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… I think I know where we are, and it’s not that far away.” Carey turned to Courteney. “This morning, you said this place looks familiar. That you have a déjà vu sort of feeling whenever you look around. I think I know why.”
“Hurry up and spit it out, dumbass,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “We’re all waiting.”
Carey’s lips tightened. “I have to explain it first,” she said. “I think Courteney felt that way because this place is familiar. Think about it. The layout of this hall. The size of the rooms. The shape of the windows. Even the layout of the bathrooms. What does it remind you of?”
“Babylon,” April said, brows knitting. “It’s the same as the dorms.”
“Exactly.” Carey nodded fervently. “I think we’re in Icarus Hall.”
Courteney’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, yes! That’s why it feels so familiar! It’s the exact same building design as the other Babylon buildings!”
“But they’ve been updated and modernized over the years, so it’s not obvious right away,” April said, looking around the room. “That’s why we didn’t notice until now.”
“Yup.”
I nodded, one hand slowly rubbing my jaw. “That would explain the island thing.”
“Exactly. And it also means we aren’t all that far from home,” Carey said. “I mean, how far away is the island from the mainland?”
April’s forehead wrinkled. “About three miles, I think. Maybe four?”
“Hold on.” Rhys lifted a hand. “If we’re at Icarus Hall, shouldn’t we be able to see the mainland from the top of the tower? Because I’m pretty sure the horizon distance is around three or four miles to the naked eye.”
“Not necessarily. You can only see Icarus Hall and the island from the Babylon dorms on very clear days, and even then, it’s just a tiny speck on the horizon,” Brooke said. “It goes both ways, and the weather today is awful. The mainland is probably shrouded in mist right now, so it’s not visible on the horizon. It just looks like clouds and nothing else.”
Rhys’s lips twisted in contemplation as he drummed his fingertips against his left knee. “Shit. You guys might be right. We could be at Icarus Hall,” he finally said, turning to glance at Carey. “Nice catch, Crim.”
“Drop the shitty nicknames, man,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Now is really not the time.”
“Someone’s got a crush,” Kiara said under her breath so that only Jasmine and I could hear.
I glared at her. I didn’t have a crush on Carey. Firstly, this wasn’t the seventh grade. Secondly, the fact that I didn’t think this was the time nor the place for shitty attitudes didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to fuck Carey. I just wanted some peace and harmony in this hellhole while we were trying to bang out an escape plan.
Oh, fuck, who was I kidding?
It was obvious that I found Carey attractive. Everyone did. She was objectively beautiful. I’d screw her brains out if I had the opportunity. None of that meant I had feelings for her though, like Kiara was implying. Attraction was just a physical thing. It didn’t mean anything more.
“Three miles is a pretty long way to swim. Especially when it’s this cold,” Zach said. “Four would be even worse.”
“Yeah, there’s no way any of us are making that distance. Not in this weather.” April replied, shaking her head. “If it was warmer and the water wasn’t so rough, it would probably be okay for someone strong and fit. But right now, anyone who tries to swim away from here could be risking their life.”
Hudson snorted. “Fuck that. I’m not dying of hypothermia for you guys.”
“No one asked you to, dumbass,” Jasmine snapped. “In fact, no one asked you for anything.”
I lifted a palm. “Guys. We need to stay calm. No arguments.”
Carey was the first to reply, and my eyes shot to meet hers as she spoke. “He’s right. I know some of us really don’t like each other, but we’re all in this together, so we need to work as a team and try to put aside our differences for now.” She dropped her gaze from my face and went on. “As difficult as that might be.”
Jasmine pouted. “Whatever. I actually might have an idea,” she said. “Icarus Hall was last used in the 60s, right?”
April nodded. “I think so.”
“They used boats to get back and forth from the mainland, so they might have left some behind,” Jasmine went on. “They’d be super old, but we could still try to use one.”
Tate finally piped up from his spot by the window. “We should use Rhys’s sheet rope idea to go outside and look for them.”
“Are you serious?” April’s face twisted with incredulity. “Look, props to you for the idea, Jasmine, but this whole nightmare shit-show has clearly been planned by someone for a very long time. Don’t you think part of that plan would involve them removing any boats that happen to be lying around outside?”
Kiara’s upper lip curled. “You don’t need to be such a bitch about it.”
April let out an exasperated sigh and threw up her hands. “I’m just trying to be realistic. I’m not trying to be a bitch to anyone.”
“You’re right,” Jasmine muttered. “There are no boats anywhere. It was a stupid idea.”
“Maybe not,” Carey cut in. “I mean, how did the Game Master transport us here? Or himself?”
Brooke’s brows shot up. “Good point. There must be at least one boat here,” she said. “It would obviously be hidden somewhere, but still, it has to be on the island somewhere, right?”
An invisible bubble of hope seemed to float through the room, brightening everyone’s faces. Unfortunately, someone had to burst it.
“You guys could be right. But boats aren’t the only transport option, and while we were up in that tower, I saw a spot on the ground where a helicopter could land. They could’ve used that instead,” Zach said. “Also, if more than one person is involved in this scheme—which seems really likely—then they could’ve dropped us and the Game Master off in a boat and then gone back to shore. That way there’s no boat left here for us to find.”
Shit.He was right.
April piggybacked off his point. “Even if there is a boat somewhere, there’s no way they would’ve left it lying around outside for us to find,” she said. “I mean, think about it. That window shutter being left open was no accident. It was fine this morning, and then it was suddenly cracked open. The Game Master obviously did it just to mess with us. He wanted us to crack it open all the way. He wanted us to know we’re on an island, so we’d all feel totally hopeless.”
The bleak expressions returned to everyone’s faces as they realized Zach and April had made some good points. This place was very likely an inescapable prison, and I was running out of ideas on how to keep everyone’s hopes up. How could I, when there probably wasn’t any fucking hope for us at all?
A series of pings went through the room, alerting us to our phones. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I checked the latest message from our captor.
Dinner is served in the drawing room. Please eat as much as you can handle, because you’ll need your energy. Game two will begin in one hour.