25. Carey
Carey
It wasn’t something I saw earlier. It was something I didn’t see. Something that should’ve been there but was missing instead. That was why I couldn’t put my finger on it for so long.
As we were making our way through the twisted labyrinth during the Seven Minutes in Hell game, we saw Rhys’s corpse chained in an alcove, Evan splayed over a glass ceiling above us, Kiara hanging from a rope, and Tate’s dismembered arm sewn on a doll.
We never saw April’s body.
We saw the gun that killed her, multiple photos of her corpse and the wound that caused her demise, and the bloodied sweater she was wearing when she was shot. But never a body. Not even a part of the body, like we saw in Tate’s case.
I leaned back, sucking down a deep breath. No. I was just being paranoid, surely. This place had finally succeeded in driving me mad. After all, why would April fake her own death? Why would she be the Game Master? Why would she do any of this?
God. I was a horrible bitch for even considering this shit for a second. April was my friend. I should be loyal. Should be grieving her death.
But even as the guilt poured in, the suspicions kept coming just as strongly.
The Game Master told us from the start that he or she was one of us. Kiara was our strongest suspect for a while, but I knew she was truly dead. We all saw her die right in front of us, and then we saw her corpse dangling from that rope in the dark passage this morning. Judging by the appearance and the stench emanating from it, it was really her. Not some sort of Hollywood-designed fake corpse.
As for Evan, Tate, and Rhys, they couldn’t possibly have faked their deaths either, given how they occurred. But April… she died from a gunshot wound that theoretically could’ve been faked.
I had a rough idea of how they did it in movies—some sort of red ink pack would be affixed to the person beneath their shirt, and when the prop gun went off, they’d press a hidden button to release the ink, splattering their clothes with realistic-looking ‘blood’. That could’ve happened in this case. It would also explain why someone as smart as April made such a silly mistake during the game. At the time, I put it down to her exhaustion and stress, but now I wasn’t so sure.
On top of that, none of us were allowed near April to check her pulse and confirm her death. The remaining players on the chessboard couldn’t move to any wrong squares for fear of dying, and those of us who’d already made it across weren’t allowed to return to the board. The closest person was Courteney, but she was still a few squares away, meaning she might not be able to tell for sure if April was breathing or not. April could’ve lain there motionless, taking only short, shallow breaths as infrequently as possible so the players on the board wouldn’t notice that she was still alive.
As for the rest of us—we saw and thus believed exactly what was presented to us. We saw someone get shot, we saw them stagger and fall, and we saw them lying still on the floor with blood pooling around them. Of course we all assumed that person was dead. Especially when none of us had any reason whatsoever to suspect that person of being the Game Master.
The questions kept flooding in, making my stomach churn with confusion and fear. If April was really the Game Master, what made her decide to bring us all here? Why fake her death halfway through the games? How the hell did she even design this place and pull this thing off?
My mind drifted back to a conversation between Kiara and April on our very first day here. ‘Your family are literally military contractors. You totally could’ve built something like this,’ Kiara had said.
‘Oh, sure,’April retorted. ‘I just called my parents, along with the US Army and the Pentagon, and asked if they’d help me set something up to deal with some kids at school who are being mean to my friend. That all sounds totally reasonable and realistic.’
She made it sound so ridiculous at the time, but was it really that outrageous to consider? The Garrick family was uber-wealthy. Beyond billionaire status, if you combined the net worth of every family member. That sort of money bought a ton of influence, power, and most importantly in this case… silence.
A place like this could’ve been designed and built in a hush-hush way, as long as the right people were contacted and bribed. April’s family probably could’ve acquired Icarus Hall on the downlow too, given her father’s close ties to Babylon Prep.
Still, none of this answered my biggest question. Why?
All this time, I’d wanted so badly to believe that someone like Hudson, Rhys, Kiara, or Jasmine was the one behind these games. Or even a total outsider. Never, ever my good friend. But now my gut was telling me there was something to this theory, even though I had no clue about possible motives.
I glanced at the time on my phone. 9:51. Still nine minutes until the curfew. If April’s room was unlocked, I could quickly check in there for any clues she might’ve inadvertently left behind. If I didn’t find anything, I could return first thing in the morning with Maverick and carry out a longer search.
I quietly left my room, tiptoed down to the end of the hall, and tried April’s door handle. It was unlocked, as it should be, given that she supposedly never returned after the Chess Club game. Guilt instantly flooded back in, and I took a deep breath and stepped inside, wondering if I was a total monster for doing this.
The room was laid out similarly to my own—stacked bookshelf and desk on one side, closet, oil paintings on the wall, and a queen-sized bed. I hastily went through the books on the shelf before attempting to pull on the shelf itself, in case the furniture was concealing a secret doorway. No dice. After that, I checked under the bed for any hidden trapdoors. I even checked the bathroom.
Again, there was nothing.
With a sigh, I slumped on the end of April’s bed, face flushing hot with shame. I was either a total bitch for suspecting an innocent person—my closest friend, no less—or I was right but still a total idiot for thinking April would leave any obvious clues lying around her room. What did I expect her to do if she was truly the Game Master? Leave a book on the shelf titled ‘Killing Your Friends 101’? Or a journal on the desk with daily entries detailing her joy at how things were progressing in the games?
My eyes fell on the oil painting on the opposite wall. I stared at it for a full thirty seconds, wondering why my senses were suddenly tingling. Then it hit me. The painting on the corresponding wall in my bedroom was less than half the size of this one. The painting in Maverick’s room was the exact same as mine, and from what I recalled of Brooke and Zach’s rooms, their paintings were also quite small. So why was April’s so massive? Was it just a coincidence, or could there be something behind it?
I leapt up and grabbed the gilt edge of the frame from the left side. It didn’t budge. I tried the right side, and it creaked open to reveal a large hole in the wall.
“Holy shit,” I said breathlessly. I was right. April had been hiding something after all.
The hole was too dark to get a proper look inside it, so I used the light from my phone to illuminate it. I expected to see a stash of food or tech gear, but instead, I saw a tight space with a wooden ladder heading upward.
Curiosity overwhelmed me, outweighing my fear. I took a deep breath and slowly began to ascend, being careful not to make a sound. When I reached the open hole at the top of the ladder, I poked my head out just an inch or two to see what lay on the new level. It was a large room with three single beds, a couch, several cluttered tables, and a large desk at the far end with a computer and multiple screens.
The lamps and overhead lights in the room were off, but the faint, blue-tinged light from the computer screens illuminated the space enough for me to spot a familiar blonde head resting on a pillow on the closest bed.
April was alive.
Disbelief coursed through my veins like icy tendrils, momentarily freezing me in place. How the hell could she do this? How could she be capable of such unspeakable horrors? It didn’t make any sense. She was the last person I ever would’ve suspected of being the Game Master.
I had to believe it, though. The truth was literally laid out right in front of me.
I drew in a shaky breath and started descending as quietly as possible. There was no way I could confront April alone. That was far too dangerous. I had to wake up Maverick and the others so we could figure out our next move together.
When I was halfway down the ladder, a click sounded above me, and my eyes shot up to meet April’s cold gaze. She was crouching over the hole in the floor with a pistol pointed right at my face.
“God, Carey,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “I really wish you hadn’t come here.”