Chapter 8
Brooke
The basement door scrapes open without warning. Light spills down the stairs.
“Brooke,” a voice calls. “Come.”
Miles stiffens. Sarah’s eyes snap open, dread already blooming there.
Knox appears behind the man in the white coat. “Get up.”
I don’t move fast enough. My body isn’t really here. Knox grabs me anyway, yanking me upright. My wrist screams. My pulse skitters painfully in my throat.
The physician turns and walks, expecting me to follow. My feet follow out of instinct while my mind floats somewhere else. It feels like moving through a nightmare I can’t wake from.
The hallway is too clean, too sterile for a place like this. My vision shimmers, as if my eyes can’t decide what is real. Images flicker behind my eyelids:
Seth falling. Seth bleeding. Seth not getting up.
And this time the ache doesn’t spike, it sinks. A hollow carves out inside my chest where warmth used to be.
The physician leads me into his quarters. A stripped-down infirmary with a cot, a tray of metal tools, shelves of supplies that feel more threatening than helpful. The door clicks shut behind us.
“Sit.”
I sit because my body understands obedience better than my mind right now.
He takes my arm without asking and examines it with quiet focus.
“Clean break,” he says. “Nasty, though.”
“No shit,” I rasp.
He barely looks at me. “Swelling’s manageable. You’ll need it immobilized. It’ll function—assuming you last that long.”
His words feel like they are aimed at a version of me that isn’t in the room.
“How… how long would it take to heal?” My voice feels thin.
“Six to eight weeks. More if it sets badly,” he mutters with a small shrug. “But I doubt you have that kind of time.”
I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “Are they going to kill me?”
“Most likely,” he replies, wrapping my wrist. “Not many survive this place. Not once they outlive their usefulness.”
The hollowness in my chest grows heavier. It is hard to breathe around it.
“Please… help me,” I whisper.
“Absolutely not.”
It is the calm certainty of his voice that guts me. There is no anger or fear. Just the simple truth that I am not worth saving.
“My uncle—” I start, and my voice cracks.
“I know about your family,” he interrupts. “Your father was killed for trying to help victims. For killing Collective members. Even though he was a part of it.”
His tone doesn’t change.
“He went rogue. That got him and your mother killed. And now you’re here.”
Another weight presses into the hollow space in my chest. It's another betrayal, another loss that has never been my choice to carry.
“I’m not putting myself or my family on the line for you. The most I’ll do is stabilize your wrist.”
My eyes burn as my body trembles uncontrollably. I try to steady my breathing, but my gaze drifts toward the tray beside me. A scalpel rests there, its metal catching the overhead lights.
My breath falters.
One motion would be enough. One quick slit of my wrists.
I could stop all of this. I could end the terror, the pain, the endless waiting, and the grief that feels like it's swallowing me whole. There would be no more games, no more screaming, no more desperate hope for someone who will never come.
My fingers twitch toward the instrument.
Then another memory surfaces. Seth’s hand resting on my stomach. The sound of his voice when I told him. Almost stunned in a way I had never heard from him before.
A shaky breath tears out of me.
I can’t kill myself. I can’t kill us.
Our child is inside me. The last piece of him this world hasn’t stolen from me.
If I die, our baby dies too. If I give up now, everything Seth fought for ends here on a cold metal table under fluorescent lights.
He would have wanted our baby to live.
And he would have wanted me to keep fighting.
My hand slides away from the scalpel, trembling.
The physician’s clinical and detached voice cuts back in.
“If Elliot kills you before the terms are carried out, it will fracture things between him, Grant, and John.”
I blink, forcing myself to focus on him. “Fracture them how?”
The physician adjusts his glasses and finally meets my eyes. “It would cause problems. Things have already been on shaky ground between them for some time. Elliot resents being told what he can and cannot do, and John is increasingly frustrated with how often his instructions are ignored.”
My pulse pounds in my ears.
“If Elliot disregards what John asked for and kills you anyway, it will almost certainly deepen those tensions,” he continues. “Grant tends to sit somewhere in the middle of that conflict, which only complicates the situation further.”
I swallow hard. “So that protects me?”
The physician hesitates before answering.
“Not necessarily,” he says carefully. “I am not convinced John cares enough about the outcome if he sent you here in the first place. What seems to frustrate him more is the pattern of people disregarding his authority.”
My chest tightens.
“In other words,” he adds quietly, “your survival is less important than whether Elliot chooses to challenge him.”
“And Seth?”
The physician pauses for a moment before answering.
“The only thing all three of them agreed on,” he continues, “was that Seth needed to be removed.”
The air leaves my lungs.
“He’s…” My throat closes. “Seth is dead.”
The physician’s expression doesn’t change.
“That is what is being reported.”
My breath escapes me as if my body has forgotten how breathing works.
He is gone.
He is not coming back.
The world around me loses its center. I force myself to inhale, then again, even though every breath feels like it scrapes through my chest.
I remember Seth’s voice, how he guided me through panic:
Breathe. Hold. Exhale. Slow it down, baby. Focus on something real. I’m right here.
But he isn’t.
And that is the part that hurts more than the wrist. More than anything Sophie can break.
Before I can respond, a chime buzzes overhead. Then a voice crackles through the intercom:
“It is time for our first game. All participants report to the game room.”
My stomach turns.
The physician steps back and wipes his hands with a cloth. “You’ve been summoned. Don’t keep them waiting.”
Knox reappears in the doorway and jerks his chin. “Move.”
I follow him, heart racing, wrist throbbing under the fresh bandages. He leads me down a different hallway, one I haven’t seen before, toward a set of double doors painted with ornate gold designs.
He pushes them open. The room inside looks like a twisted version of a living room. Comfortable chairs, soft lighting, a fireplace burning low. The chairs form a circle like something out of a therapy session, if therapy sessions were held in hell.
The others are already there. Miles, Sarah, Jared, and Emma—silent, unmoving, eyes fixed on nothing.
In the corner sits someone new. A man I haven’t seen before. Late twenties, maybe. One eye swollen shut, dried blood on his lip.
Elliot stands near the mantelpiece, hands folded behind his back, smiling like a host welcoming guests to a party.
“Good,” he says. “Everyone is here.”
My pulse skitters.
Elliot’s smile widens. “Welcome, to our first game.”
He gestures to the chairs. “Let’s sit. Since Brooke is new, we’ll start with introductions. It’s important you all get to know one another before we play.”
Miles avoids my eyes. Sarah stares at the fire, hollow. Jared and Emma sit rigid, jaws clenched.
Elliot stands in the center, hands folded, eyes glittering.
Sophie leans against the wall. Asher rests a steel baseball bat on his shoulder.
Knox flicks a dart between his fingers, spinning it lazily.
The victims sit stiffly around me. We all stare straight ahead like soldiers waiting for execution.
Elliot smiles. “Okay, let’s start with introductions.”
Dead Silence. Empty. No one dares speak.
Elliot raises an eyebrow. “Well?”
No one moves.
Elliot’s voice snaps through the air like a whip:
“NAMES. NOW!”
Everyone flinches.
Sarah jolts upright. “S-Sarah.”
Emma’s voice is barely a whisper. “Emma.”
Jared’s cracks. “Jared.”
The new guy—the one I don’t recognize—speaks next. “Carl.”
Miles is last, his voice ragged. “Miles.”
Elliot claps slowly, mockingly. “Excellent. Now that we’re all friends…”
My stomach twists so hard I think I might throw up.
“Let’s begin our first game,” Elliot says, pacing behind the chairs like he is warming up for a performance. “Would You Rather.”
He stops behind Sarah’s chair. His shadow spills over her shoulders.
“Sarah,” he says gently. “Would you rather have your finger broken, or your toe?”
Before she can answer, Carl shifts in his seat. “What if we refuse?”
Elliot turns slowly toward him. “Then you’re eliminated.”
Carl stares. “What does that mean?”
Elliot raises the pistol and cocks it with a single click. “This, is elimination.”
Carl doesn’t wait for clarification. He bolts up from his chair and runs for the door.
Two shots crack through the room.
Carl’s body hits the ground face first. Blood spreads fast beneath him.
Elliot lowers the gun, unbothered. “Shame. Such an early elimination.”
My pulse roars in my ears. I can’t breathe. He is serious. This isn’t just torture. This is an execution dressed up as theater.
They are going to kill us. Not all at once, one by one. Game by game.
“So Sarah,” he says calmly. “Would you rather have a finger broken, or a toe?”
Sarah shakes her head frantically, terror tearing through her face. “Please. I can’t. I can’t choose. Please—”
Elliot smiles. “You already did.” He tilts his head toward Sophie. “Go on.”
Sarah’s breath hitches. “Finger,” she nods, barely, her whole body shaking.
Sophie steps forward. She reaches down, seizes Sarah’s hand, and yanks it flat against the arm of the chair. Her grip is tight. She isolates Sarah’s index finger between her own fingers and bends it back.
Too far.
The sound is a wet crack, like snapping a chicken bone.