How had they all moved so quickly? Shouts and grunts filled the air, and somehow over the din I could hear my own heaving breaths.
Move. But it felt like pushing through sludge to stand. I watched the violence like a play: Wren tussling with Yana on the ground, Zoe shaking Taylor’s wrists to get her to drop the gun, Keira trying to pull Taylor into a headlock from behind.
One question kept repeating, like a running news ticker below the action:
Is this actually real?
“Alex!” Zoe shouted. But still I hesitated. Was the gun fake? Was Zoe acting? They’d tricked Wren, but would they trick me also?
Wren screamed. Yana had raked sharp nails across her face and now rivulets of blood ran down her cheek.
I stared at the smeared red. This was proof.
This was real.
I ran to the others, feeling clumsy and sluggish. I tried to block Yana, who’d left Wren howling on the ground, and I too grasped at Taylor’s arms. Taylor’s face was locked in a grim rictus, and it was red from Keira’s grip around her neck. Together, Zoe and I twisted and shook Taylor’s wrists and slowly her fingers began to unclamp. Zoe released one hand in order to grab for the butt of the gun. For a second it looked like she’d succeeded in taking it from Taylor and I glanced up at her in triumph.
But then Taylor managed to grasp the gun again, her arm moving swiftly upwards.
Zoe opened her mouth in a scream just as the gun exploded with a deafening BOOM.
Her brown eyes widened, warm and glowing in the fluorescent lights. Her lips made a ring as she flew backwards and crumpled to the floor.
“No!” Keira cried, releasing Taylor to run towards her. Wren was suddenly standing next to me, a hand clamped to her bleeding face. We stood there frozen, watching as Keira pressed her palms against Zoe’s chest. The blood flowed out like a fountain, and though Zoe’s lips moved, nothing came out.
For a few seconds, the only sounds were Zoe’s gurgling gasps and Keira’s encouraging words: “You’re okay. Come on, you’re okay.” Keira looked up at us. “Help! We need help! Please!” Her face was shiny with tears.
I remained still, feeling nauseous from the metallic scent that filled the small space.
Taylor replied, but the words didn’t penetrate until she repeated it more loudly. “I said, you guys have to get into the cell.”
None of us moved. Then the safety clicked.
She trained the gun on Keira. “Now, Keira.”
My awareness expanded. From my peripheral vision I saw Yana standing behind us, both hands pressed to her mouth.
Keira just gazed at Taylor. She wiped at her nose, leaving a streak of blood, and let out a sob. “Please, Taylor. We need help. We need an ambulance.”
“She’s gone, K.” Taylor said the words almost tenderly. “Look.”
Zoe’s glassy, unseeing eyes were rolled up at the ceiling.
“Come on.” Now Taylor’s voice sounded ragged, almost pleading. “You have to listen to me. I don’t want to shoot you. Go back inside.”
“Okay.” Keira closed Zoe’s eyes, leaving two bloody dots on her eyelids. “Okay.” She stood and stumbled back through the doorway. Wren and I silently followed. The sound of the gun going off still echoed in my ears, clouding out everything else, keeping it at bay.
“You stupid fools,” Yana hissed, banging the door shut. Her perfect ponytail was mussed; a chunk of blond hair hung in her eyes.
“It’s not my fault.” Taylor watched us, solemn. “This is on you guys.” Sighing, she stuck the gun into her waistband. She bent over Zoe’s body and grabbed her underneath her arms. With a grunt, she dragged her towards the doorway to the basement. Yana picked up the handcuffs and stared at the blood.
“What a mess,” she muttered.
Chapter 33
Keira poured water over Wren’s wounds and pressed a piece of fabric from a pillowcase against them to stop the bleeding. Wren then pulled our mattress towards the far end of the cell and lay down, sobbing.
To my shock, Keira returned to her computer. She settled, picked it up, and started typing.
I sat next to her. Her fingers left maroon imprints against the keyboard.
“You’d better keep going.” Keira’s low words startled me. She paused and looked over. Her eyes were bright but slightly unfocused.
“But how…” She must be in shock right now. Was I also? I felt like a bag of wet concrete. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t feel. There was only one thing I knew, and the implications were darker than Roza, this dungeon, anything we’d faced.
“It’s my fault.” I pressed my face into my hands, and stars danced across the inside of my eyelids. “I hesitated. I didn’t know if… I wasn’t sure… and now she’s…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Maybe someone more delusional than I could’ve decided that her death, too, was an especially realistic part of the game.
But I’d seen her lifeless eyes. I knew she was gone.
“Well.” Keira sucked in her breath. “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t know what to tell you and I don’t have the energy to try to make you feel better. Because…” Her eyes filled with fresh tears.
“I know. You don’t have to.” I wanted to thank her, strangely, for her honesty.
We both sat there for a minute, staring at the large red stain.
“They’re never going to let us go,” I said. “There’s no point in writing.”
“We need time.” Keira wiped at her face. “And Roza needs a story. She’s going to keep us alive until we finish. We have to use the time to figure out how to escape.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know.” Keira shook her head. “Fuck. I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I should’ve left. But I couldn’t. I thought this was my only chance.”
“Your only chance?” I echoed.
“To get fucking published.”
“But you’re such a great writer.”
“You think that matters?” She stared at me in disbelief. “You want to know how many books I’ve written? How many agents and editors have told me I’m so incredibly talented, but they’re not quite the ‘right person’ for me? Or that I feel too ‘niche,’ or that my audience won’t be ‘wide’ enough?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck.” She moaned and dropped her head in her hands. “This is such a nightmare. This is…” She leaned forward, curling over her computer. I rubbed her back, my brain empty and floating. Beyond the bars, the dark stain looked like a comet, its tail whooshing through space.
* * *
The following day we were fed as usual, even though Wren and I hadn’t finished our pages the day before. Yana brought us coffee, then a few hours later, sandwiches.
“You didn’t make the word count.” Yana stood at the bars, peering down at me with a questioning look. “And she didn’t write at all?” Wren was still prone in the corner. I didn’t know if she was sleeping or awake.
Sometime in the night, Yana must’ve come down and tried to clean up the blood. This morning it had been a big amorphous dark blob. Keira had typed all morning, though she’d been pausing for long periods of time. I was attempting, but it felt like the day before: like straining to get even a sentence on the page.