by Helen Bell
Ah, the magic words. What a jerk. I was itching to draw my dagger out and strong-arm the bastard into bringing me to Zoey, but it was too risky. Her life was in his hands, and his vampire might issue the order to kill her if I did anything to his boss.
“Are we gonna have trouble here, or not?” he asked, standing close to me. I reluctantly shook my head, biting back a string of curses. His smug expression made me want to punch him in his face, but I resisted the urge as he pressed the piece of cloth to my nose and mouth.
The sweet smell engulfed my senses, and I began to feel woozy. My vision started to blur, my feet became heavy, my head spun, and my eyes fluttered closed. Everything turned black.
Chapter 20
Something cold was attached to my legs and wrists. What was it? Disoriented, I blinked a few times then squinted against the bright white light, which caused me a headache. I moaned, hearing soft sobs.
When my mind came into focus, I remembered I’d been drugged. How long had I been out? I tried to move my legs and my hands, which were behind my back, but couldn’t. Fear slammed into me. Lying on a cold tile floor, I gazed down at my body.
A metal chain was wrapped around my ankles, double-looped and secured with a U-shaped padlock. I struggled to my feet. With the metal wound tightly around my lower legs, it was hard to keep my balance. Another chain snaked around my wrists at my back. From what I could see, it seemed that it was double-looped and secured with a U-shaped padlock too. Still in my short black dress, I noticed my daggers and watch weren’t on me. Crap.
“Don’t scream,” someone whispered. I swiveled my head to the source of the voice. It was the blonde girl who had cuddled Brad in the hot tub. She was standing next to me, still wearing her blue bikini from the party, her hands and legs bound just as mine were. To her right, eleven scared girls were lined up in a row. They were tied up with metal links affixed to padlocks too, the same way we were. To my left stood the brunette who had been sprawled unconscious in the office. Her legs and hands were bound too.
I counted fourteen girls, including me. We’d been positioned in a straight line, standing barefoot. Six were in bikinis, five in dresses, and three in skirts and bikini tops. It seemed we had all been abducted from the party. None of the terrified faces belonged to Zoey or Kyla. Where were they? My confusion deepened as I studied my surroundings.
We were in a huge room, a digital clock on the wall, fluorescent lights mounted above a suspended ceiling, no windows. There were two doors on the wall to my right, white and red. The white one was in the corner; the other, ten feet away from it. Six feet in front of us sat a row of large, open glass tanks filled with water. I counted fourteen. One for each girl. All of the tanks were about twenty feet high and ten feet wide. A platform elevator, at the floor level, was attached to the side of every one of them.
“Let me out of here! Please,” shouted the third girl from the right, crying. “Brad, if you hear me, please! Ple—aaaaaaaaaaaagh!!” Her pleas turned into a scream of pain as her face contorted. She fell to the floor, curling into a ball.
“What happened to her?” I asked the girl who had warned me not to raise my voice, but terror filled her expression and she refused to answer.
The white door opened. Brad, in jeans and a T-shirt, entered the room with a man holding a gun.
“What happened to her?” Brad echoed as he walked up to me. “This.” He pressed a button on a small device he was holding. A burning sensation ripped through me. It was as if fire was devouring me from the inside, destroying my body. I screamed. He pushed another button on the device, and the burning feeling ceased.
He grinned at the black box in his hand, which had names on it, mine included. “Worth every penny.”
“You bastard. What are the water tanks for? Why are we here? Where’s Zoey?” I said through clenched teeth.
“I’d watch my tongue if I were you, Sydney. Like every slut in here, you have an electronic patch on your arm, and it connects you to this amazing device I’m holding. It won’t kill you, but it’ll deliver enough pain that you’ll wish you were dead. So no more questions—or name-calling. I expect complete abidance. Am I clear?”
I glared at him and forced a curt nod. He smiled. “Oh, come on, I’m not all that bad. You see, I’m giving you bitches the chance to walk out of here alive, that’s how awesome I am. All you have to do is pass several challenges—and you’ll be free to leave.”
As he moved to the row of water tanks, thoughts raced through my head. What was going on? Were the challenges for his personal enjoyment? Or were we being watched by other sadists who paid for the entertainment? Had Zoey gone through the same sick game?
“In this challenge,” he continued, “you have ten minutes to dive into the water tank in front of you and unlock the padlocks on your legs and wrists. Then you go stand at the red door on your left. How will you open the padlocks, you wonder? On the floor of every container, there are two keys: red and gray. The gray key is fastened to a ten-inch-long rope bolted to the floor. The padlocks on your wrists and legs can be opened with it.
“For those of you who can swim with your hands and legs tied up, like you, Shailene and Jenny,”—he glanced at two girls—“you have an advantage. But don’t waste your time and energy trying to tear the rope off the floor and swim back up to the surface to open the locks there. The rope cannot be ripped off. Another thing you all should know: the elevator platforms are automatic. They’ll deliver you up and down, triggered by the weight of your body.
“Now for the second key. If you look closely, you’ll notice it’s encased in a cube-shaped glass. Its base is the tank’s floor, so you can’t lift it. To unlock the red door, you’re gonna need the red key, so I suggest you find a quick way to obtain it. You’re allowed to use whatever you want in order to get it out of the box.
“There are some rules you must follow, break them and Roger here,”—he pointed at the man standing by the wall to our left—“will shoot you in the head. Here are the rules: you’re not allowed to talk or help one another. And you can only use the keys from your tank—which is the one in front of you.
“If ten minutes have passed and you’re not standing with a red key next to the red door, Roger will shoot you. When you hear the buzz, the clock on the wall will start counting down. Good luck.” He moved to the white door and exited the room.
A loud horn announced the beginning of the challenge. The digital clock on the wall facing us read 10:00. My pulse exploded into a gallop while I stared at the tank of water ahead of me. The words “drowning” and “die” forced their way into my mind. I’d never operated well under pressure.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic,” I chanted, calming myself down.
Then, my father’s words came to my mind. When Zoey and I had been little and camping, he used to say to us, “Girls, if you ever find yourselves in danger, always control your panic. Panicking is the number-one enemy of survival. It leads to hyperventilation and consequently damages one’s clear mind.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on one thing: my breathing. I inhaled and exhaled a few times slowly, then opened my eyes. Calmer, I started to plan my next moves. I had three minutes—the time I could hold my breath underwater—to dive to the bottom, unlock the padlocks, and rise back to the surface. After that, I had to figure out a way to break the glass and get the second key.
I hopped over to the tank. To stay focused, I did my best to ignore the sounds that surrounded me: splashing water, sobs, chains rattling, the clock ticking down. I stepped onto the platform elevator. My heartbeat thundered in my ears when the metal platform started to move upward. Unlike Jenny and Shailene, I couldn’t swim with my legs and hands tied up, so I had one shot. If I failed, I’d suffocate. I’d drown. I’d die.
“No, don’t go there. Block the negative,” I murmured to myself.
Once the platform reached the top of the container, I took a deep breath and plunged into the water. I reached the key tied
to the rope and, with my fingers, awkwardly maneuvered it into the hole of the padlock attached to my wrists. Four times the damn thing fell from my hands. The cells in my body began to demand oxygen. The urge to breathe was strong. I resisted it as I kept trying, hearing a muffled shotgun blast and terrified screams. I mentally blocked the noise out and continued with my efforts to free myself.
On my fifth attempt, I succeeded. The chain loosened, and I disengaged it from my hands. The three minutes were almost up, and my lungs ached for air. Legs still bound together, I used only my arms as I swam upward like a mermaid. I shot out of the water and inhaled sharply. As I brought oxygen into my lungs, my eyes caught the red liquid on the floor. Horrified, I glanced at the dead girl on the floor, her hands and legs wrapped up in chains. Blood pooled around her head. I started panicking again. Not because of the dead body but because of the seven girls standing by the red door, holding a key. I checked the timer. Four minutes left. I dived back in and opened the second padlock without trouble, releasing myself from the chain around my legs.
Now, I had to get the second key and fast! I returned to the surface and crawled onto the platform elevator that took me down. I looked at the water tanks that the girls by the door had taken the keys from. How had they broken the cube of glass? The water in their containers was pink-ish, and their elbows and feet were injured, which meant that they’d smashed the box with their bodies.
I searched the room with my eyes, looking for a better way to break the cube until I registered a fire extinguisher in a glass case in the back corner of the room. I ran to it and tore off the small metal hammer hanging from a thin chain. My eyes darted to the clock. Two minutes left. I dashed to the tank, got on the platform, jumped into the water, broke the glass box with the hammer, grabbed the key, and got out of the container. The sound of a loud buzz indicating that time was up caught me just when I reached the other girls standing by the door.
We were eight. Eight out of fourteen had made it. Six didn’t. The sight of five dead bodies floating in the water tanks and another one lying on the floor sent a shudder down my spine.
Brad’s voice spoke through a speaker in a corner of the room. “Congratulations on passing this challenge. Well done. Unfortunately, six of you have failed. I’m sad to say that Lucy was shot in the head since she broke the rules. Didn’t I specifically tell you not to ask for help? Oh well, shit happens, I guess. To start your next and final challenge, please open the red door with your key. Do it one by one.”
As he’d ordered us, we exited the room one at a time. The door automatically shut behind each girl. When it was my turn, I unlocked it and stepped into another room, my face twisting at the foul, fishy smell. Standing near the door, I scanned the room. Its size was similar to the one I’d just left. They both looked alike but with a few differences. Across from the red door, there was a black one. A short, brown line had been drawn on the floor in front of it. On my left, a row of fourteen water tanks sat by the wall, identical to the ones we’d just escaped. Except these contained fish. Dozens of them. And at the bottom of each tank, an object I couldn’t quite make out. Like before, a platform elevator was attached to every tank’s side. Unlike before, there was a bucket and a knife next to each container.
After the last girl was inside, Brad and Roger entered the room from the red door too. When it closed behind them, Brad told us to put our red keys near the red door and follow him to the black one on the opposite side of the room. Roger and his gun came too. As we walked with them, some girls started to wail.
“For God’s sake, I got the point, you’re scared, now lay off the crying. You’re giving me a headache,” Brad barked at them, then rolled his eyes. “Ugh, never mind.”
He and Roger stopped near the brown line on the floor, and the eight of us huddled together in front of them. Brad pulled out of his jeans pocket eight label stickers, then handed each girl the one with her name on it.
“A new room, a new challenge. Listen up and pay close attention to what I am saying,” he told us. “On your left, you have a row of fourteen tanks. Inside each of them, there is a black key lying at the bottom, and it’s not tied to anything. There are thirty-two, flesh-eating piranhas in every container. They’re extremely aggressive, mind you. Next to the tanks, you’ll find some stuff that can be of assistance to you: a bucket full of gutted fish and a knife. Like in the first room, all the elevator platforms are automatics. Now, behind Roger and me stands a black door—your only way out of here. It leads outside the building. In this final challenge, there can be just one survivor who gets to live and walk out the black door. Or no one, in case all of you fail.
“Okay, let’s move on to the instructions. You have fifteen minutes to pick a tank, put your sticker on it, and get the key lying at the bottom of that tank. Then with the key, you come over here and stand on the brown line. The first girl whose foot touches it is free to leave. The rest will be shot to death.” He paused, observing our reactions, then a grin spread across his face. Bastard. “During this challenge, you’re permitted to do or use anything you want—as long as it doesn’t fall under the restrictions I’m about to list.
“Here is what you are not allowed to do, I repeat, not allowed to do: use more than one bucket of fish or more than one knife. Help each other. Force a girl to do your challenge in your place. Threaten Roger or me with the knife in order to escape. Do any of this, and you get a bullet in your skull. One more thing.” He turned to look at Roger, and his man approached us, pulling a knife from his jacket. “Roger will cut those of you who aren’t bleeding. Just to make things more interesting.” He checked our bodies for injuries, nicking the arms of three girls and me. “Okay, that’s it. Good luck.”
This time, when the buzzer went off, my mind went blank. Frozen, I stared at the piranhas. They appeared restless, swimming from side to side. The girl next to me was in the same state, motionless and shocked. The rest had already claimed a tank with their stickers.
I jerked nervously when screams pierced the air. Then I noticed with horror that Jenny had slashed another girl’s throat. Her blood spurted out in a stream and splattered everywhere.
“What have you done? You can’t do that. Are you insane?” someone shouted at Jenny, and she dropped the dead body, shaking.
Her head whipped to Brad, who was near the black door, fear on her face. “It was not forbidden to do that, right? Y-you didn’t say it was against the rules to kill another girl.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, seeming amused. “No, I didn’t say it’s forbidden to kill one another, so yes, it’s okay.”
She sighed with relief and dragged the corpse to the platform elevator. On it, she put her bucket, her knife, and the dead body. When she reached the top of the container, she rolled the lifeless girl over and dropped her into the water, then emptied the bucket full of dead fish inside the tank.
Smelling blood, the piranhas rushed their food, and she quickly jumped into the container with the knife. The dead body and fish were a good distraction but not enough. There were too many piranhas in the water. The ones who weren’t feasting on the dead girl darted to Jenny the moment she plunged into the water. Not able to fend off all the piranhas with her knife, she drowned as they tore, ripped, and gnawed at her flesh.
“No, no, no, I can’t do that. I’m giving up,” the girl beside me, Marie, mumbled, shaking her head frantically. Her gaze shifted to Brad. “Why are you doing this to us? Why?” Tears welled up in her eyes.
He ignored her, laughing at Candace’s unsuccessful attempts at breaking the thick glass of her tank with a hammer taken from a fire extinguisher.
“You know what? Screw you! I won’t be part of this crazy-ass shit. Kill me now.” Her tone was a mix of anger and desperation.
Roger started toward us with his gun.
Marie backed up a few steps. “No, no, no, w-w-what are you—no, don’t. I didn’t mean to say that. It was her!” She stabbed a finger at me. “She forced me to say it. It�
�s her fault. Shoot her, not me.” She moved behind me and shoved me in Roger’s direction.
Brad’s voice kept his man from advancing any farther. “I know she’s giving you a migraine, but it’s not against the rules to be hysterical or lie like a stupid bitch. You’ll get your chance to shoot her when she fails. Which will be in five minutes.”
Five minutes? My head snapped to the timer. Shit!
I had to clear my mind and somehow manage to get the key without being eaten alive by piranhas. For a few moments, I gazed over at the eight unmarked tanks and the deadly fish inside them.
“Tick-tock-tick-tock, the clock is ticking. Three minutes until your time is up. It doesn’t look good for you two, Sydney and Marie,” Brad said, a spark of enjoyment in his eyes.
Think! Think! I urged myself. Focus. In my head, I went over everything he’d said about the challenge: what was allowed, what was not. And then I realized something.
I rushed to an unmarked container and took the knife placed next to it. With it, I ran to the red door and picked up one of the keys on the floor. I got into the first room, chose the nearest water tank, and slapped my sticker on it. I used its platform elevator to jump inside and dived to the bottom. I sliced away at the rope with the knife, freeing the gray key and taking it with me up to the surface.
When I was outside the container, drenched in water, I ran back toward the red door just as Marie opened it. She pushed me aside. I lost my balance but managed to steady myself before the door closed. I sped to the brown line with the gray key in my hand. Forty seconds were left. I ran like crazy. Twenty seconds, fifteen seconds, ten seconds. I increased my speed. Five seconds, two seconds. My feet touched the brown line, and the clock ticked down.
Brad stepped to me. His expression was surprised, confused maybe. Staring at me, he didn’t utter a word. The door across from us opened, and Marie came in, her voice breaking the silence.
