by Amy Cross
“Are you okay?” I ask breathlessly, worried that I might have hurt him.
He nods, and there's a faint smile on his lips.
“I didn't mean to,” I stammer, “I mean...” I stare at him for a moment. “Did you cum?”
He shakes his head.
“I can try to -” I start to say.
“No,” he replies, “I don't know if my body could take it right now.” He lets his hands linger on my breasts for a moment, before moving them down my torso and closer to my crotch. “I needed to be with you again.”
I'm about to reply, when I hear my phone ringing in my jeans, down on the floor.
“Is it safe to answer that?” I ask tentatively.
“I don't know. Leave it for now.”
I wait, as the phone continues to ring and then finally stops.
We stay that way for several minutes, locked together like two animals that can't get apart. Silence seems to build all around us in the dim light of the room, and I feel as if even the slightest whisper from my lips would break some kind of fragile spell. I feel embarrassed, as if I gave in to weakness, but at the same time I want this moment to last forever.
“I lied earlier,” he says finally, with a faint smile. “We really do need to get the hell out of here.”
Mark
Today
She doesn't know.
She still doesn't know.
I want to kiss her again, to take her away from all of this and make everything okay, but I know that approach will never work. The game is relentless, it'll track us down and it'll destroy us. I might be able to get away, since I'm not so important, but Elly?
The game will track Elly to the ends of the earth, and no matter what anyone else might say, she will be dragged to its heart. I don't think I can save her.
Elly
Today
“I meant what I said,” Mark continues as he limps naked to the door and then joins me in the bright, over-lit bathroom. “Alice really was worried about Raven.”
“Careful,” I reply, hurrying over to support him.
“I'm not an invalid,” he whispers, wincing as he makes his way to the shower. “I need to wash myself, but...” He pauses. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Why would Mr. Raven be working against the game?” I ask. “He told me his role was to monitor things, to keep everything under control.”
“It is, but Alice had a lot of concerns. She felt that maybe he was too emotionally attached to the game, almost as if he wanted to keep it going at all costs.” He turns to me. “You really are getting close to ending this thing, Elly. Two hundred years of the game have played out, and now you, Elly Bradshaw, are the one who's on the verge of winning. Raven is supposed to guide you, to make the final determination, but Alice thought he'd become corrupted and I think she might be right.”
“He's the one who gave me these challenges,” I point out. “First I had to...” I pause, suddenly realizing that I'm not sure I want to admit everything I'd done.
“I know about the challenges,” he continues. “First, a stranger. I guess that was the new Mr. Blue. Then a friend.”
“Jess,” I whisper.
“And then, third, someone you...” He pauses, with a faint smile on his lips. “I guess that's me.”
“I guess it is,” I tell him.
“The challenges are part of the game,” he replies, “but the way Raven is conducting them. You should be about to face the final test, but I don't trust him. He's not supposed to help you, exactly, but he shouldn't be holding you back either. He should be impartial. Alice was worried that Raven had decided to keep the game going at any cost. I wish she was still here, so I could ask her what she thinks we should do next.”
“She's dead.”
He nods. “The truth is...” He pauses, watching me for a moment. “You never asked the one question that I thought you'd ask at the beginning.”
“What's that?” I ask, as I start to get dressed.
“Do I need to tell you?”
I frown. “Did I forget to ask something?”
“I think anyone else in your position would have asked on the very first night.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Two words.”
I pause, feeling as if he's trying to push me toward some kind of realization.
“Why me?” he says finally.
“Why me?”
“Did you never ask that? Why did you, Elly Bradshaw, get pulled into the game?”
“It was just luck,” I reply cautiously. “Good luck, bad luck, whatever, but it was luck.”
He shakes his head.
“You were working with my father and we happened to meet after he died.”
He shakes his head again.
“Then what?” I ask.
“I don't...” He pauses, as if he's worried that he's said too much. “Elly, there are no coincidences in the game, no casual occurrences, no moments of serendipity. Everything happens for a reason.”
“Okay,” I mutter, “now you're starting to freak me out a little.”
“I can't explain right now,” he continues. “I'll have to show you, but I'm not sure it's safe. If Raven is keeping track of us, it means he's got a plan, and if there's one thing I hate, it's being part of someone else's plan. If anyone's got a plan, I prefer it to be me.”
“Then we should -”
Before I can finish, I hear my phone ringing again. I pick up my jeans and fumble through my pockets, before pulling the phone out and seeing that Bob is trying to get in touch.
“Weird,” I mutter.
“Who is it?”
“Bob. My mother's boyfriend.”
“Don't answer it.”
“Why not?”
“We don't know if it's safe.”
“It's Bob,” I reply. “Trust me, he's -”
“Don't answer it.”
I pause, and the ringing stops.
“You can't make any assumptions,” he continues. “Raven has had plenty of time to work his way into your life, and he could have infiltrated any aspect.”
“Trust me, Bob -”
“Your friend Jess, for example.”
I stare at him. “What... What about her?” I ask eventually.
“I shouldn't tell you,” he replies, “but... I'm tired of keeping secrets. You deserve to know everything.”
“Everything about what?” I ask, trying not to panic. “What does Jess have to do with any of this?”
“Raven paid her.”
“To do what?” I pause. “You mean... last night...”
“Before that.”
“What do you mean?” I wait for him to reply, but he seems to be struggling to find the words. “Mark, tell me what's going on!”
“She was paid from the start,” he continues. “She did pretty well, too. When you moved to Bristol and went to university, Jess was paid to live with you, to become your friend, to generally wheedle her way into your life.”
“You're lying.”
He shakes his head.
“That's absurd,” I reply, as I feel my chest tightening with panic. “She didn't even talk to me at first. I was the one who started talking to her!”
“Which just proves how good she was at her job,” he replies. “She did just the right things to make you notice her, and then she managed to make you believe that you were the one who started the friendship. I have all the files, Elly, I can prove it to you. Jess doesn't even exist, it's a fictional personality, a made-up name. Her real name is Victoria Carrington and she's a very, very accomplished agent. Raven trained her, he placed her in your life, he manipulated your every interaction.” He pauses for a moment. “She's not your friend, Elly. She's one of a number of characters who were inserted into your life.”
Staring at him, I try to work out if he's insane, or if this is some kind of trick.
“And your friend Rob?” he continues. “The guy with the band, the guy you almost ran off to Exete
r with? His real name is Anthony West, he's another actor from the little group that Raven put together.”
“Rob's not an actor,” I stammer. “Rob's an idiot!”
“Everything was pre-arranged,” he insists. “Obviously room had to be left for improvisation, so that your own reactions could be incorporated into everything that happened. Parts of the game were incorrectly presented to you, other parts were laid bare from the beginning. The previous Lady Red entered your life in the guise of Alice Taylor, and I'm sure Raven popped up a few times, too. There must have been someone, at some time, who you thought seemed a little strange?”
I shake my head.
“And I...” He pauses again. “Elly, I knew all about you even before I met you.” He looks away, as if he's ashamed. “I'm sorry.”
I take a deep breath, trying to work out how any of this can be true. It's insane to think that some of my closest friends were actually actors, but as I turn and look at my reflection in the mirror, I realize that deep down, I'm already starting to believe that it's all true. Finally, I turn back to Mark.
“Why me?” I ask.
“It's complicated.”
“No shit. Why me?”
“Elly -”
“And you?” I ask, feeling anger bursting through my body. “You're just another of these liars?”
“Elly, listen to me -”
“Why? So you can lie to me?” Realizing that I'm still mostly naked, I start getting dressed in a hurry, keen to cover myself up. “Is all of this a lie too?” I ask. “When I found you in that warehouse -”
“That was real.”
“How do I know?” Pulling my shirt back on, I don't even wait to button it all the way. I hurry through to the main room of the motel and head to the door.
“I love you,” Mark says suddenly.
Stopping with my hand on the handle, I pause for moment before turning and looking back at him.
“Do you think this is part of the game?” he continues, standing naked in the doorway. “Why do you think I was shot? Why do you think they beat me and tortured me? I entered your life as just another player in this game, Elly, but over time I started to see...” He pauses, before starting to limp toward me.
“Don't come any closer,” I warn him.
“Elly -”
“Keep away!” I shout.
He stops. “I stepped out of character,” he continues. “I broke the rules. That's why there's a new Mr. Blue now. The old one, me, went rogue.”
“You don't love me,” I reply.
“Yes, I do, and you love me too.”
I shake my head.
“You do,” he continues. “That's why this has all gone so horribly wrong. Maybe that's one of the secrets of the game. When things get real, the players try to break free. Raven's doing it, I'm doing it, now you're doing it. We all rebel against our roles in the end.”
“So what's your role supposed to be?” I ask.
“I played it straight for the longest time,” he replies. “Don't you remember when I started saying we could get free, that we could escape? That's when I stopped reading from the script. I guess I was arrogant, or naive. I thought we could get away from the game, I thought we could disappear. I was wrong.”
“Why should I believe a word you're saying?”
“Because it's the only thing that makes sense.”
“But -”
“I was twenty-two when I was recruited,” he continues. “Anything else I might have told you about my involvement in the game is a lie. I was twenty-two, it was 2008, and Alice approached me at a hotel in the south of France. I was on holiday with some friends, I was just backpacking around Europe, trying to find my way in life. Alice lured me into the game slowly, she made promises, she...” He pauses. “The previous Mr. Blue had failed. They needed another one. I should have told her to go to hell, but I guess her psychological analysis of me was right on the money. I let her pull me in, and eventually I became the man standing in front of you now.”
“She changed you?”
He pauses again. “When I first met her, I wasn't exactly a saint, but there were certain lines I wouldn't cross. Everyone's the same, aren't they? At the start, at least. We all have those lines in the sand, and none of us are willing to just leap across them and do things we think are wrong. But if you take a man and edge him closer to that line step by step, he won't even notice when he eventually goes over. I've done a lot of bad things, Elly, things I regret. I don't want to see the same thing happen to you.”
“Is Mark even your real name?” I ask.
He nods.
In my pocket, my phone starts ringing again, but I ignore it.
“So you'd been playing the game for several years before we met?”
“Yes, but I was aware of you all the time. That's the thing, Elly... Alice wanted the game to end, but she didn't think it could end in its current form, so she decided to bend the rules. She didn't cheat, exactly, but she definitely took a new approach, one that no previous Lady Red had tried. She decided to turn you, Elly Bradshaw, into the perfect player, she wanted to train you to become the best Lady Red in the game's history, so that when you took over from her...” He pauses again. “If you ask me, her plan worked pretty well. You're so close to ending this nightmare.”
“So why me?” I ask, with tears in my eyes. “I'm starting to think it can't have been random.”
“It's not.”
“So why me?”
“Finally you're asking the right question. The -”
Before he can finish, my phone starts ringing yet again.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, pulling it out of my pocket, “what the hell is wrong with him?” Seeing that it's Bob again, I tap the screen to answer.
“Elly!” Mark hisses. “Don't!”
“Hey,” I say to Bob, “listen, I can't -”
“Elly, you need to come home,” Bob replies, interrupting me. His voice sounds different somehow, as if something's wrong.
“I'm kind of busy right now,” I tell him, keeping my eyes fixed on Mark. “I'll be home later, okay?”
“Elly,” Bob continues, “you need to come right now. Something's happened.” He pauses, and I can hear a muffled sound on the other end of the line, almost as if he's crying. “Elly, it's about your mother.”
***
“Are you sure about this?” the doctor asks, as we stand next to the metal table in a basement room at the hospital. “You don't have to -”
“Can we just get this over with?” I ask, trying to stay strong as I stare down at the white sheet that's covering a body.
“You need to understand that the impact was quite violent,” he continues, “so -”
“Show me.”
“For identification purposes -”
Before he can finish, I reach out and grab the sheet, pulling it back to expose my mother's body. One side of her face has been crushed, with blood dried in the wounds, but other than that she looks strangely peaceful.
“It's her,” I say finally, before turning and heading to the door. By the time I reach the corridor outside, I feel as if I'm going to be sick.
***
“She just went to pick up some extra shopping,” Bob says, with tear-stained cheeks as he clutches a piece of toilet paper on a bench in the hospital waiting room. “She went to the door, called out to let me know she wouldn't be long, and then...”
I wait for him to finish, but it's clear that he's struggling. He was obviously crying before I arrived, and I guess he'll start again at any moment.
“They called about two hours later,” he continues, looking down at the tissue. “They found her purse after the car hit her, but it took them a while to get her address. Turns out the driver drove off, didn't even stop to see if she was okay. There were lots of people around but no-one got the number-plate, so now they're checking the cameras nearby. It was a hit-and-run.”
“What kind of car?” I ask.
He turns to me.
/> “There must be some kind of description,” I continue, trying not to make him suspicious. The truth is, deep down, I have a slowly-building sense of fear that this accident might not have been a real accident, that maybe it was a message for me, or some kind of punishment. If my own mother has died because of the game, I swear I won't rest until everyone involved has been brought to justice.
Shrugging, Bob looks along the corridor, just as Mark comes around the corner carrying a tray of coffees.
“He seems nice.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, even though my mind is too flooded with emotion to make much sense of everything.
“Your mother would have liked to have known you had someone,” Bob continues, turning to me. “She worried about you so much.”
“I'm not sure I really have someone,” I reply, as Mark reaches us. “Hey,” I add, looking up at him, “you really don't have to do all this.”
“It's nothing,” he says, wincing a little as he sets the tray down. He's clearly in a huge amount of pain, and the suit he's wearing does little to disguise the fact that he's been badly beaten up, but he insisted on coming with me to the hospital and I guess, in some way, he thinks he can help.
“Thanks,” Bob says quietly, taking one of the coffees.
“I've made some calls,” Mark explains, sitting next to me. “I still have some contacts at New Scotland Yard, I'm hoping I can hurry things along and maybe learn something.”
“There's no need,” I tell him.
“Elly, let me -”
“I need the loo,” Bob says, gasping as he gets to his feet. “I'll use the one down in reception, it's bigger.”
As he walks away, I feel distinctly uncomfortable left alone here with Mark. The truth is, I don't even know why we're still at the hospital, except that the doctor promised to come back soon and let us know when the body can be released. Bob's going to take care of all the paperwork, which is just as well since I feel as if I haven't quite accepted what's happened yet, and I think I might suddenly break at any moment.
