by Anni Taylor
“A dark, slow-burn serial killer story that dazzles, with an explosive ending.”
It's the chance of a lifetime. Twenty-eight people are offered a place on a unique program to heal their addictions. Six days, six challenges, and sixty thousand dollars at the end of it.
From all over the world, the participants travel to a monastery on a remote island in Greece to begin their challenges. There is just one clause - they must keep the program secret.
Young Australian mother Evie is desperate to beat her crushing gambling compulsion. American teenager Kara needs to kick her drug addiction and return to college.
But the program is not what it seems and not everyone at the monastery is there for a cure. There are those who peer through the walls and wait: people with the darkest of desires.
THE SIX
ANNI TAYLOR
“Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons.”
—Pythagoras
THE SIX
Copyright Anni Taylor 2017
Cover design by Damonza
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination, else used fictitiously. Any resemblance to the above or resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, including by electronic means. Brief quotations are allowed. Permission in writing must be sought for any longer reproductions.
ISBN-13: 978-1548871369
ISBN-10: 1548871362
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. 1. Evie
2. 2. I, Inside The Walls
3. 3. Gray
4. 4. Evie
5. 5. Gray
6. 6. Constance
7. 7. Evie
8. 8. I, Inside The Walls
9. 9. Gray
10. 10. Constance
11. 11. Evie
12. 12. I, Inside The Walls
13. 13. Gray
14. 14. Evie
15. 15. Constance
16. 16. Gray
17. 17. Evie
18. 18. I, Inside The Walls
19. 19. Gray
20. 20. Evie
21. 21. I, Inside The Walls
22. 22. Gray
23. 23. Constance
24. 24. Evie
25. 25. Gray
26. 26. Constance
27. 27. Gray
28. 28. Evie
29. 29. I, Inside The Walls
30. 30. Constance
31. 31. Gray
32. 32. Evie
33. 33. Constance
34. 34. Evie
35. 35. Gray
36. 36. Constance
37. 37. Evie
38. 38. Gray
39. 39. Constance
40. 40. Evie
41. 41. I, Inside The Walls
42. 42. Gray
43. 43. Constance
44. 44. Evie
45. 45. Gray
46. 46. Constance
47. 47. Evie
48. 48. Gray
49. 49. Constance
50. 50. Evie
51. 51. Gray
52. 52. Constance
53. 53. Evie
54. 54. Gray
55. 55. Constance
56. 56. Evie
57. 57. Gray
58. 58. Constance
59. 59. Evie
60. 60. Constance
61. 61. Evie
62. 62. Gray
63. 63. Gray
64. 64. Evie
65. 65. Gray
66. 66. Evie
67. 67. Constance
68. 68. Evie
69. 69. Constance
70. 70. I, Inside The Walls
71. 71. Gray
72. 72. Constance
73. 73. I, Inside The Walls
74. 74. Evie
75. 75. Gray
76. 76. I, Inside The Walls
77. 77. Constance
78. 78. Gray
79. 79. Evie
80. 80. Constance
81. 81. Evie
82. 82. I, Inside The Walls
83. 83. Evie
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Anni Taylor
Excerpt - The Game You Played
Untitled
Credits
PROLOGUE
EVIE
THERE’S A SWEETNESS IN THOSE SECONDS in between sleep and waking. A taste and a memory.
Like my childhood summers of standing on sun-warmed sand with Ben, staring vacant-eyed at the distant salty haze, carelessly letting my ice cream soften and drip away to nothing. Ben and I would elbow each other to be the first to go when Dad whistled for us to come and help him clean his boat. In those days, I called the mornings to me and sent the sunsets away, never trying to keep hold of anything. Because there would be more summers with Ben and more melting ice cream cones.
I didn’t know then that Ben’s years were fast counting down and he soon wouldn’t be here anymore.
Numbers, always counting. Numbers you can’t see until afterwards.
My parents had taken Ben and me to stay at the same beach house every summer, like clockwork. My husband and I hadn’t taken our two small girls there yet—there was never enough money for that.
But even on my most stressful days as an adult, I’d wake in that lulled way of childhood, seconds before the worry came thundering back in. Those seconds saved me, I think.
1. EVIE
I EXPECTED A CLINIC: WHITE WALLS and floors, medications and the sickly smell of antiseptic.
But the place I’d arrived at was nothing like that.
A faint rain touched my bare shoulders as I stared through the night at the outline of a sprawling monastery. It’d taken two days, two flights and a boat trip from my home in Sydney, Australia to get to this tiny Greek island.
Evie, you did it. You’re here.
Who are you to get a chance like this? Make sure you don’t blow it. Grab it with both hands and get yourself better.
Say it. You’re an addict.
I’m an addict.
Brother Vito smiled at me like an indulgent parent as he showed me up the worn stone steps to the entry. “What are you whispering about?”
“Nothing. Just . . . this is all so hard to process.”
“The monastery tends to have that effect on people. Try to see it as home for the next week, Evie. This will be your week to change everything you need to change.” Brother Vito was still handsome, his blonde hair silvering around his olive-skinned, angular face.
I lugged my suitcase inside, lifting my face to the soaring ceiling. An enormous metal bird hung from a chain in the foyer, wings outstretched.
Brother Vito followed my gaze. “The bird was made in the forge.”
I blinked, too exhausted to check my reactions. “There’s a forge here?”
“Oh, yes, the monastery was built in the twelfth century. All of the original features are very much in use. It’s very late—let’s continue.”
I followed him through dark halls that whistled around corners, coppery scents lifting from the stonework like ghosts.
“Let me take your luggage. You won’t be needing it,” he told me. “For the next week, you are to leave your former self completely behind. Everything will be provided.”
“But I’ll need my—”
“I assure you that you won’t.” His voice, with its thick Greek accent, was soothing but firm.
A moment of panic bubbled to the surface. This monastery was strange enough without my personal things being taken from me
. I calmed myself, reluctantly handing over my suitcase, reminding myself that whatever they asked us to do must form part of the treatment. It was true that I needed to tear away all my denials and pretence about myself.
He stowed the bag away in a small room. “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
I stepped beside him into the pulsing darkness—the flicker of the wall lamps making shadows jump—avoiding the scolding eyes of the holy, centuries-old statues that lined the corridor. Three days ago, Brother Vito had invited me into this exclusive treatment program for people suffering from addictions. People like me.
I’d been lucky to get into the program. Places on it were tight—only being offered to twenty-eight people.
The program itself was simple. Six challenges over six days. Ten thousand dollars per challenge. The six people who reached the sixth challenge would receive sixty thousand dollars. And if you reached the end, all your debts would be paid off.
Sixty thousand and all debts paid would be life changing.
A severe-looking statue loomed tall as we rounded a corner. A splash of what looked like dried blood ran down the statue’s right arm. How long had that been there? Did someone die right here in this spot?
A robed, hooded figure passed in the gloom far in front of us—the odd way that he looked back over his shoulder at me sending a nauseating ripple down my spine.
“The monks here are a silent order,” advised Brother Vito. “They designed the program, but they take no part in it. You’ll barely see them, apart from when they’re preparing the meals.”
Good, it’s strange enough here without having to deal with shadowy monks as well.
I knew that Brother Vito wasn’t actually a monk himself. He and three other benevolent businesspeople had funded the monks’ program here for many years. It was apparently just tradition that the mentors were called brothers and sisters.
I followed him to an enormous hexagonal room, in which the scene before me seemed otherworldly. Fourteen women slept in the beds, their hair fanned out on the pillows. Metronomes ticked and echoed on wooden shelves high above each bed. An arched window framed the indigo darkness.
“The men are in the room next door,” he said in hushed tones, handing me two items of folded clothing. “The rooms will be locked. You’ll be quite safe. Oh, and Evie”—he pulled out a small bottle from his pocket—“here’s a couple of sleeping pills to help you through your first night.”
He waited while I changed my clothes in the ancient bathroom and returned to settle into bed. With a nod, he clicked the door shut.
Darkness swept the room.
Jetlag moved through me in heavy, syrupy waves. Curling up, I tried to make myself sleep, but I couldn’t seem to find the right spot in the bed. The ticking of the damned metronomes began to sound like a ceaseless march.
I ran my fingertips over the charms of the bracelet my husband had given me just days ago. I was supposed to have handed over everything to Brother Vito, but I’d hidden this. It was just a cheap novelty bracelet, but it was a gift only Gray and I would understand—the charms were tiny replicas of items within an online game that we played together.
I missed Gray already.
It was winter in Australia, and he and I went to sleep wrapped up together every night. He’d always fall asleep before I did, snoring gently into my temple. Or sometimes, we’d try to sneak in quick sex. On cue, our youngest daughter—two-year-old Lilly—would wake. She’d head into her big sister’s room to cause a toddler brand of havoc. Willow would either protest loudly or giggle. The girls would end up in our bed, and we’d all eventually succumb to exhausted sleep like battle-weary soldiers.
I was so far away from Gray and the girls now. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to make everything that was bad good again, and I couldn’t throw this away.
I hadn’t told anyone where I was going or what I’d be doing. Because if I did, I’d also have to reveal secrets about myself: I’d have to admit that I’m a gambling addict and that I’ve racked up a debt so huge, I’ll never be able to repay it.
There’s yet another thing I’ve been keeping from my husband: two months ago, I tried working as an escort. I didn’t get very far with it. But still, somehow, I got to that point.
How did I let all this happen? Why wasn’t I smarter?
As sleep continued to elude me, the self-accusations skewered my mind. It’d started with Lilly. From the time she was a baby, she’d been sick—the trifecta of chest infections, ear infections and high temperatures. The doctors said her frequent illnesses were unlucky but normal. I was convinced it was our house. It was an old rental and the only house Gray and I could afford. Between the rising damp and the leaks and the dark rooms, it always smelled wet. We needed money to move house, and we didn’t have money. So I’d decided I needed a job.
I’d made a list of all the things I was good at:
1. Cooking
2. Warcraft
3. Talking
4. Poker
5. Self-hate
There didn’t seem to be many job openings for Warcraft gamers or self-haters, so that left the other three things on my list. I tried gaining a job as a kitchen hand at some local restaurants, but I couldn’t get hours that would slot in when the girls were at daycare or when Gray was at home at night. And Lilly was sick too often for me to hold down a normal job anyway. So that cut out cooking.
I was down to two things on my list now.
1. Cooking
2. Warcraft
3. Talking
4. Poker
5. Self-hate
No one would pay me to talk. So I’d turned to the thing I swore I would never do again after my brother, Ben, died. Poker. It was Ben who taught me to play.
I used to be good at poker. Ben’s friends used to complain whenever I played with them because I’d win. I started entering local poker competitions, sharpening up my rusty skills.
When I began winning competitions, I began dreaming big. What if I could win enough for a deposit on a house? Gray and I could have our own home. And he’d be proud of me. Telling Gray that I’d scored a job at a city restaurant, I headed to the big poker tournaments.
But then I stepped from the casino poker rooms to the roulette table.
That was my downfall.
I quickly fell in over my head, into a pit of debt.
But now I’d been given another chance.
Just one week, and I’d be home again. If everything went to plan, Gray would never know where I really went or why.
2. I, INSIDE THE WALLS
THE LAST ONE OF THEM HAS arrived now in the monastery. Her face so pale and anxious.
In six days she’ll be dead. Just like all the rest of them.
I would steal around now, if I had my way, and cut their throats one by one while they sleep. But I am constantly watched. The others will not allow me to steal their quarry from them.
Inside these walls, I wait.
The deaths are inevitable, one way or the other. Everything in the vast, cold universe is calculated. The numbers explain the existence of every last insignificant insect or the rings around Saturn that could be pieces of broken moons. Energy and time. Space and matter. Love and hate. Everything we feel is just calculations compressed and shaped into soft entities we call emotions.
Pythagoras knew. There are gods and demons in the numbers.
3. GRAY
THE LAST THING I THOUGHT I’D be doing today was telling Evie I’d lost my job.
My stinking, worthless job.
Turning off the highway, I drove into the narrow, graffitied set of laneways that were a shortcut to my street. The laneways always reminded me of clogged arteries, choking everyone who passed through. I’d thought it’d rain, but the dark clouds dried out and stuck fast to the winter sky like old spitballs.
I’d stayed overnight in the city after attending my cousin’s bucks party, and the Saturday traffic was just as busy as an
y weekday. Cousin Dayle was a law student with a city sneer in his upper lip and a Svengali-like devotion to his own bad jokes. But after getting unceremoniously dumped from my job on Friday afternoon, I’d headed straight from work to get blind drunk with him and the collection of jackasses he called his mates.
I’d slept in a hotel room until midday today, my eyes gritty and a twisting feeling in my gut.
I tried calling Evie again. I hadn’t been able to get her on the phone yesterday or today. Could she be angry with me? It’d been Evie who’d insisted that I go last night with Dayle. She’d pointed out that I didn’t have much family left in this world. Which was true. Both of my parents died young—drug overdoses—and I had no siblings.
But I’d been in two minds about going, right up to Friday afternoon.
I needed music—something fast, heavy and destructive. Rifling through my music discs, I took out a CD and pushed it into the player.
The angry, thrashing riff of Pantera’s Walk pounded from the speakers.
I turned it up louder.
Louder.
But the music opened a valve that was only going to snap shut the second I had to walk in the door and tell Evie I’d lost my job. I knew her. My usually talk-underwater wife would go quiet, and I’d have to watch her struggle to hide that she was spinning out. The rent, the bills, the groceries—all of these things teetered on the edge of disaster every single week.
I needed something to make telling her easier.
Stopping sharply, I reversed and drove back around the corner, then swung the car around and parked outside Joe’s. Inhaling a gasp of chilled air, I ran into his house for a $20 bag of pot.
Pot was something Evie and I did once every couple of months. Put the kids to bed, watch a movie, have a smoke. Kick back.
I’d kicked cigarettes five months and two days ago. Pot and alcohol were my last refuges. I convinced myself that those two things were a world away from the hard drugs that’d ended my parents’ lives.
Later tonight, I’d pull out the weed, and once I was sure Evie was calm and sleepy, I’d drop the news.
When I walked into Joe’s living room, he and his wife were sitting watching a reality TV rerun, their faces as worn and disintegrating as the fake leather of their armchairs. You could tell that whatever they’d been hitting in their lives—drugs, alcohol and cigarettes—they’d hit them hard. Both in their early seventies, they sold dope to supplement their pensions.
