Blaine’s blood.
“What a good idea,” Stellan says slowly as John taps on his phone with one hand. “Let’s go over to Tiffany’s place.” He shoves Jane through the hole in the wall before she realizes it, her head whacking the wallboard, a long, angry scratch forming on her neck. I see it in slow motion.
Time is distorted.
Drew looks at my naked body with an expression of chilly evaluation. I search his eyes, needing any form of emotion to show. A twitch, a blink, a micro-expression that tells me he cares.
He’s a robot.
John and Stellan make us huddle in the other apartment’s living room, where Tiffany gives me a horrified shriek and screams, “Pete! What the fuck? I’m trying to get out of porn. I don’t do this torture shit!”
“Shut up!” John screams, the gun on Drew the entire time. “Say one more word, bitch, and I splatter his brains all over your couch.”
“But that couch isn’t paid for yet!” she wails, dissolving into a puddle on the floor.
Who is Pete? My brain isn’t working with all cylinders. I look at Drew, who looks at Tiffany.
Who winks at him.
Winks.
A wave of ice-cold nausea pours over me like someone’s dumped a bucket full of slush on my head. Is this a set-up? Is Drew in on this somehow? Is that why he came crashing through the wall – because he knew damn well that the guys took me to his apartment?
Because he let them?
How far does this game go?
All the tension in my body drains out and I sit on the couch.
“Hey! Blood!” Tiffany squeals.
I ignore her, grabbing a pillow and hugging it, wanting a tiny sliver of modesty. Of warmth.
Of something.
“This isn’t a snuff film, is it?” Alarm fills Tiffany’s wide eyes. “Because I didn’t sign on for anything like that.”
Her voice goes to a whisper as Stellan glares at her. “Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” he says.
She complies.
“I can’t believe he fucking killed Blaine,” John says to Stellan, clearly unraveling, his hair soaked with sweat, face oily, left eye twitching.
“You think he won’t kill us both if he gets the chance? We can’t give him that chance, John,” Stellan replies, dropping the knife from Jane’s throat. He shoves her toward me. She sits on the couch.
I move away.
“Lindsay, I swear I’m not in on this,” she says under her breath. “They threatened me once they figured out I was your Island contact. My mom had no choice because they -- ”
A loud popping sound, like a wet bag of sugar being tossed from a moving car, makes me jolt. Jane’s head rockets into my lap, a big indent in her forehead directly over her right eye. I didn’t know that bones could dent.
I reach up and touch my own eye socket, the one they reconstructed four years ago.
I guess I do know.
I didn’t see my own beating, though.
As Jane moans, the vibration from her throat makes my thighs tingle. Her head is on the pillow and she’s making this bizarre gagging sound. Her breathing speeds up, from zero to sixty, and then she starts to choke-scream, like she’s drowning.
It’s all happening in my lap and I can’t do anything but stare dumbly.
And then she passes out.
One long, rattling breath comes out of her, and then she sighs, a thin, drawn-out sound that makes me think she’s dead. Another breath comes, then another, and soon she’s intermittently making shallow, then deep, sounds.
“Get off the couch,” Stellan orders. I gently put Jane’s body on the ground at my feet, a process that takes longer than it should.
“This is really good acting,” Tiffany says to Drew quietly. “Pete.” Then she winks again.
What the fuck is wrong with this woman?
Drew ignores her.
I’m cold. I’m hot. I’m dry. I’m wet. My senses have wires that cross and connect, that are frayed and bent, until I’m just a series of nerves and impulses that have gone haywire. I don’t have feelings like a normal person because none of this is normal.
None of this is right.
None of this is real.
Maybe if I decide this isn’t really happening, I can make it go away.
I close my eyes.
And then Drew says, “Nolan Corning’s already turned you in to the police. You have five minutes left before they get here. Go ahead. Kill us all. It won’t matter. You’re either rotting for the rest of your lives in prison, or you’re dead.”
Drew
I’m lying. I have nothing to lose. If I can mindfuck John and Stellan, I have a chance of getting everyone out of here alive.
Except for them.
Tiffany gives us all a strange look and before Stellan or John can say a word, she laughs. “Nolan Corning? He’s that asshole on television going on all the time about... about...” She frowns, then waves her hand in the air. “About government stuff. I see him on cable news. Is he -- is he a guest star, Drew? I mean, Pete?” She looks around the living room, craning her neck, then grabs the remote. “See? I’ll bet if I turn on the television he’ll -- ”
John hits her hand so hard the remote goes flying into her wall-mounted television and rocks the screen, a spiderweb of cracks marring the glossy space. Tiffany must have pushed the button just before he hit her, though, because the screen comes to life.
“Oh, my God, the production company damn well better pay for this!” she shouts, giving me a nasty look. “What the hell is this, Drew? You never said the television show would be about guns and knives and naked women with blood. If this is some kind of joke, I -- ”
Tiffany’s blonde helmet moves in slow motion as Stellan takes the hand with the knife in it and goes after her, slashing down like a pro, ripping open a long line down her bicep. I take the opportunity, grabbing his wrist, feeling the web of my hand slice open as Stellan attacks. His free arm goes around my waist, feet kicking under me to try to make me drop.
I catch him off-guard as blood drips into my eyes from Tiffany’s wound. She stumbles back and then I can’t see, the blood blinding me.