Page 63 of The Game

“I’m nothing like you,” I spit, so furious my vision begins to pulse. He simply chuckles, the sound of my harsh breathing blasted over the loudspeakers. I know what comes next; I’ve rewatched these little movies countless times to better hone my skills. Fuck, I even watched them while Alice was asleep in my bed sometimes. She knew me, but I ensured she neverreallyknew me, for some things are just too dark to share with anyone else, even someone as understanding as her.

“Oh, but you are. Revenge is your one tie to sanity, is it not?”

Alice stumbles backwards, almost the same way my prey does. I remember this one, twenty-two, a meth addict who raped a little girl in a van under a bridge in Seattle while her parents were off getting high. But Alice doesn’t know that side of it because I cannot explain it to her, and as he scuttles backwards across the asphalt like some kind of deranged crab, I strike, coming into view of the camera I had positioned with precision beforehand.

“Don’t pretend you have one shred of sanity, you sick fuck,” I hiss. Alice lurches as soon as I stab the man in the video, crying out, one dainty hand pressed to her lips, the other to the wall to steady herself. Even if she closes her eyes, she will still hear everything.

Dick chuckles again.

“Teddy, Teddy. I suppose, since you’ll all die tonight, that I may be…forthcoming, for the first time in my life with you. Ahh, how glorious to finally lift this particular weight off my shoulders,” he says, sounding even more enraptured with himself than he usually is. My ears are attuned to his sickening words, but my eyes stay glued to Alice, disbelief warring with the need to get her the fuck out of there fighting in my mind.

“You see, my son never hit his wife. He’d never lay a hand on his beloved daughter. Thatcunthe married was a devious little snake, like all women.”

Sliding my tongue over my teeth, I refuse to meet his gaze, my blood boiling. In the video I’ve seen over a dozen times, I’ve dropped rough boulders on the man’s shins, rendering his escape attempts useless by shattering his tibia and fibula.

Alice cries and stumbles, but she’s slipping in her mind, taking her first left, her eyes closed as she whimpers.

“He spent ten years in prison. The amount of…leverage I had to use to get him out was strenuous. My gift to him had been something…rather spectacular.”

The man I am slowly torturing with my favorite knife is screaming now, begging for me to stop. Alice begins to run, blindly stumbling into the walls, hands outstretched to feel her way through. If she can just keep her eyes closed, keep her heart rate as low as possible, she’ll be okay…and hopefully so will our child.

“Snoqualmie Pass is dangerous on any given day…” he whispers, and as the words register, my eyes finally tear away from the screens to fall to his, my jaw slackening in utter shock and then replaced by rage. He nods solemnly, hands shoved in his pockets as though this pains him to relay to me. Turning his gaze back to Alice, he speaks. “I wish I’d had more time to watch them suffer, but hearing her screams as their car went up in flames had to suffice.”

For once in my life, I am sick to my stomach upon hearing how this freak had chosen to kill his victims: Alice’s mother, and her step-father. He frowns and nods again, eyeing me briefly.

“It was tragically romantic, how…what was his name? Vas-something?” He waves his hand as though it is utterly insignificant. “He tried so hard to get that bitch out of the car. He refused to make a sound. Held her close as she melted like the fucking fake cunt she always was.”

Bile rises up my throat as furious tears pulsate behind my eyelids.

“I’ll give the Russians that, at the very least; they’re made strong as iron, their will forever outweighing everyone else’s.”

The man I am killing on the video is now flayed open, his blood spurting and coating my face as I take meticulous care not to cut any major arteries, his organs writhing. Alice opens her eyes, and I can see how wide they go before she doubles over and vomits. Dick nods to the screen, both of us still locked on the show.

“I’ve always found this one particularly harsh, but I appreciate your care. You’ve much medical knowledge.”

I refuse to answer, for he’s always been the loquacious one.

“The one I have queued up next, though…well…” he trails off, his eyes finding mine as the most sickening smile curls up his lips, revealing yellowed teeth. “We’ll see ifIcan make her Russians scream.”

CHAPTER 31

Alice

The video never seems to end, and though I know it is Teddy torturing that man, it doesn’t change my thoughts and feelings toward him; I trust him irrevocably, but now I see just how deep his evilness extends. It frightens me, but I love Jameson and Tristan, and the entire time I knew they did horrible things to others as well.

Rationally, I can justify it in my mind, close off those boxes and tape them shut, never to be examined again.

What I will never be able to forget, though, are Teddy’s eyes, how dead and lifeless and cold they are as he slowly and methodically tortures his screaming and begging victim. I won’t be able to forget the way his beautiful, angular face is washed crimson in another’s blood. I won’t be able to forget seeing a man still alive as he’s eviscerated. And I won’t be able to forget the way Teddy’s eyes finally become alive when his torturing reaches its crescendo.

I’ve vomited all that is left in my stomach, my head pounding and cramps flaring through my lower stomach. I don’t know if that’s a good sign—a sign my pregnancy is progressing and growing, or a sign that my stress is affecting our child, something so small still.

After doing the math, I feel safe to assume I’m around six weeks, and the photos online showed just a little bean. It boggles my mind to realize that will turn into a baby the size of a basketball (or bigger) in nine months, but I have to shove those thoughts aside. I have to get out of here.

Taking a deep breath, I stand to my full height and swipe the hair from my eyes. If I can just look at the ground and tune out the screams and the wet sounds of blood and guts being ripped from the cavity of someone’s body, I can do this.

But when the video flickers, when white lights nearly blind me and I heartheirvoices, everything stops.

If the world was ever going to implode, now would be the time.

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