Fear Games

1. Make It Out Alive

"I thought that was the goal, not a rule."

He shrugged. "Semantics, I guess."

"Well," I said, "with that, I have two questions for you that I hope you can answer for me before I die in this shit hole."

"I'll answer whatever I can," Josh said.

I nodded, knowing he likely wouldn't answer either one, but figured it was worth a shot. "First of all, how the hell do we get out of here? How do we survive this? It doesn't seem like the...Player...has given us much of a fighting chance."

Josh was silent for a moment as he stared at the ground, not meeting my eyes. I knew I'd brought up a good point, and he obviously knew it, too. Finally, he said, "You're right, the Players this time haven't exactly been fair. The head honcho is trying to figure that out."

"And that brings me to my next question," I said as I took another big gulp of my tea. "I know you know the answer to this, so don't pretend that you don't. But, please tell me. Who is actually running all of this?"

Josh actually let out of a laugh. He said, "Emerald, you're a smart girl. I can see that. You get that from Rachel. But even if I did tell you who this person is, you wouldn't believe me."

That was an annoying answer. "So you're not going to tell me." I didn't phrase it as a question.

Josh shook his head. "If I told you who was running this Game, I'd be dead in an instant. And I can't help any of you if my guts are on the outside of my body."

That was quite the image, one that made me feel immediately nauseous. "You say I wouldn't believe you. Why not?"

The man smiled at me softly, reached out and grabbed my hand, then said, "Sleep tight, angel."

"Sleep tight? Why—?" Before I even had a chance to ask anything else, my head hit the floor and everything went black.

CINDER

The room was eerily silent as everyone let the metallic smell of Freddy's blood waft into our noses. I was trying to keep from gagging, but seeing a dead body was something I never hoped I'd see, especially one as graphic as this. Pieces of his head were blown all throughout the room, and I was pretty sure that my brother Kael was crying softly.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of a way that we could get out of here. Instead, my mind wandered to the past.

Rachel, my mom, Kael, Emerald, Echo, and me went to Tahoe one time this most recent summer for a special day. Our moms said that it was because we needed to forget the stress that was going on in our lives—which I believed at the time was key word for Mom's pending divorce with Dad.

On this particular sunny day, Emerald and I were dressed in bikinis and Kael was wearing a bathing suit with a t-shirt on. Mom was wearing some kind of sundress, and Rachel was also wearing a bikini—and damn, she looked good for being in her forties. Our moms were carrying bags of towels and Kael was carrying the cooler, while Emerald and I were talking about some useless thing that clearly wasn't even important, because I no longer remembered what it was.

When we approached the water, my baby sister Echo ran off into the water, and Kael followed her with his t-shirt still on. He was never exactly comfortable with his scrawny little body. Emerald and I decided to stay and help lay out the towels.

"This day's absolutely gorgeous," Mom said as she put down her yellow towel into the sand.

"Isn't it?" Rachel said as she put down her orange, red, and yellow abstract towel. "Don't you just wish that we could be here forever?"