Fear Games

4. Despise the Sinner, Hate the Sin

AS THE SEVEN of us sit together on the floor in the bathroom, just beside Victoria's lifeless body in the tub, we knew we needed to escape. Unfortunately, escaping was going to be a lot harder than it seemed. Whoever lured us here wanted to punish us. To punish us for something we'd done.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder," I said quietly.

"About what?" Esme asked.

"Well...this person, whoever they are...they want to punish us for our 'sins,' right? So all we have to do is figure out what we did and they might not kill us."

Elijah snorted. "Oh yeah, and they're just going to let us walk right out the front door? Sorry, Rachel, but I doubt it." He sat up on the kitchen sink and put his head between his hands. "God, this is so screwed up."

"Screwed isn't necessarily the word I'd use," Ben muttered.

As much as I hated to admit it, Elijah was right. My idea was dumb. This person wanted us dead, and the idea of them letting us leave was laughable.

"Did she really deserve this?"

The question came from Ryan, who'd been quiet the last few minutes. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it seemed like he was about to cry.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I just...I can't help but think..." His voice trailed off, and I watched as he moved a hand to wipe a tear from his eye. "Did she really deserve to die? Whatever she did, was it really that bad?"

I didn't know of much that deserved death. Especially not in that capacity. Before I even realized what I was doing, I reached my hand out and touched his. "I don't think anyone deserves this. I most certainly don't think we do, either."

"But they think we do," Esme said. "They think we deserve to be murdered."

I removed my hand from Ryan's and rubbed it on my face in frustration. "How much longer can we just sit here? Adrian and Harper are still out there. They should know what's going on."

"Yeah, well, someone else can go find them," Elijah said. "The last thing we need to be doing is walking around this house. Next thing you know, we'll go falling through the floor into a furnace. No thank you."

"Besides, maybe they already figured out this place is whacked," Luke said. "It's not like it takes someone all that smart to piece it together."

"I just had a really bad thought," Esme said.

"Oh great, more things to worry about," Elijah said.

I flipped Elijah off. "What is it, Esme?"

"Well...Adrian and Harper did run off kinda quickly earlier when we all split up. And then Isaiah says he found Victoria's body in here when he came to pee. You don't think it's possible that Harper and Adrian set up this trap, do you?"

"Here we go," Elijah said. "Doing the typical murder mystery thing."

I knew Elijah was right, but Esme made a valid point. Adrian and Harper hadn't been seen since we first got in here. The two of them could have easily set up the trap.

"While that may be possible, what doesn't make sense is why," Ryan said. "This person obviously has a thing against us, and I've never seen the two of them in my life."

"I don't really know them either," I said.

"Yes, you do," Esme said. "Remember, they go to our school?"

"Uh...they do?" It was entirely possible that they did and I just didn't ever see them around. They looked a little familiar when I first got here, but not enough to think they went to our school. Although, it did have over two thousand students, so it could have just been that there were too many students.