Battle of the Killers

117 | Jookie's Sister

"Wait, if she's a previous contestant, why she still here?" Yaz asked, cleaning her glasses. "If she won, wouldn't she go back to her old life?"

"That's the thing." I peered down at my fingers, playing with the fluffy blanket. "We don't know what we get if we win the game. What if they don't let us leave and we have to work for them? Or maybe we battle it out with the other season's winners? Or maybe she chose to stay? She seems to be really close to Jookie, and she hates my guts. Tini fought her twice now."

Khan tapped his jaw. "Didn't Layla's killer hate you too?"

"Yeah," I said, remembering the way they tortured me in the tunnel. It was so painful, and I could feel the underlying rage they harbored for me. And the way they kept calling me piggy felt almost possessive. Was that because of their need for control, or was it personal?

Did I do something to them? Tini did fuck with them at one point, but that possessiveness was there way before she came out. So, what was the root of their madness? Was it something I did or were they just naturally like this?

I tried to analyze everything that I could remember about our fight, but nothing stuck out except the word piggy. They kept calling me it. The only thing that came to mind when I thought of that word was my stuffed piggy that I burned to escape that locked room.

I still had no idea how they got it. Tini threw piggy away right after the murders, so how did they get it? And did it have something to do with Layla's killer? Did we have a past?

Ever since I got here, I discovered so many new and repressed things about myself that I wasn't so sure about anything anymore. I couldn't be certain about anything. Like if you would've told me at the beginning of the game that I met Jookie before, I would've laughed in your face. Also, what about the matching chess pieces with Seb?

I was so lost. And with so many unanswered questions, I couldn't say with confidence that me and Layla's killer didn't have a past.

"This Bae chick," Rucker said, tugging me from my bewilderment, "you met her twice?"

"The second time I met her was when you were getting patched up by the medics," I said, scratching the blanket. "She was doing Jookie's makeup. You didn't see the pink-haired girl through the window?"

"No," Rucker said. "But there was guards blocking my view."

"She's very close to Jookie to the point of being overprotective of him," I said, remembering her possessive attitude. That same possessiveness reminded me of the person who tortured me in the tunnel. "She keeps warning me to stay away from him and keeps attacking me every time we meet."

"Is Jookie her man or something?" Yaz asked, eyeing me. "There's only two reasons why a girl would attack you over a guy — he's hers, and she's doesn't want you to take him away. But if that's true, why stay with a guy who's clearly interested in someone else? And I'd be kicking his ass, not hers. Unless she came at me funny, and I'd just whoop both their asses."

"You wouldn't even have to use your fists, you could—" Rucker started, but Yaz bopped him in the head with the side of her fist, cutting him off.

Rucker rubbed his head, glaring. "Meanie."

"He could also be a relative or close friend. I know some girls who are very overprotective of the men in their lives," Yaz said, ignoring the whining Rucker. "Especially when he starts dating another female. Could Jookie and Bae be brother and sister?"

Rucker snorted. "I can't imagine that jolly motherfucker with parents, let alone a sibling. I feel like he was made in a lab."

Could Bae be Jookie's sister? They were close, and she was extremely nosy and domineering when it came to him. But was that out of sisterly concern or romantic jealously? And since I met Jookie before, did I meet her before too? Was there a connection I was missing?