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The rest of us followed suit. My own selection was strange. Lethal Weapon. The movie choices were bizarre and made no sense. Bri got It’s a Wonderful Life, Drake had Halloween, Liam chose Citizen Kane, and with the last slip, Elise picked Deep Throat.
“Okay, who wants to go first?” Liam said, eyeballing the whip.
“Dahlia? You wanna take first crack?” Jeffery asked with a condescending smile.
Ha ha. Funny pun. I didn’t want to. Not even a little. The thought of that whip snapping across the skin of my forearm made me queasy. Elise must have seen my hesitation.
“Still a pussy, I see. Thought you’d gotten past that at lunch.”
Gritting my teeth, I stepped forward and grabbed the whip and turned to her. “Fine. If you’re so goddamned brave. Let’s go.” I’d be damned if I let her cowl me anymore.
A tiny flash of worry flitted across Elise’s face, but she hid it well and raised her arm. I lifted the whip and slashed it across her arm. The leather straps made a snapping sound, the knots at the end dragging across Elise’s skin. I had to hide a smile as her face crumpled in pain. Massive welts rose on her arm immediately, and she knelt, cradling the injured limb to her stomach. I threw the whip down at her feet.
“There. Happy? Who’s next?” I asked.
I was both horrified and proud of myself. The violence was getting easier, verging on enjoyable. That was a terrifying realization, but it was true. Seeing Elise crouched down and in pain sent a shiver of pleasure through me. I’d done that. I had been the one to put her on her knees. After living my entire life cowering in fear and worry, it was liberating to feel this type of power. A small voice at the back of my head whispered that it wanted more.
The game went on for almost ten minutes. At the end, everyone had swollen, painful wounds, and torn or broken skin. Each of us had blood oozing from our arms by the time we finished. As we took our seats, another smile crept to my lips. I’d won the game. My skin must have been tougher than the others. We were watching Lethal Weapon tonight.
Chapter 16
The following morning I woke up to find a small spool of gauze and a tiny single use packet of Neosporin on the foot of my bed. Of all the things I was getting used to, having random items appear in my room was the least bizarre. I smoothed the salve over the bruised and torn flesh of my arm and wrapped it.
At breakfast, everyone else had similar bandaging on their arms. Drake arrived last and took his usual seat next to me, giving me a small smile as he sat. The worry I’d felt waiting for him to arrive melted away.
The door locked, and there was no announcement from Sam, so we all ate. Breakfast burritos and roasted potatoes. I was almost done when the chime went off.
Bong. “Good morning. I hope you enjoyed your evening of relaxation. We have a task this morning. Drake? How is your hand?”
I looked at Drake, who frowned and glanced down. His hand was still bandaged, and his palm and the base of his fingers were still swollen.
He flexed it experimentally. “Uh, it’s all right,” he said, speaking up so whatever hidden speakers were in the room picked up his voice.
“Good to hear. You all may resume breakfast when Drake has killed the person who stabbed him.”
For a moment, I couldn’t believe I’d heard right. Then fear exploded in me. Drake, of all the people here, was the least likely to kill someone like this. He was kind.
The moment’s frozen silence that fell around the table was broken by Jeffery’s panicked inhale as he glanced at the ceiling speakers and back at Drake. His wild eyes reminded me of a trapped animal. Was this really about to happen? My hands were frozen, sitting palm down on the table. What if he didn’t do it? What kind of punishment would we be put through?
Could I do it for Drake and save him? I’d take the pain for him if I could.
My whirling thoughts were broken by the flash of movement beside me. In one fluid motion, Drake stood, grabbed a heavy brass candlestick holder off the table and pulled it back to swing it at the other man. Surprised realization flashed in Jeffery’s eyes. Understanding and realization clicked. I could almost hear the click as his brain processed what was coming. The next few seconds played out in a flash, but my brain processed them in a slow motion blur.
Jeffery’s lips were beginning to form the word ‘no,’ Drake’s arm slashed around in a vicious semicircle, Jeffery’s eyes twitched toward the hunk of thick brass careening toward his head. There was a thick meaty thwock as the metal slammed into Jeffery’s temple.
Blood sprayed from Jeffery’s head, sending a fan of it across Bri’s face. His head snapped around so fast that it might have broken his neck. Jeffery’s body tipped back in his chair almost comically slow until he fell backward to the ground. I stared in unblinking horror as Jeffery’s right arm raised up, fingers splayed in a weird unnatural configuration, and his left leg shimmied and shook. A single sound came from his throat, a combination of moan and gag that made me want to throw up hearing it. His eyes were rolled back in his head as the electrical signals from his brain blasted out their final psychotic instructions. Two more rattling breaths marked the seconds as blood pooled around him, pouring from the dented section of his skull.
The crotch of his gray sweatpants went dark as his body twitched, then sagged limply. A puddle of urine joined the blood under him.
Drake was still standing holding the now bloody candlestick. I gaped at him, surprised beyond belief that he’d done it so quickly. There’d been no hesitation at all. He never even waited to see what the punishment would be. He moved like lightning. It was as though he’d been waiting on a chance to kill Jeffery, and took the opportunity without question. He dropped the candlestick to the floor with a hollow thud.
My lips twitched to form a question, to ask him something, but I had no clue what I was going to say. Before any words could come leaping off my lips, he gave me a single short shake of the head. I shut my mouth and watched as he lowered himself into his chair.
Elise cleared her throat and looked over her shoulder at the now motionless body of Jeffery. She looked back at the group and shrugged.
“Looks like he won’t be making any more surprise returns,” she said, and then giggled, a sharp thin sound.
Weeks ago, watching this kind of violence would’ve sent me to the hospital with a panic attack. I’d become so desensitized to it all that I barely felt anything. In fact, I was more concerned for Drake’s mental health than I was for the fact that he’d just killed a man in cold blood. Out of all of us, he’d been the most steady and calm. It couldn’t have been easy for him to do that to Jeffery. At least, I wouldn’t have thought it would be.
