One by One(65)

When I am dressed, I feel, for the first time in a couple of days, hot and puffed out. It is strange to feel too warm again, after the growing chill of the chalet. I let myself sink to the bed and catch my breath for a few moments.

Now that it is almost over, I can look back on the living nightmare of the last few days. How has it come to this. How? Of all the ways I was expecting this week to go, I never imagined this unfolding horror.

In my mind I tick them off, a macabre school roll call.

Eva—dead.

Elliot—dead.

Inigo—gone, and goodness knows what has happened to him. Did he make it to St. Antoine? Or is he lying frozen with hypothermia in some isolated shack, far from the piste?

Ani—dead.

There’s just six of us left. Me, Rik, Miranda, Carl, Tiger, and Topher.

Topher. It always comes back to him somehow. Because it is true what Miranda said—however much people try to ignore the fact, Topher has a very strong motive for Eva’s death. In fact he has the best motive out of everyone here.

The thought should make my heart hurt. Topher—who hired me out of a pool of slick, skinny graduates and gave me my first chance. Topher—who stood up for me, stood by me, made sure I got those shares that have hung around my neck like an albatross ever since. Topher—the reason I am here.

And maybe it’s because of that last one—but my heart doesn’t hurt. I feel nothing—nothing at all.

Because Topher is the reason I have been dragged into this, into something I never wanted and never asked for. Topher and Eva between them, pushing me, pulling me, manipulating me like a chess piece in their battle for control of Snoop.

I know what Topher thought when he gave me those shares. He thought that he was handing over two percent of the company to someone he could control. I was his insurance policy, in case Eva and Rik ever ganged up on him. A way to tip the balance in his favor.

Topher thought I would be like putty in his hands. Soft. Malleable. Pliant. He thought that because of the kind of person he saw—someone meek and quiet, dressed in bad clothes, who never said boo to a goose.

In Topher’s world, people are hard, polished shells, their shiny exteriors hiding the inadequacies and anxieties inside.

But Topher made a mistake. He didn’t understand that some people are the other way around. But Eva… I think Eva did understand that. And perhaps it’s what killed her in the end.





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

It is one o’clock. Everyone apart from Liz is gathered in the lobby wearing their ski gear. Topher’s party is holding snowboards, skis, and poles. Miranda and Carl are equipped with a pair of snow shoes each. And my heart is thumping. Thumping because… maybe this is it. Maybe this long nightmare is finally over. Surely one group will be successful?

“What on earth is Liz doing?” Miranda says irritably. She has been on edge ever since Rik told her she couldn’t go with him down to the village. The two-party idea makes sense, and she knows it does, but she would still prefer to be with Rik, and I can see the way her gaze keeps stealing across to him.

“I’m here,” says a timid voice from the top of the stairs, and we all look up to see Liz standing at the top of the spiral staircase. She is wearing the oversize blue jumpsuit she had on the first day, and is clutching her ski poles in one mittened hand. A bobble hat is balanced on top of her head, and her glasses are misted. She looks hot and sweaty, but, like the rest of us, relieved to be finally doing something.

She starts down the stairs, and then it happens. Something—a pole? A trailing strap? catches in the banisters, and she stumbles. Her socked feet go out from under her. One hand grabs for the handrail, but the mitten has no grip and the wooden rail simply slides out from under the plasticky fabric.

As we watch, helpless, Liz tumbles forwards down the spiral staircase with a series of sickening thumps. And then she lands at the bottom, ominously quiet.





LIZ


Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 1

I can’t breathe.

I lie there, panic pulsing through me, trying to inhale and failing. I can hear myself making little strange gasps, like a fish stranded out of water.

“Liz!” It is Erin. She comes hobbling over. Her face is white. She crouches beside me. “Liz! Oh God, are you okay?”

I can’t answer. I can’t get my breath enough to say a word. I make a motion, half nodding, half shaking my head. Am I okay? I am not sure.

“Fucking hell.” Carl falls to his knees next to me. “Liz?” He turns to the others. “Well, she’s alive at least. Can you speak, Liz?” He says it very loudly, like I am hard of hearing.

“I think she’s just very badly winded,” Erin says. She strokes my forehead. I resist the urge to pull away. I am not sure if I could, anyway. “It’s okay, don’t fight it. Just try to breathe slowly. I’ll count with you. One, two, three, four, five… and in. And now one, two, three, four, five, and out.”

With Erin counting, slowly and rhythmically, I manage to take a breath. Then another. At last, shakily, I sit up.

“Are you okay?” Erin asks again. “Does anything hurt?”