The Writing Retreat(87)

“She’s gone, K.” Taylor said the words almost tenderly. “Look.”

Zoe’s glassy, unseeing eyes were rolled up at the ceiling.

“Come on.” Now Taylor’s voice sounded ragged, almost pleading. “You have to listen to me. I don’t want to shoot you. Go back inside.”

“Okay.” Keira closed Zoe’s eyes, leaving two bloody dots on her eyelids. “Okay.” She stood and stumbled back through the doorway. Wren and I silently followed. The sound of the gun going off still echoed in my ears, clouding out everything else, keeping it at bay.

“You stupid fools,” Yana hissed, banging the door shut. Her perfect ponytail was mussed; a chunk of blond hair hung in her eyes.

“It’s not my fault.” Taylor watched us, solemn. “This is on you guys.” Sighing, she stuck the gun into her waistband. She bent over Zoe’s body and grabbed her underneath her arms. With a grunt, she dragged her towards the doorway to the basement. Yana picked up the handcuffs and stared at the blood.

“What a mess,” she muttered.





Chapter 33




Keira poured water over Wren’s wounds and pressed a piece of fabric from a pillowcase against them to stop the bleeding. Wren then pulled our mattress towards the far end of the cell and lay down, sobbing.

To my shock, Keira returned to her computer. She settled, picked it up, and started typing.

I sat next to her. Her fingers left maroon imprints against the keyboard.

“You’d better keep going.” Keira’s low words startled me. She paused and looked over. Her eyes were bright but slightly unfocused.

“But how…” She must be in shock right now. Was I also? I felt like a bag of wet concrete. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t feel. There was only one thing I knew, and the implications were darker than Roza, this dungeon, anything we’d faced.

“It’s my fault.” I pressed my face into my hands, and stars danced across the inside of my eyelids. “I hesitated. I didn’t know if… I wasn’t sure… and now she’s…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Maybe someone more delusional than I could’ve decided that her death, too, was an especially realistic part of the game.

But I’d seen her lifeless eyes. I knew she was gone.

“Well.” Keira sucked in her breath. “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t know what to tell you and I don’t have the energy to try to make you feel better. Because…” Her eyes filled with fresh tears.

“I know. You don’t have to.” I wanted to thank her, strangely, for her honesty.

We both sat there for a minute, staring at the large red stain.

“They’re never going to let us go,” I said. “There’s no point in writing.”

“We need time.” Keira wiped at her face. “And Roza needs a story. She’s going to keep us alive until we finish. We have to use the time to figure out how to escape.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know.” Keira shook her head. “Fuck. I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I should’ve left. But I couldn’t. I thought this was my only chance.”

“Your only chance?” I echoed.

“To get fucking published.”

“But you’re such a great writer.”

“You think that matters?” She stared at me in disbelief. “You want to know how many books I’ve written? How many agents and editors have told me I’m so incredibly talented, but they’re not quite the ‘right person’ for me? Or that I feel too ‘niche,’ or that my audience won’t be ‘wide’ enough?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck.” She moaned and dropped her head in her hands. “This is such a nightmare. This is…” She leaned forward, curling over her computer. I rubbed her back, my brain empty and floating. Beyond the bars, the dark stain looked like a comet, its tail whooshing through space.



* * *



The following day we were fed as usual, even though Wren and I hadn’t finished our pages the day before. Yana brought us coffee, then a few hours later, sandwiches.

“You didn’t make the word count.” Yana stood at the bars, peering down at me with a questioning look. “And she didn’t write at all?” Wren was still prone in the corner. I didn’t know if she was sleeping or awake.

Sometime in the night, Yana must’ve come down and tried to clean up the blood. This morning it had been a big amorphous dark blob. Keira had typed all morning, though she’d been pausing for long periods of time. I was attempting, but it felt like the day before: like straining to get even a sentence on the page.

“I’m trying.” I still felt empty, robotic. “It’s hard. I’m sorry.”

Yana glanced back at Keira and Wren, then left without another word.

At dinnertime Yana and Taylor both slipped through the doorway.

“Al.” Taylor gestured to me, subdued. “Roza wants to talk to you.”

“What?” I squinted at her. Despite her solemnity, she was wearing her LET ME LIVE sweatshirt. Was that on purpose? It couldn’t be. Could it?

“Up.” Taylor pulled the gun from her jeans. I scrambled back away from the bars.