The Last Resort(71)

Tiggy puffs out a stream of angry air. She never thought she’d feel this again, but she has the urge to ram this champagne flute into his face. ‘Yes,’ she snaps. ‘The others. Brenda and Giles, of course. Where are they?’

Harvey pales, his forced joviality gone. ‘Oh, I see. My apologies. I thought you’d realised that all surviving players were present.’

Tiggy feels a burning in her gullet, as if the champagne is going to make a swift reappearance.

‘Surviving players?’ Scott holds another caviar blini, but he stares at Harvey now, leaving the canapé hovering close to his mouth. ‘What in hell does that mean?’

‘Where are Brenda and Giles?’ Tiggy demands, clutching the flute tighter, her hand shaking. ‘Tell us. Tell us right this second!’

Harvey taps his tracker. ‘I’m sorry. I assumed you knew.’ A holographic screen pops up. Two bodies, covered with white sheets. He taps the tracker again and it vanishes. He stares at them all, holds his palms up. ‘I’m afraid Brenda and Giles are dead.’





Lucy

This is not happening, Lucy thinks. We saw them . . . in the other room. Didn’t we? She feels sick. Walks over to a high-backed chair and leans her hands on it to steady herself.

Scott slams his glass down on the table and the stem snaps off. He flicks it angrily away. ‘What the hell d’you mean, they’re dead? Where are they? Did you take them to the hospital?’

Tiggy collapses onto the floor, sobbing. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she manages, between wails. ‘I know he was a . . . a . . .’ She can’t speak any more. James goes to her and crouches down, puts an arm around her shoulder, and she falls into him, broken.

The nice little drunken buzz that Lucy felt earlier is gone in an instant. Despite everything, she’d still thought it was all a game. Well, seems it is a game, but not one that has any winners. She looks over at Amelia, who is standing perfectly still, her face contorted in a mixture of shock and terror. She won’t catch Lucy’s eye.

None of this makes any sense. This is the kind of thing you see in a horror film. A group of strangers thrown together in an isolated place, forced to band together for certain challenges, but their bickering and in-fighting spilling over the more tired and hungry and scared they become. It’s a classic set-up. But that’s fiction. Fantasy.

This is supposed to be real life.

She’d just about bought the holographic projections and the trackers linking to their individual biometrics – but, if this latest holographic image is to be believed, two of them are dead, and the organisers don’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned.

Scott is pacing up and down along the length of the dinner table, muttering to himself, occasionally taking a swipe at one of the platters, sending fancy canapés skittering across the floor.

James is comforting Tiggy.

Amelia still hasn’t moved.

‘Hey.’ Lucy walks over to Harvey and stands right in front of him, putting her face close to his. ‘I need to talk to you.’

He flinches slightly, taking a step back from her.

She pushes a finger into his chest. ‘Now listen, pal. I’ve gone along with this charade. All. Fucking. Day.’ She jabs his chest to punctuate each word. ‘I’ve gone along with it, because I was promised something in return. I was promised—’ Her sentence stops abruptly as she screams, grabbing her ear. ‘Oww!’ The tracker vibrates hard, giving her a sharp shock. ‘What . . .’

‘You were told not to talk about the conditions of your agreement,’ Harvey says, smoothing a hand down the front of his shirt to remove the dents from Lucy’s probing finger. ‘You were warned.’

‘This is insane!’ Tiggy shouts, stepping away from James as she grabs hold of Lucy’s arm and glares at Harvey. ‘Stop this. Stop this now.’

‘It’s OK,’ Lucy says, her voice faint. ‘It’s stopped.’ The sharp pain has subsided, but there is still a dull ache, and she rubs the skin behind her ear as she addresses Harvey. ‘I get it. No talking about our agreements . . .’ She’s fuming, but she tries to rein it in.

Finally, Amelia stirs – blinking, as if she’s just zoned back in from a trance. ‘I . . . I . . .’ She shakes her head, trying to wake herself up. She turns to Harvey. ‘Please. Can we talk to the host now? Everything’s got out of hand. We need to keep calm and work out how to deal with all this—’

‘Keep calm?’ Lucy is fizzing with rage now – Amelia’s stoic attitude has lit her fuse. How is anyone supposed to be calm when they’ve just found out that two of their party are dead? She balls her hands into fists. ‘You, Amelia. This all seems a bit too easy for you. Remind us again why we haven’t been privy to your big secret?’

‘Something to do with my tracker . . . you already know this.’ Her eyes flick away. ‘There’s no big conspiracy.’

Lucy pokes her in the chest and Amelia takes a step back. ‘No big conspiracy? Why would you even say that? Are you in on this? Is this all your doing?’

Amelia locks her arms over her chest to shield herself from another jab. ‘No. Of course not. Why are you saying that?’

‘She does know something,’ Tiggy sniffs, nodding towards James. ‘I heard him asking her.’