Chapters (68)
- Cover
- Dedication
- NOW
- One
- BEFORE
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- NOW
- Twenty-One
- BEFORE
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- NOW
- Thirty-Nine
- BEFORE
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- NOW
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- AFTER
- Fifty-Six
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
He almost laughed. Almost. It was ridiculous. The entire line of questioning. He hadn’t expected it to be like this. Not at all. They kept returning to safe ground. They couldn’t handle what he was telling them. He’d just told them he’d killed eight people, yet they seemed to want to ignore that and keep going back to who he had been found with. Safer, more pertinent, he guessed.
He would have done it differently if someone like him was sitting there. Waiting. He would ask better questions. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t sitting where DI Hicks was. Or DS Lee. Maybe that’s why he was sitting on the other side of the table instead. Just because he’d been brought there.
Chosen to be.
‘You found me next to a dead body. Why do you think I was there?’
‘Who was she?’
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much, now I think about it. She was just another player.’
‘And what happened to her?’
He scratched at his left wrist finally, ignoring the bite of pain which responded to his touch. Glanced up at the camera once again.
‘Why don’t you tell us,’ DI Hicks said, unable to keep the irritation out of his tone, ‘what happened to her?’
He almost laughed at the utter absurdity of it all. There was only one answer he could give them. He cleared his throat and looked DI Hicks in the eye for the first time. ‘It’s simple. She played The Game and lost.’
BEFORE
Two
Status: Live
Likes: Eighteen
POST TITLE – NEW GAME
These are the new players.
Remember the names.
Let’s watch them play.
If you have any ideas for levels, please post them below.
This is going to be fun!
REMEMBER THE RULES
Only two players at one time.
They are never referred to by name – they are always Player One and Player Two.
No one talks about this place.
No one talks about what we decide here.
The Game is all that matters.
PLAYER ONE
She wasn’t the first.
The voice on the phone had told her so.
The way it had said her name. Joanna.
At first, she had wanted to ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t happening. That she hadn’t been found out.
How did they find out?
One more level.
That’s all she had to complete. Then it would be all over. She could get back to her life and try to make it somewhat normal.
No one would know what she had done.
No one would know what she’d had to do to hide it. Protect herself.
‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ she had pleaded to the voice on her phone, the first time they had called. ‘I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry.’