Fear Games

9. Do You Love Me, Do You Not?

EMERALD

"So, Emerald, what brings you in here to see me today?"

I was sitting in a small, but cozy, therapist's office. There was a nice, long, comfy looking grey couch, several plants that I couldn't tell were dead or alive, and Elaine, my new therapist, sat behind a big, chestnut wooden desk. I didn't like that there was something so bulky in between us, but I decided to just go with it. It was was my first session and I just had to get used to it, I guess.

Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I said, "I don't know. A lot of things, I guess."

Elaine raised her an eyebrow like she didn't believe me. "A lot of things? Like what?"

I shrugged. "Don't you already know from whatever report you got about me? Or whatever you've heard about my family and me on the news?"

"I don't like to put words in my patients' mouths," Elaine said. She put down and pen and notebook she was holding onto the desk and intertwined her fingers together. "Listen, Emerald, I know you've been dealing with a lot of difficult things lately. Things that no one should ever have to put up with. Your mother obviously thought it was smart to get you some help. After the trauma you've been through, talking about it might actually help. Even if it's just a little bit."

It had been about a month since the Fear Games incident and Mom thought it was best that I went to a therapist, and I reluctantly agreed. I'd never been much of an open person, especially with strangers. After what happened in the bunker, how was I supposed to open up to anyone? How could I trust other people outside my inner circle? I could barely even trust the people within my inner circle.

But there was something about Elaine that felt genuine to me, and the possibility of her being one of the Fear Games killers seemed extremely slim to me. So I sighed and said, "You have no idea what I had to go through with my friends. It was horrible."

Elaine nodded and picked up her pen and notebook again. "What happened to you? Remember that this is a safe place. Whatever you say here is confidential and stays between us as long as you are not in harms way, or unless you plan on harming someone else."

"I would never hurt anyone else the way that these people hurt my friends and me," I said as I closed my eyes, imaging the bunker where we were all chained to the wall. I remembered the hooded person wearing the balaclava coming in asking me to kill someone and Harlin pretending to be dead. I remembered the killer blowing Freddy's head off. I remembered the blood. All of the blood.

"Emerald?" Elaine's voice cut through my thoughts and I realized that I hadn't been responding to whatever she was saying to me. When I opened my eyes, I saw her staring at me with concern. "Are you okay? What are you thinking about? What feelings are coming up?"

"There was just so much...pain," I said softly. "My friends and I lost someone down in that bunker that day. A poor kid named Freddy who didn't deserve to die at all. He was just part of our group because we started the Fear Games Remembrance Society. It was something that Freddy was only part of because he was friends with Kael."

Elaine wrote something down and asked, "Who is Kael?"

"He's my Mom's best friend's kid," I said. "One of them, anyway. She also has two daughter, Cinder and Echo. Cinder is my best friend. My Mom's best friend is named Eden. My Mom and Eden were victims of the Fear Games all those twenty years ago."

"And that's why you started the Remembrance Society," Elaine said, I assumed for clarification.

"Yes," I said. "Colton, German, Arya, Freddy...they should never have even been involved. They only were because they knew us. And Harlin was friends with Kael too, and he ended up being one of the killer's helpers. We're still trying to figure out why that is."