The White Games

29) Chapter Twenty-Nine

Oreo Dutton – Day Eight - 2:22 AM

Alana walks into the room.

She holds two knives, one in each hand. A large tan vest is wrapped around her slender torso, looking mighty impressive. Is it bulletproof? I almost laugh at the thought. What does it matter if it is? I have no bullets, only grenades.

I feel sick at the thought of having to use them.

Alana stops right before the desk in the center of the room. She lifts her head to stare at me. "Of all twenty-four Challengers, I didn't think you and I would be in the final four."

"I didn't think so either." I had honestly expected my death to have happened days ago. Only sheer luck has prevented it from being so. And this girl, this small, frightened looking girl. I hadn't thought that she'd be one of the few left. I'd have thought the final four would be people like Chris and Nic. Fausto and Anne. Instead, it's us weaklings.

Alana allows a small smile. Then her head whips around to stare at a shadowed section of the room, where a dark figure emerges. Surprise lights her face. "I hadn't expected to see you here, Sami."

The lithe boy licks his lips nervously. "I wanted everyone to know what would happen next," He says in an accented voice.

"What do you mean?" Though he said it plainly, I can't help but attach ominous meaning to those words.

"One of us will die. And it will be randomized." He holds up his hand and Alana gasps. In his hand, clutched tightly between his fingers, is a small, black detonator. The cold steel of my collar tingles against my skin. If that button is pressed...

"It could blow up one of the dead's collars," I say with fake bluster. I feel sick at the thought of Imogen's corpse exploding, but that thought hurts a lot less then my head exploding would.

"It could," Sami concedes with a shrug. "But I don't think it will."

"It could blow your own head off," Alana is very quiet, her dark eyes trained on the detonator. I notice the muscles in her arms twitching. Is she planning to throw one of her knives?

"I'm willing to take that risk." Sami sounds dead-serious. And why wouldn't he be? It's a one in four odds that it's his own head, and while that would be terrible...would it really be worse then any of the other ways he could die?

"Why did you tell us you have it?" I want to keep him talking. Maybe I can think my way out of this situation. My grenades. If I threw one...but no. Sami would just press that button the second the grenade hit the ground. There's no way that button goes without being pressed.

The collar feels like it's burning against my neck. I itch to grab at it, to rip it off. The stupid thing is the root of all our problems! If I only took it off, then none of us would have to kill one another.

Alana seems to be thinking the same thing. Her hands feel at the collar, her eyes shut tight in concentration. Sami frowns at her, finger hovering over the button.

"Why did no one tell me about this meeting?"

All our heads swivel like owls as a newcomer emerges from one of the tunnels. Anne Bellvue, walking with a limp, one hand pressed against her side, smiles as she faces us.

Her usually beautiful blonde hair is a tangled mess, her skin cut and marked with bruises, blood runs down her side, staining her clothes. But her eyes. Her eyes stare ahead with vicious jubilation. Those aren't the eyes of a girl at death's door, those are the eyes of a victor.

"You all came here to talk and congratulate one another, and no one thought to invite me?" She throws her head back and laughs. Cruel and mocking, her laughter resounds throughout the room. It's not a pretty sound.