Dangerous Game

Nana

"Where have you been? I've been looking for you?"
"I was just getting a book," said Lucy and Jaz let out a sigh of relief.
"What took you so long?"
"I accidentally interrupted our lovely Mr Langdon," she said drily. "I don't know what to make of him." He was unlike anyone she'd met, and she wasn't sure if that was good or bad yet.

"Weird?" Jaz scoffed as she pulled me towards the music room. "Well Evie's bragging about how she's reported her grandson for having sex with some foul man." Jaz's tone was a bit mocking but Lucy's eyes widened. What had she missed? She'd only been gone for a couple of hours reading and then talking to Langdon.
"What?" Lucy asked. "She told Venable about her own grandson?" Jaz just shrugged, she was just as confused as Lucy.
"It doesn't surprise me," she said. "But who do you think the other guy was? Evie seems insistent it had to be Langdon." Langdon didn't seem the type, but who was Lucy to know that?
"Well, he does seem a bit... odd."

It seemed in that day's argument, Coco and Mallory were waxing on about the options they missed. Lucy tried to ignore them and tried to focus on her book but it was difficult with Evie and Dinah giving everyone below the age of thirty the worst death glares possible.
"We needed to know if we wanted turkey, or veggie." Coco held up her fingers as she listed them off. "Or that meatless kind that bleeds like the real thing."
"We had at least four Chrises that could star in a movie," Mallory added and Lucy did nod along to that one. "How many do you have?" Evie didn't answer immediately. Instead, she opened her fan.

Then, Gallant walked in and poured himself a drink without saying a word. Evie froze and stopped fanning herself.
"Surprised to see me breathing, Nana?" he asked as he sent the pitcher back down. Lucy closed the book and set it aside as Jaz whispered in her ear.
"Shame we don't get popcorn." Lucy shushed her as she tried not to laugh at the comment. She opened her book again and hid her smile behind the pages.
"They usually shoot people for fucking. Or... did you not remember that when you turned me in?"
Evie just put on a sweet smile. "No hard feelings darling. I want to live, and the only way to achieve that is to get rid of these ten little Indians who stand between me and that golden ticket out of here."

Lucy wanted to ask what she and Jaz had ever done to the women. Coco looked like she was ready to argue too.
"Um, we're sitting right here," said Coco as she pointed at herself and Mallory.
"What have we ever done to you?" asked Jaz. Coco nodded in agreement with Jaz, and Lucy did too. For all of Coco's whining and snide insults, it's not like any of it mattered any more. None of them had anything any more.
Evie ignored them, and instead turned her gaze back to her grandson with a disgusted expression on her face.
"It's not my fault that you can't control your carnal urges." That set Gallant off, anger flashing through him, he pointed at his Nana.
"You have lived!" he yelled. "I haven't."
"Oh, yes, you have," said Evie, raising her voice as she stood up. "You have crammed ten lifetimes of failures and screw ups into your thirty years!"

Gallant turned to look at everyone, drink raised and arms outstretched, though he hadn't drunk any of it. Lucy nudged Jaz and Jaz peered at the book, biting at her lip. There wasn't anything interesting but it was too awkward to just awkwardly sit there.
"Am I the only one who makes mistakes? Hmm?"
"No," said Evie, looking away from him. "But I'm always the one who has to clean up after you. Let me see. Three stints in rehab on my dime. Fancy lawyers to keep you out of prison. When your grandfather rejected you because of your perverted lifestyle, I took you in. And what did I get back?" Evie chuckled and Gallant turned, finally taking a drink. "Oh yes, you went and bankrupted two salons and then you snorted the third one up your nose."

While Mallory and Coco awkwardly looked away, Jaz turned to Lucy with wide eyes. It felt as though they could have a whole conversation hidden behind the book of gestures and facial expressions. Who knew Gallant had such a wild lifestyle outside of having a hair salon.

"I deserve to live," Evie continued, holding her hands to her chest as she looked at Dinah who stood near the fireplace. "I am the bridge between the past and the future. I mean, when those poor survivors arrive, what do they know about culture, music and art?"
"Possibly more than her," whispered Jaz and Lucy shushed her. She couldn't say that when one of them might hear her.
"And I will be there to tell them all about it." Gallant looked down at his drink and took another sip while Evie looked around victoriously, proud of what she'd done. "One lifetime of me is worth fifty of yours. Humanity may be in a sorry state, but it deserves better than you."

Gallant inhaled, loudly and shakily. It was low, but not as low as her reporting him in the first place. Whoever he'd had sex with, it wasn't like they were both going to die if no one had mentioned it.
"I should have put you in that motion picture home years ago. The only thing I ever wanted from you was for you to love me and accept me," he said as he put his hands on his hips. Lucy raised her eyebrows. Apparently calling his lifestyle perverted didn't answer that for him, or maybe he just wanted to hear her say it herself. "Why couldn't you just give me that?"
"Sorry, darling, it's just not in my nature." Evie patted Gallants cheek before leaving the music room. Leaving everyone reveling in the awkwardness of seeing that.

"Well," said Coco with a sigh. "It's a good thing you convinced me to bring your nana."
"Apparently she does not have any sense of shame," said Lucy. and Jaz nodded in agreement. Gallant sighed and moved to sit next to Coco. She looked annoyed, she and Evie had never gotten along, while Gallant looked a mix of angry and sad.
"Maybe she's some kind of narcissist or something," said Jazz quietly. Lucy shrugged. Who knew why Evie was such a bitch?
"Or maybe she just doesn't care."

That argument was the only thing anyone could think of the next morning, when Langdon announced that Evie had passed away peacefully in her sleep, and that the interviews would continue on regardless.