The Game by L.P. Lovell

30

The morning light doesn’t seem as bright when I open my eyes this morning. The second the small room comes into focus Serenity Blue paint greets me along with the old aluminum window with the flower box outside. This can’t be right. I place a hand to my pounding head and stare at the cheap canvas I bought at a flea market two years ago, the violent brushstrokes depicting the Brooklyn Bridge jarring my senses. My apartment. I'm right back here.

Where is Sawyer? And Maria? Is this not the same apartment I was nearly sent to jail over just days ago? But the paint…

The duvet pools around my waist when I sit up and glance down at the dark gray t-shirt covering my body. A man's dark gray t-shirt. I'm truly crazy. I've lost it. Or maybe it was all just a vivid dream? A fucked up vivid dream.

I go to the bathroom, stopping in front of the mirror. My heart skips and jumps and my stomach knots. There’s blood spatter on my face. Tiny red flecks in my hair... A burst of images flits through my mind like the stilted trailer to a horror movie. Monsters of all forms and colors, beasts and demons, reality and imagination blur together in a horrible nightmare. And then—Preston. Tobias. Three. My stomach churns as memories flood my mind. Tobias was Three. Three was Tobias. And he… bile rises in my throat. But were they real? Was any of it real? I glance down at the blood and dirt caked under my nails. I don’t want it to be real because I feel soiled and tainted in so many ways. I want to scrub it all away, bleach it from my mind as if it never happened. But even if I could ignore all the blood, pretend it was a dream, I killed people. Can a dream change a person? Can a dream send someone crazy? Or perhaps I am crazy already and this is all some warped hallucination my mind concocted. I get the sudden sense that I shouldn’t be here, that I need to leave. Now.

I step out of the bathroom and straight into a firm, broad chest. Staggering back, I look up into clear blue eyes and an all-American face. Sawyer.

“I swear, I don't know how I got here,” I say. The last time I saw him he called the police… Didn’t he? He frowns at me, and cups my jaw, worry evident on his face. “Baby, are you okay?” he says, that slight southern twang in his voice.

“I...” What is happening?

“Did you have a bad dream again? You should call in today.” Call in? His gaze searches mine, and then he brushes his lips over mine. Soft and sweet and familiar, yet desperately lacking. “I'll try and come home early. I love you.” He smiles then walks out of the room.

He loves me? Where is Maria? Why is he here? He didn’t say anything about the blood...

Tobias and Preston could easily be a dream. They always did seem like something otherworldly, something beyond the comprehensible, but Sawyer...We were over long before Tobias ever approached me.

I walk through my apartment in a daze. Everything in the walk-in closet is exactly the same. The entire apartment is exactly as it was the day before Sawyer walked out. His shirts are here, the scent of his cologne subtly clinging to the air. It's as though time froze, and nothing moved—Except me. I want to scream, but I can’t, so I take a shower and wash the blood from my skin before I get dressed and pour a coffee as if it were a normal day. As if I were normal. The act feels so empty without Preston’s teasing grins and Tobias’s intensity looming over me.

I try to pretend that I’m not losing my mind, that this is all okay. If it were all a horrible dream, then I'd just be Ella. Good, hardworking Ella with her nice boyfriend and a bright future. I wouldn't be the girl that kills people, the girl that begs for two guys to ruin her. That girl scares me, but that girl captive to rules and twisted games was freer than I could ever wish to be in this life. And isn't that a wicked irony?

I round the kitchen counter, dropping my coffee when my gaze lands on Tobias in the middle of my living room. Coffee splatters my ankles and shards of porcelain scatter the hardwood. It was real. For a split second, I’m enamored by his beauty, but a storm of anger rolls in and quickly snuffs it out. He let Three have me. More than that, he let him trick me into thinking it was him. The hurt and disgust rise, burning the back of my throat. I pull my arm back and go to slap him, but he blocks my hand.

“Such an angry little lamb.” He pins my arm behind my back, tugging my body tight to his.

“You’re an asshole! You let him—”

“I let him do nothing!” Agitation is evident in his harsh tone and the wild flicker in his eyes. Three had his mask, and I would believe wholeheartedly that this was all some cruel part of the game if it weren’t for the rage in Tobias’s eyes. At this moment, Tobias is not so perfectly in control of his universe. I want to believe that Tobias didn’t share me, I really do, but I heard him say Three could have my body. His gaze holds mine as the seconds tick by, and then his demeanor shifts, the tension in his jaw softening as though he’s managed to rein his temper in. “Have you forgotten this is a game?” With that, he releases me and gives me his back.

A game. A fucking game! God, I’m so stupid to think he actually cares. Of course he doesn’t.

I pace, swiping my hands through my tangled hair. He’s crazy. Hell, I’m crazy for getting involved in whatever twisted shit this is, for feeling things I shouldn’t when I look at him, for still wanting him. “And what about Sawyer?” I stop, fighting a wave of emotions. “Why—How is he here like he never left.”

“I’ll let that question go, just this once.” His jaw tics. His nostrils flare. “Isn’t this what you wanted, little lamb? Your life back just as it should be?”

Do I want that? Two weeks ago, I would have said yes without hesitation, but now as I stare at Tobias in the middle of my tiny living room, I’m not so sure anymore.

“If you win, you can have your old life. Sawyer. This apartment…” He waves a hand around, as though he were a magician who could somehow reverse time. Fix my cheating boyfriend, my mundane job, and that’s when I realize, I’m not the same person I was six days ago. I don’t want it. Any of it.

“But first you have to win. Now wash up and get dressed, it’s time for game seven.”

And like the pathetic little puppet I’ve become, I do as I’m told, dancing along to the tune of strings I’m not sure I even want to be cut.

* * *

Preston waitsfor us outside of a rundown building. He places a chaste kiss on my cheek. I shouldn’t like the warmth, but right now he’s the lesser of two evils. The good guy to Tobias’s bad—a role he slips into far too easily. “My sweet, sweet Ella. Are you ready for the last game?”

I’m not. Each game has grown worse, more violent and deadly. I can only imagine what this last one will entail.

I follow the two men inside and down a hallway, stopping outside a locked door.

“You're doing so good, sweet Ella,” Preston whispers as Tobias shoves a key in the lock.

“Yes. You've truly made me proud.” Tobias presses a reverent kiss to my lips that I don’t return. The door swings open to a dark room, and when the overhead light comes on, I’m not all too shocked to find Lily Davis bound to a chair in the middle of an empty room.

“Do you recognize her?” Tobias’s lips skim my earlobe, his hot breath a threat upon my skin.

Yes. I recognize her. I picked her. He made sure I picked her. A girl with no family and no real prospects. A girl who is failing at life. Just like me…

“You signed the contract, Lily,” Tobias says. She glances up, her pretty gaze pulling to Tobias like a magnet. Did I look at him like that when I first signed that contract? So innocent, so enamored? I wonder if he’s kissed her already, made her come. Is that why I was sent home last night, so he could play with her? Jealousy flares in my chest, solidifying the notion I have that I am a horrible person. I should not be jealous over a man such as him. Over a girl thrust into their toxic reach—A reach I put her in.

As though he can sense the turmoil within me, Tobias tugs me closer. “I told you to pick carefully, little lamb.”

Preston glances at me. “Now you'll see why.”

She might have been entranced by the money or maybe even intrigued, but deep down she signed that bit of paper because she was drawn in by Tobias and Preston, by all the things they promise without ever saying a word.

“It wouldn't have mattered,” I say.

Tobias grabs my chin. “But it does.” And then he kisses me, hard and ruthless, and this time I do return it because I want Lily Davis to see that she will never be me. She will never be his little lamb.

“Lily,” he says, something dangerous dancing in his eyes. “Do you see how beautiful my little lamb is?”

If I have to guess, he’s going to make her fuck me. But that’s not what I’m concerned with. What I’m worried about is if he’s going to fuck her.

“She has a pretty mouth and a pretty pussy and such a tight, virginal ass.” He grabs the straps of my dress and pulls it down, exposing my breasts. Her gaze goes to them and my nipples tighten. Preston circles behind her like a vulture. “Do you want to be her, Lily?”

“No…”

Tobias yanks my dress over my hips, the delicate stitching tearing. “I want her to see what she can...” His words hang in the air, and I want to force them out of him. Can be...can never be? What was he going to say?

Tobias drops to his knees in front of me, lifting one of my legs and placing my foot on his shoulder. Warm breath hits my clit. My hands go to his hair, threading and pulling as his tongue brushes over me. “She tastes so good.”

His fingers sink inside of me, slowly moving in and out while he sucks on the bundle of nerves. But it’s not enough. I need him inside me, pushing and driving. I want his balls smacking against my ass. I want Lily Davis to know that no matter what, she will never be me. I don’t even care that he left me to Three right now, or that he deposited me back in my apartment to make me feel crazy. And I’m very well aware of how screwed up this all is. “Fuck me, Tobias.”

“You want me to fuck that pretty pussy, Ella?” He pushes to his feet, stripping out of his suit jacket, then his shirt. He frees his cock and grips it. “Where do you want this?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

On a smirk, he fists my hair. I love his domination, his ownership. “So perfect, little lamb. So beautifully broken and perfect. And always willing.”

Preston whispers something in the girl's ear. Something I imagine must be dirty and teasing. My dirty words. My filthy promises. Not hers. “Preston,” I say, a plea and command in one.

His gaze lifts to mine as he presses a kiss to her neck. “Oh, our sweet Ella has turned into such a demanding little thing.” He starts toward Tobias and me, already unfastening his slacks.

Is it wrong that I want them both, but only love Tobias? I don’t know why. Preston is the nice one, the playboy. Tobias is dangerous, but that lethal attention is always focused on me.

As if on some silent cue, Preston strips and lays on the thick carpet.

Tobias fists my hair again and shoves me forward toward Preston’s fisted cock. “Sit on his cock, little lamb.”

And I do. I straddle Preston, sinking around his girth and dragging a deep, satisfied groan from him. My gaze locks on the girl and I smirk as she watches. Tobias sinks behind me and forces me against Preston’s chest as he slowly works his cock inside my ass. The blissful burn washes over me. It’s not soft or sweet. It’s brutal and degrading, and I love every second of it.

“Watch us fuck her, Lily,” Tobias says on a groan.

These two men are mine, and I am theirs. I move with them, grinding hard over Preston, pushing Tobias deep inside me. And before Tobias can even demand it of me, I come. Hard and violent. My pussy and ass clenching around them.

I miss the pressure of Tobias’s cock the moment he pulls out. “Take his legs,” he instructs me. “Open him for me, little lamb.” A heat surges over me as I hook my arms behind Preston’s knees and spread him wide, his dick still buried inside me. I feel Tobias's body flush against my back as he sinks into Preston's ass.

Preston's face crumples with sheer bliss. That transfer of energy, there is nothing like it.

“Fuck him hard,” I say to Tobias as I ride Preston, transfixed by the sight of him groaning in pleasure.

Tobias’s teeth sink into my shoulder as he picks up his pace. I match it even though my sensitive nerves are pleading for me to stop. I look at Lily as I roll my hips. “You will never have this.” I throw my head back against Tobias’s chest and thread my fingers into his hair. His breathing grows ragged as his hand clamps around my throat, owning me while he fucks Preston.

“Make him come for us, Ella.”

I squeeze my pussy in an effort to milk everything from him as he comes undone for us, groaning in ecstasy. And that’s enough to send Tobias over the edge. He pants behind me, slamming into Preston harder and faster, and then he stills on a long, lust-filled groan. And here the three of us lay, joined together by lust and blood, and dare I say...love.

There's a sudden knock at the door. Tobias stands, handing me my clothes. “Our guest is here.”

I slip into my dress as he and Preston quickly don their suits once more.

“Come in,” Preston says.

The door swings open and Three steps in, his face hidden by the devil mask from the ball. “We have a new little toy to play with. Game seven is such a festive event, isn't it?” He circles Lily, trailing his hand over her shoulder. “And the most amazing thing is, Ella hasn’t a clue, has she?”

Tension crackles to life between the three men. “Little lamb,” Tobias says, turning me to face him. There’s a look of unease in his eyes that scares me. “This is game seven. No matter how this end, you've done so well.” He sweeps a loving hand over my cheek. “You must choose someone in this room to shoot.”

A few days ago, an order such as that would have sent me spiraling out of control. I would have been shocked, appalled, but I’m not the same person I was seven days ago. My gaze snaps to Three. He tricked me and fucked me. He heard the I love you that was meant for Tobias. I’ll shoot him. It’s a thought which shouldn’t come so easily, and one that proves just how far I’ve sunk within the darkness and drowned within its murky depths. I’m certain now I’ll never emerge from this place.

“There is only one rule—” But I don’t need Tobias to finish. The rules don’t matter. My mind is made up.

“I’ll shoot Three.”

Three grins behind the mask as he moves away from Lily. “You didn’t let him finish. The rule is: You can’t choose me.” His laughter echoes around the room, the deep vibrato spiking my temper. “And now for the best part…” He reaches up to remove his mask, and the moment it comes off, I slam my hand over my mouth.

This is not right. Blue eyes. All-American face. It can’t be Sawyer. It can’t…

“I missed you.” Sawyer’s familiar southern twang replaces Three’s British accent. He grins wider as he approaches me. He was Three all along? It seems impossible, but there he is, right in front of me. None of this makes sense. My attention shifts to Tobias and Preston—to Lily. How do these men know each other? And what’s more important, why does this betrayal cut so deep? It was a game. A game of mental manipulation…One where I fucked these men. One where I took lives. What in the hell has become of me?

Tears blur my vision while an angry heat fires over my skin as I start to think that this game wasn’t a mere seven days, but must have been in play for years. But why…

Sawyer stops in front of me and everything inside implodes. I slam my fist against his chest and shove him back. “I hate you! You did all of this, didn’t you?” I knew him long before Tobias and Preston. “My job! The apartment! Maria?” I claw at his face. A small line of blood wells on his jaw as a sadistic smirk shapes his lips.

He hooks an arm around my waist, holding me tight as I fight against him. “Love is such a twisted game we play, and oh, how fun you have been to play with, my dear Ella.” I kick and scratch at him as he kisses my cheek. “I knew you were special, but out of all the women, I never expected it to be you who made it to day seven.”

“Let her go!” Rage bristles from Tobias as he steps forward and snatches me from Sawyer’s hold. I almost fall into his embrace, but he’s just as guilty. He’s just as bad—Isn’t he?

Emotions whip through me as I try to grapple with the truth. Sawyer tricked me and made me live a lie. For years. Tobias never did. From day one, he told me I was playing a game. He laid out the rules, however vague. He didn’t hurt me or break my heart. Yet.

I go to pull away from Tobias, but he holds me tight. I fight the tears. No woman should find comfort in the arms of the devil unless she’s a demon. “Little lamb, I am sorry.” His thumb drags over my lip in a possessive sweep.

“Pick who you kill.” Sawyer’s cold voice breaks through the haze seconds before a gun is passed my way.

I could aim this gun right at Sawyer’s head and pull the trigger. It would make the most sense. But before I can find the resolve, he slips through the door. A latch clicks and I assume we’ve just been locked inside. Tobias, Preston, me, and Lily. My attention goes from the gun to her. She’s crying and visibly shaking. As screwed up as I think I’ve become, I can’t shoot her. She hasn’t dumped toxic waste into rivers, knowing it kills children. As far as I know, she hasn’t harmed anyone which means I can’t justify it.

A hidden speaker in the corner of the room crackles through the silence. “Shoot someone in the room, or I will kill everyone except you, Ella.” Three’s— no— Sawyer’s voice fills the room.

This time it’s not a game of semantics or a question of which choice is morally more wrong. Killing her would be murder. Black and white. No room for confusion. Tobias and Preston, on the other hand, are not innocent. They do terrible things, albeit to terrible people, but I can’t kill them either. They serve as a balance, and I love him—I love them both in a way. I glance at the gun. Who do I shoot? “Please don't make me do this,” I beg.

Tobias sighs. “You have no choice. You've been here before, little lamb. Begging does no good.”

The room seems to shrink in on me. This is an impossible decision. One I refuse to make. “I want out,” I say.

Tobias shakes his head. “It's too late.”

“It's not. I quit. You win!” My voice echoes around the room, mixing with Lily’s soft cries. I shove the gun to Tobias’s chest, but he doesn’t make a move to take it. “I don't want your money!”

“It’s too late in the game.” Preston steps beside Tobias, a grim frown on his face. “There’s only one way out.

Death? Is that what he means?

Tobias tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “It’s one or all of us now, little lamb. Save two or kill us all.”

Lily pleads for her life under her breath. The hopelessness in her voice sends anger bubbling in my chest. She shouldn’t be here. I shouldn't be here. There is no purpose to this insane game outside of morbid entertainment for rich men. For Tobias. He is the game master, the orchestrator of all this. I choke back a sob as I lift the gun. I don’t want to kill him, and that’s half the problem. But he made me kill Reginald because Reginald was a bad person. In this room, Tobias is the bad person.

My chest goes tight. I can’t imagine pulling this trigger and watching his brains splatter the ground, but still, I place the barrel to his temple.

A sly smirk works over his lips. “Am I the chosen one then, my little lamb? Killed by the only woman to ever pierce this blackened heart.” He touches his hand to his chest on a laugh. “Oh, the irony.”

My pathetic, twisted heart wants to believe that I am the only woman he’s ever cared about, but I know it must simply be another manipulation. Maybe they want to see how stupid I am to believe he could love me. “You lie, Tobias.”

“I may be many things, but I would not lie to you about that.”

Preston’s hand lands on my shoulder, and I jump from the sudden contact. God, my finger could have slipped on the trigger… “Point it at Lily,” Preston whispers in my ear, sweet and soft and loving. “Just a small slip of the finger, sweet Ella, and you win.”

“Shoot me, Ella.” Tobias places his hand on the barrel, forcing it harder against his skull. “Pull the trigger.”

This is fucked up. I close my eyes, fighting to find resolve. This is the right decision. If I shoot no one, they all die. If I shoot him…Can I shoot a man that now owns my soul?

“Bang. Bang,” Preston whispers.

Opening my eyes, I frown. “You love him, Preston.” He does, I know he does. I see it in the way he looks at Tobias sometimes. It's the same way I look at him.

“Love is a perception, sweet Ella. It comes and goes like all other emotions. All we really have is the here and now, the adrenaline of the moment.” He grins, spreading his arms wide. “And don't you feel so alive?”

“I...I...” I feel everything at this moment. Fear and anxiety, dread. I’m so on edge my skin is hyperaware. So torn with emotions, I feel drunk, and worst of all, I feel the heavy weight of a decision I do not want to make.

Tobias smiles. “Tell me why you can't, Ella.”

I glance at Lily, then at Preston, and when my gaze drifts back to Tobias, dark and strong, so confident that not even death seems to scare him, the gun threatens to fall from my sweat-slicked palms. “I just…”

“Tick, tock, little lamb,” Tobias says.

And I can’t. I can’t kill him. I step back and shove the gun beneath my chin. This is the only solution.

Tobias shakes his head. “Do that, and he’ll still kill us.”

I’m tired of these twisted plays, this back and forth. Sickened by how easily these monsters have manipulated me into love. I steady my hand.

Tobias’s gaze locks with mine, his jaw ticking. “Ella…” He’s not happy with me, and I take a glimmer of satisfaction from that. But shouldn’t he be happy? I didn’t choose him. Maybe he’s just mad that I’m about to take his little lamb away.

My stomach churns. Tears wet my face. I love them and she’s innocent, and this is the only way to make the game end... I pull back on the trigger— Click—but the pain, the empty void I expect never comes. Nothing does.

When I open my eyes, I’m met with a cold smirk playing over Tobias’s lips. “I love you, too, little lamb.” He kisses my forehead and I drop the gun to the ground. “Even if it means you lost.”

I lost? “What—”

“It was only blanks.”

The door swings open and Sawyer strides in, clapping like he’s just watched the best performance of his life. “Seven days! Is that all it takes to make you choose them over yourself?” He glances at Tobias and Preston. “Seven days of your fuckery and she loves you? Unbelievable.” He stops behind Lily and works at untying her. “You'll find the money in your account in the morning.”

I can’t help but wonder what kind of contract she must have signed. I wonder if this is where her game ends, or where it simply begins.

The rope falls to the floor and she nearly trips on her way out of the chair. She reaches the door before Sawyer stops her. “And remember, if you speak of this to anyone, I will have you killed.” The door slams closed and his attention is back on me. “And, as for you, you lost. You fell in love and hence, broke a rule. Strike four, Ella. So sad after all you've been through.” I

lost. I lost? After all I’ve done.

“Lucky for you though…” He turns to Tobias with a pleased grin. “Tobias and I struck another deal. One where I come up with the game.”

I’m not playing another fucking game with them! Anger rises within me until Preston steps out of the shadows. The wounded expression on his face stops me. Did he not know? “What deal did you make, Tobias?”

Sawyer rounds me, trailing his fingers over my shoulder. “Well, you see, Preston, she’s had such an effect on Tobias that he felt guilty when I was going to fuck her unconscious body. So, I agreed not to fuck her if I could change the end game.” Sawyer practically beams. “And Tobias agreed that he and I could play. For her.”

Preston’s jaw sets as his narrowing gaze pings between Tobias and me.

Sawyer’s face lights up. It’s evident he’s thrilled with this, and when he goes to cup my cheek, I yank away. “Ella, you either come with me, forcing him to lose the only woman who has been able to tame the brutal beast, or you kill Preston.”

There is no decision here. Not a moment of hesitation. “I won't kill him.”

“Really, so quick to make a decision?” A sick smile settles on Sawyer’s face. “What took you so long a few minutes ago?”

Anger and shame mix in my veins, separating like oil and water. It should have been this easy moments ago. It should have, but it wasn’t. “Suicide for your entertainment wasn’t a two-second decision.”

Sawyer smirks as he pinches a strand of my hair between his fingers. “If you’re going to be the sacrificial lamb, Ella, I'll be sure to make you bleed.”