Page 32 of Ashes

Chapter 14

VICTOR DOESN’T STOPsurprising me.

I’m no longer confined to my room, and I can do whatever I want, as long as I don’t leave the house.

There are too many guards, so getting away wouldn’t be easy. And I can’t get into that club alone, even if I manage to escape, so I decide to think about escaping some other time.

For now, the only thing that matters is figuring out what happened to Alex.

I don’t care about anything else.

I hope all of us who will participate in the competition will do so willingly because I don’t know how I’ll be able to go through any of it if I see someone else suffering.

And Victor...

Maybe he’s not that much of a monster as I believed him to be.

But I still don’t know anything about him.

Maybe he only doesn’t want me to mess up our plan, so he’s trying to play nice.

Except, I don’t think that’s it.

I’m curious about him, but he’s not my target.

I believe that he didn’t kill Alex because he wouldn’t be going through all this trouble to figure out what happened if he did it.

This time, when we enter the club, we’re taken to a completely different part of the three-story building.

All the hallways look identical, so it’s hard to keep track of them.

Victor’s grip on me tightens when a man passes us by while gawking at me.

I don’t know why, but I don’t feel in danger here.

Maybe I should.

Maybe Victor will change his mind, or I’ll have to do something that’s too much for me.

I hope we’ll both get lucky because I really want this to work.

The room we enter is smaller and much brighter.

I don’t know if I should be relieved or worried that the couple from last time isn’t here. Who knows what happened to that poor woman?

We settle on a sofa, and I watch the faces around us as a man explains the rules of the game we’re about to play.