Page 14

An hour after they’d left the boardroom, with the smell of Lynette Baldwin’s blood still metallic in his nostrils and on his tongue, Quinn joined everyone else in the lobby.

Everyone looked ready to throw up. Quinn thought Kit and Charlie already had. At the edge of the small crowd, Geri was hugging herself, gaze distant and face still pale. She was shivering, too.

He approached cautiously. “Hey. You all right?”

She nodded, not making eye contact with him, and she seemed to be struggling to keep her teeth from chattering. “Y-yeah. Thought it was going to be me. Lynette, I mean. I thought…” She chafed her arms as if she were cold despite the relentless heat. “Oh my God. He’s going to kill all of us.”

Quinn couldn’t even argue. Two of their fellow competitors were already dead. Just… slaughtered, right in front of everyone, brutally and without apology. He looked from one horrified face to the next. Was Geri right? Was Rich going to take them out, one after the other, in some gruesome ways Quinn didn’t want to think about?

Now Quinn was the one shivering. Fuck.

Tyson and Mark appeared in the lobby with several blank-faced and well-armed men.

“Come with us,” Tyson barked. “ Now. ”

“Sir, yes, sir,” a sarcastic voice in Quinn’s mind retorted. But he was too scared to say anything out loud, so he just silently followed everyone else outside.

They were led out of the hotel, past the empty marina, and along the beach to a stretch of sand that had been cordoned off with flags. Some shovels were leaned against a boulder. Two tall lifeguard chairs loomed over the scene, occupied by a pair of lifeguards… with black rifles laid across their laps.

And of course, there he was—Rich goddamned Price.

“Welcome, competitors.” Their host smiled, and he spoke with the manic cheer of an actual reality show host, grinning as if he were detailing the rules of a quirky, funny challenge. “One of the many, many reasons you’re all here is that every one of you—every last one—has the exploitation of the working class to thank for your obscene amounts of wealth. Back-breaking labor in inhospitable conditions with the absolute bare minimum in compensation—sound familiar?”

“My workers have good pay and benefits!” Charlie insisted. “They’re unionized!”

“After how many attempts by your company to stop them from unionizing?” Rich looked at him in disgust. “Fuck off.”

Charlie gaped, and it was probably that more than anything else—more than the two grisly murders in the boardroom—that let him know he was out of his element now. He wasn’t in control anymore. None of them were.

No one except Rich Price.

“For the next”—Rich made a showy gesture of pulling back his sleeve to check his gleaming gold watch—“nine hours, you’re all going to get a taste of the labor that elevated you to where you are.” He lowered his hands, folding them in front of him, and that game show host smile stayed firmly in place. “Mark will take things from here. Enjoy.”

And with that, he walked away.

Mark stepped in front of the small crowd. “All right. Let’s get to work. Your task is to move sand from there”—he gestured at one end of the flagged area—“to there.” He pointed at another area surrounded by blue flags about fifty feet away.

“That’s… that’s our job?” Kit asked. “Just move sand around? Why?”

Mark’s sunglasses hid his eyes, but his glare was still impossible to miss. “Because that’s the task you’ve been assigned.” He took a shovel from the pile and tossed it at her. She sort of caught it, but fumbled it, and it dropped to the sand at her feet. Sheepishly, she picked it up, and she held it as if she had no idea what to do with it.

“You’ll get a fifteen-minute break after two hours, and a thirty-minute lunch after four.” Mark waved sharply. “Grab a shovel and start digging.”

What else could they do? Especially with Tyson, Mark, and the two “lifeguards” standing by with weapons.

So… they grabbed shovels and started digging.

Two hours between starting and taking a break didn’t sound like much, but those were two of the longest hours of Quinn’s life. Back and forth, shovelful after shovelful, he slogged with the rest of the group. No one complained out loud; he figured they were also kept silent by the black rifles in their peripheral vision.

On their break, they were handed warm bottles of water. It was probably some kind of off-brand water that had been treated to hell and back and had been sitting long enough for the plastic to leech into it. It had that flat, awful taste he’d encountered a few times.

After shoveling sand for two hours, he drank it happily.

Beside him, Dan Woolman gazed out at the half-dug beach. “I read about something like this once.”

Quinn turned to him. “Yeah?”

Dan nodded, gaze distant. “Yeah.” He met Quinn’s eyes. “In a book about the camps in Germany.”

Quinn’s heart skipped. “Seriously?”

Dan nodded. “The Nazis—they’d make prisoners just… move sand from one side of the camp to the other. And then move it back. Hard labor, they called it.” He brought his water bottle up to his lips and added, “At least they’re not making us wear wooden shoes.”

Quinn glanced down at his sneakers. They were uncomfortable enough, and he was sure he’d have blisters by the end of the day thanks to the grains of sand that had worked their way inside. Wooden shoes? In sand? That would be unbearable.

Most of the task was unbearable anyway. At the end of their fifteen-minute break, they were ordered back to work.

The tide began inching up the beach, lapping at the feet of the competitors closest to its edge. Soon, it was up to their ankles. The cool water was a relief, but a short-lived one. There wasn’t enough yet to saturate the sand and turn it into a packed, firm surface; it was just loose mud now, which was even harder to walk in than dry sand.

Quinn’s knees and hips ached from pulling his feet out of the mud with every step and trying to stay balanced on the uneven ground. The task didn’t seem like much, but holy shit, it was taxing after a while, especially as the ground got wetter and looser and harder to traverse.

Lunch was thirty minutes of sitting in the shade eating stale sandwiches with warm water. The shade was still hot, but it was a relief from the high-noon sun. Quinn’s skin already had that crispy feeling that suggested that in a few hours, he’d be thanking the gods he’d remembered to pack some aloe vera. Especially since something told him their “hosts” wouldn’t be distributing anything to help with sunburns.

While the group was eating, Kit asked, “Did anyone else—last night…” She shuddered. “All over the walls in my room, it was just horrifying.”

Somber nods went around the group.

“It was awful,” Alan said. “Fucking horror movie all night long on full blast.”

“I never knew my dad’s company did all that shit,” Quinn admitted.

There were a few sheepish nods. A few people who wouldn’t meet anyone else’s eyes.

Did they know? Had they seen things last night that they’d known about all along?

He didn’t ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Thank God I had something to take last night,” Art said. “Or I never would’ve slept.”

All eyes were on him, and everyone leaned closer.

“You took something?” Kit asked. “Do you, uh… Do you have more?”

Art sat back a little, eyeing the group warily. “I… I do, yes. I don’t know that I have enough for… I mean, who knows how long we’re going to be here?”

“So you can sleep while the rest of us suffer?” Charlie snapped. “If you’ve got something that can help us all…” He gestured at the group.

Art looked from one person to the next, drawing back even more. “I… But I…”

“You’d better fucking share it,” Dan growled. “Or we’ll all just take it from you.”

Art’s eyes went huge. He drew back a little. “There’s… There’s no need for—”

“You’re the only one here with any kind of relief,” Paul gritted out. “You hoard that shit, and you’ll regret it.”

“Okay. Okay!” Art put up his hands. “Okay, I’ll—” He exhaled, dropped his gaze, and brought up his sandwich for a bite. “I’ll have to get them from my room. But…” He nodded. “I can give everyone some. We’ll just have to ration them. Because God knows how long they’ll have to last.”

The response to that was somber nods and lowered hackles.

Quinn’s mouth watered—or, well, tried to; he was too dehydrated—at the prospect of something that would knock him out tonight.

“All right, contestants,” Mark called out. “Back to work.”

Fucking hell. Quinn pushed himself to his feet, body aching and skin burning, and he did as he was told.

He was in reasonably good physical condition, and he still struggled. Between the heat, the sun beating on his back, the sand chewing at his feet, and the exhaustion from a sleepless night, every step was awful. His mouth was parched. His vision tried to go dark a few times. He desperately needed water, shade, cool air—but every time he slowed down, he was met with a bark of, “Keep moving!” and “That sand isn’t going to shovel itself!”

He kept moving. He kept shoveling. He kept wondering how he hadn’t already dropped to his knees or faceplanted.

Others in the group were far worse off than he was. Art collapsed twice before their second break. Their keepers actually took pity on him and let him sit in the shade for half an hour with some water before putting him back to work. At one point, Dan threw up in the sand. Their overseers just had him shovel the contaminated sand into the same pile as the rest. He was seriously wobbly after that, and he took a knee a few times, but he kept going.

Kit ended up sitting out for thirty minutes like Art had. She’d collapsed once, then passed out completely. Two of the armed men had carried her into the shade, and once she was more or less steady and had drunk some water, they put her back to work. Art, Dan, and Kit were all far slower than everyone else, but they slogged on.

After what seemed like dozens of hellish, grueling hours had passed since their second break, someone blew a whistle, and Quinn almost dropped his shovel. He very nearly faceplanted in the sand from sheer relief.

It was over. Thank Christ, it was over.

“Dinner will be served in the restaurant.” Mark gestured toward the hotel. “I’ll see everyone in the lobby at 8:00 tomorrow morning.”

God. Tomorrow. There’d be more tomorrow. More of what, Quinn didn’t know, but it wouldn’t be good.

Everyone started toward the hotel.

They didn’t make it far.

“Wait.”

The group halted.

“You three.” Mark pointed at Art, Dan, and Kit. “You still have time to make up.”

Their jaws went slack. Dan grabbed on to Paul just to keep from sinking to the sand.

“You all owe the clock thirty minutes.” Mark gestured at the piles. “Back to work.”

The three stared in disbelief.

“Back to work!” he barked.

That got them moving. They staggered toward the shovels. Each picked one up and stumbled toward the dug-up sand.

Mark glared at the rest of the group. “You want to join them?”

Instantly, they all started up the path.

Quinn felt bad for the three they were leaving behind, but he wasn’t about to volunteer for more. One more shovelful of sand, and he’d be on the ground. He just fucking knew it.

His legs were shaking badly, making the trek up to the hotel a long and miserable one. Good thing no one had deactivated the elevator along with the air conditioning and hot water.

Though… he didn’t mention that out loud.

No need to give anyone ideas.

After a cold shower (which had felt amazing on his burned skin), Quinn headed downstairs. He would’ve been happy to escape his stuffy room by going out on the balcony, but since the doors were locked, that wasn’t an option anymore.

His legs were still unsteady as he limped downstairs to the bar. Mercifully, the restaurant was open, as were the patio doors. As hot as it was both inside and out, the cross breeze made the room moderately bearable.

Almost everyone sat at tables, eating in miserable silence. The food was cold and congealed, like leftovers of the more decadent meals they’d been served when they’d first arrived. Still, Quinn didn’t complain. He was starving, and there wasn’t much he wouldn’t have eaten in that moment.

He was honestly surprised there wasn’t any bitching about the food or, well, anything. People in this cutthroat social strata didn’t take kindly to being cornered, threatened, or mistreated. Then again, their situation had turned quite literally cutthroat after the first challenge, so… fuck. Maybe everyone was too scared and too traumatized to complain. For Quinn’s part, he had to admit the lifeless, slimy food was a pleasant switch from tasting blood or sand.

At one point, Art came by Quinn’s table. He had, true to his word, brought some pills down, and he slipped four of them to Quinn.

“I’d give you more,” the man said, “but I only have so many.”

Quinn nodded. “What are they?”

“It’s a sleep aid.” Art paused, then lowered his voice a little more. “I’ve got pain pills too. They’ll do the same thing, but we’ve got to be careful with those.”

“So no one ODs?”

“Well, and so no one gets hooked on them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this”—he gestured at their surroundings—“will get any better if we’ve got someone addicted to pills we can’t get anymore.”

Quinn grimaced. He knew several people who’d fallen into opioid addiction, and he could only imagine how much something like that would add to the shitstorm they were in right now. Everyone was miserable enough without someone jonesing for pills that were an ocean away.

As he put the pills in his pocket, his shoulder ached with the simple movement. “Maybe keep the painkillers handy for actual pain,” he muttered. “I think we’re going to need them.”

Art grunted and didn’t gainsay him.

After his meal, Quinn wasn’t at all surprised to find Geri smoking a cigarette out on the patio. Her dark hair was pulled back in a loose, damp ponytail, and her tank top sat on pale shoulders that contrasted sharply with her burned neck and arms. Her nose and cheeks were deep pink and puffy. She had dark circles under her eyes, just like everyone in the group had, and they looked even darker with the sunburn.

Gaze distant, she smoked shakily, the epitome of how miserable and beaten down Quinn felt.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

For a while, they smoked the way everyone had eaten—in silence. As she was getting toward the end of her cigarette, though, she said, “There has to be a way out of this.”

“I’ve been trying to think of one,” he said. “I’ve got nothing.”

Geri pressed her lips together. Then, “I think we should talk to Rich.” She brought her cigarette to her lips and spoke around it. “I want to take him up on the golden ticket.”

“Wasn’t that a one-time deal?”

She nodded slowly and met his gaze, her eyes full of exhaustion. “Worth a try, isn’t it?” She offered a heavy, tired half-shrug. “Do we really have anything to lose?”

Fuck. That was a depressing thought.

“I guess we don’t,” he rasped. “Christ.”

Geri crushed her cigarette under her heel, then picked up the butt and dropped it in an ashtray. “Let’s go. I doubt he’s in his office right now, but… I don’t know. Maybe we can schedule something.”

“One can hope,” he muttered, and he followed her in from the patio.