Oh, good. Now he was flirting with her. Or threatening her.
Or both.
Vile cackled. “Now you’re getting it.”
Right. Sasha narrowed her eyes. The mind-reading trick was getting obnoxious. “Explanations. Please.”
“Fine, fine.” He took a step back from her. “Spoilsport. But I suppose we’ll have plenty of time for that later. Because, you see, my brother and I have been playing this game for the past few, eh, forevers?”
“He’splaying a game.” Virtue corrected him.
Vile continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “The rules are quite simple. We each take a champion from Earth. Twins, like us. Poetry and symmetry, etcetera, etcetera. And that is where you come in.” He closed the distance between them again, leaning his head in close to Sasha. “And with our champions selected, we playa simple game of best of three…”
She jerked her head back away from him. “What do you mean, best of three? Three what?”
“What do you think? Stories, of course!”Vile laughed, clapping his hands and strolling away from her. “You will join us through a selection of our favorite stories.”
That explained where they just were. “But how do you win a story?” That was what made her nervous. “Like, who ‘wins’ the plot?”
“Mmm. We used to judge it that way. But that always left so much room for obnoxious scholarlydebate.” Vile adjusted one of his cufflinks. They were little silhouetted skulls. “So now, I tend to go for something a bit more literal than that.”
“Like what?” Oh, she was dreading the answer.
“Lives.” He grinned a wicked flash of white teeth. He held up three fingers on one hand. With each word, he lowered a finger. “Best. Of. Three.”
Sasha swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced over at Sidney. “We…die in the story, it counts as a life?”
He nodded.
Video game rules. Great. Just great. “And once someone loses the third time?”
“Dead forever. You lose.” He adjusted the other cufflink as if this were the most boring and normal discussion to have in the world.
“And what about the survivor?”
“Mm? Oh, free to go.” Vile shrugged dismissively. “If they’re still sane and don’t want to simply be put out of their misery, that is. Sometimes it can take a few dozen stories to get to the final match. Stories often end in a draw or can drag out for a while, especially if the contestants don’t want to play at first.” His grin turned vicious, and if Sasha wasn’t mistaken, his teeth might’ve been all points for just a split second.
“I’m really sorry about him,” Virtue muttered to them. “He gets like this, but it’s really not his fault.”
Sasha was tempted to laugh at how ridiculously different Virtue was from his twin. But she supposed that was exactly the point of the two of them. With a breath, she knew it was pointless to ask, but she had to try. “Let us go, Vile. Please.”
“Do you think that’ll work?” He arched a thin black eyebrow.
“No. But it was worth an attempt.” She paused. “What incentive do we have to not just sit on the floor and ignore what’s happening around us?”
“Then you will leave it up to me to craft the story. And trust me, my dear, that is a very quick way to ensure this gets spectacularly messy. I am always guaranteed to make my own fun if left to my own devices.” Upon seeing her horrified expression, he frowned. “If you didn’t want to know the answer, don’t ask, dear. And don’t give me that look. This game doesn’t have to be miserable!Think of it this way—you will get to experience all your favorite stories. Whoever you want to meet. Wherever you want to go. Whoever you want to fu?—”
“Brother!” Virtue cut him off. “Tell them the other half of the rules. The part that gets them both out alive.”
Vile sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know why you insist on telling them this part. It just gets their hopes up every time. It’s cruel.”
“Hope is never cruel.”
Oh, bless his heart, Virtue actually sounded like he believed that. Sasha watched the exchange, still in shock at what was going on.
“You’d think he’d grow out of it with time, and yet, here he remains, but—I suppose we are both our natures, if nothing else.” Vile rubbed a hand over his face as he once more answered her unspoken thoughts. “Very well, brother. Here is their carrot on the end of the stick for you. There is a way for you both to be set free alive, returned to Earth—and that’s to tell us something entirely new.”
“New?” Sidney blinked. “Okay. Easy. Like—okay, a giant purple chicken. That shoots lasers. And has crocodiles for arms. And is an alien. And—and has rocket blasters for eyes. Who marries a squirrel. Done! New.”
