Nina felt real life flooding back in, the everyday weight of it, the normality of it. And it scared her.
She watches the pavement blur past, and for the first time in her life she truly understands her father, the reason he worked so hard, kept so busy, built a house of escape rooms—because he understood how important distractions, complexity, challenge, and games were. To know the rules, to follow them and triumph. Life isn’t like that.
He was left alone with a child, this brilliant man, his wife gone, and he could have sunk under the heft of that but he didn’t; he swam, and he created, and he built a house that made life the ultimate prize. And though the original idea was warped by others, twisted into something else, Nina couldn’t argue with the fact that she had never prized her own existence as highly as in that house. That house had made her fight for her life and every problem she had ever had before then or after would be nothing against that.
Nina turns to look at Joe, his handsome, kind face in profile, unknown thoughts at work behind his eyes.
Now the game is over and it’s just them; them and their hard-won lives, their fledgling love, and a cozy two-bed in Charlotte.
And just as the terrifying fear of that floods into Nina a spike of adrenaline kicks it back and away.
Because—maybe normality is okay. Maybe it is enough.
Nina feels a bright twinkle of hope.
They are survivors, she knows that now, and if life isn’t enough, they can always make it a game.
EPILOGUE
T he superyacht sits 213 nautical miles off the Strait of Gibraltar, safely in international waters. On board the 533-foot yacht, Second Dawn, a crew of over seventy busy themselves in preparation for dinner. The helicopter pads are now empty after the final arrivals, and all twenty-four cabins are filled with their requisite guests.
Drinks will be served shortly on the terrace deck.
In the master suite Oksana’s maid helps zip up Oksana’s dress before taking her laundry and exiting quietly.
Oksana sighs. She hates these dinners, but the guests traveled out to her so it seems the least she can do. A summit about pipelines. She cannot think of anything more boring, except perhaps the small talk she will need to involve herself in shortly. But she has people to assist with all of that, of course.
There are other things she would much rather be doing.
She perches on one of the suite’s chairs and pours herself a short, cool glass of champagne. She sips it, then flicks on the large flatscreen above the suite’s fireplace.
The interior of a slick, architectural house fills the screen, beyond the vast windows of the house the mountains of Japan are visible.
In the foreground of the scene on the screen a woman in her late twenties is reading a house manual intently, the sound of a door bleeping somewhere off-screen. The young woman stands, an alertness fizzling from her—she is beginning to panic.
Oksana pops a medjool date in her mouth and swigs another mouthful of champagne.
Oksana enjoyed attending dog races with her father as a child; he had taken her young. When she got older, he let her attend the dogfights with him too.
She was his only child and he wanted her to be as hard as any son. And she is. She is her father’s daughter.
She enjoyed those days with him, before he was killed.
But dogs only hold so much amusement. After a while you just feel sorry for them. Not people, though.
Oksana has liked some of the participants, but they almost always disappoint her.
If she had to analyze why she bought the house, why she repurposed it, then perhaps she might alight on a core psychological need to see another woman beat the odds in the same way she did—through sheer bloody-mindedness and the remembered lessons of youth. But Oksana has always considered analysis and therapy an idiot’s luxury, and she rarely indulges in that particular kind of narcissism.
She’d had such high hopes for Maria Yossarian, the survivor. But even Maria seemed to reach her limit eventually.
The young woman on the screen is now running with a raised metal chair at the huge glass doors with the serene mountain view. The chair makes contact, reverberating, causing no damage except to the woman herself. Oksana squints. This one will have to think more, panic less.
The young woman on the screen is an ex-Olympian who was kidnapped and held hostage for five months before escaping. But that was all two years back now. Oksana wonders if her pedigree will kick in soon. She hopes so.
Oksana was surprised by Nina’s success if she is honest. And Oksana very much likes surprises. They happen rarely.
Nina’s pedigree was excellent but she had no personal achievements of her own. And yet that didn’t hold her back—after all she has been the only winner so far.
