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After Carrick and Terrence have left, Vaughn remains. He watches us from the doorway, his expression giving nothing away. “I would suggest your appearance at the gala be a grand one,” is all he says before turning on his heel to leave.
Laurence and I finally stand alone. I’m sure there are cameras on us, that everything we say will be recorded, so it’s best if we don’t have any conversations here. In fact, it makes me think that nowhere might be safe. Why would our room be safe after all this suspicion? Was it ever in the first place?
A rueful look on his face, Laurence drops down to his knees to peel off the pads still attached to me. The sound of the adhesive being peeled from my skin is the only thing breaking the silence. I want to ask Laurence what he thinks Vaughn meant by saying our entrance at the gala should be a grand one. I want to ask him what we should do next.
“Laurence,” I whisper.
He looks up at me and shakes his head, his lips a straight line.
When he rises to his feet, he holds out a hand to me. “I’m sure you’re hungry. Let’s go get breakfast.”
Taking his hand, finding comfort in the warm strength of it, he leads me out of the room.
***
“They want you to win.”
“Why?” I ask, gripping the coffee mug tight in my hands as our finished breakfast sits between us. I’ve only just begun my questioning of the morning’s events with the game, asking Laurence what Vaughn meant by his words, but as it turns out, I’m only more confused. “Why would they want me to win? Won’t that give me more power?”
“No. Less, probably.” Laurence sounds unsure. He tosses his napkin onto his plate. “They’ll want you to win because it’ll put you in a place of privilege. They expect you to take their offer as hush money.”
A moment of silence passed between us as I contemplated his words. It wasn’t long before I slipped into a fit of laughter. “They expect me to fall for that?”
I may be entertained, but Laurence is not. “It’s worked before.”
There was something I was missing in his words. It wasn’t until I really took in his pointed look that I realized what he wasinsinuating. Leaning forward in my seat, I asked, “So there have been other Players trying to do what I’m doing?”
“Of course. The games have been going on for fifty years. Within that time, other Players were bound to make the discoveries you did.”
“So what happened to them?”
Laurence seemed hesitant to answer.
“What happened to them Laurence?”
But somehow, I knew. There was a part of me that suspected what happened to the other Players who rebelled against the games. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
“They were offered marriage. Annulment of all debts. Their families taken care of if they kept silent. NDAs were signed along with the marriage certificate, silencing them forever unless they wanted to be sued for an exorbitant amount of money.”
I fell back in my seat, hopelessness weighing me down along with visceral, dawning horror. “Are they going to try and do that to me?”
“Possibly.” Laurence’s face was grim. He rested his forearms on the table, gaze on the empty plates between us. “If they do, your options will be that, or being stuck like the rest of the Players in the processing center. Obviously, for the others who discovered their corruption, the lifetime of being financially secure in exchange for their silence was far more enticing.”
Shaking my head, I say, “I can’t believe that.” Laurence gave no response. “Are they any of the women I’ve seen?”
Laurence’s gaze flicks to me. “You might not have seen her, but she’sthewife. Terrence’s wife.”
“Terrence’s wife was a Player?” I ask, horrified. “What a sick bastard…”
Laurence shrugged. “From what I understand, he treats her well.”
“Yeah, for hisslave.”
“She’s been at his side for thirty years.”
“That’sinsane.”
“It’s not the craziest back-up plan for us to have, Eve.” Laurence says my name like a warning. A reminder that it could so easily be taken from me forever, replaced with a number.
