Page 25 of The Player
I half expected Bryony to start yelling again, but she didn’t. She sat stone still, staring at the meagre offering like it was a grenade with the pin pulled out about to detonate and blast us straight to hell.
I went to stand up, but she grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” she warned. “It might be poisoned.”
“And if we don’t eat or drink, we’ll die before we even get a chance to fight this motherfucker,” I stated, standing up anyway and letting her hand fall away from my arm.
I walked over to the bottles of water, bending down to pick them up.
“I’m serious, Will. He could’ve drugged those. He injected us to get us here, what’s to say he hasn’t stuck a needle through the plastic bottle and injected that too?”
I understood why she was cautious, but we had to weigh up the pros and cons here.
“He could have,” I replied. “But I highly doubt he did. Like you said, he went to all the trouble of kidnapping us, drugging us to bring us here, and all because he wants us to be his star players and play his fucked-up games. Why would he do all that just to kill us in the first few hours with poisoned water?”
“Because he’s a sick and twisted pervert?” she argued back. “Because he wants to get off on watching us die here in this room.”
“You could be right.” I shrugged. “But I’m going with my gut on this one.”
Her eyes went from pleading to piercing me with a don’t-you-dare stare.
“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” I said, and then, as I twisted the cap off the bottle, I told her, “I’ll take a sip. If I don’t die, you can drink the rest. Does that sound fair?”
“It sounds like fucking lunacy. I don’t want to drink anything he gives us.”
“So, you’re happy to go down the dehydration route instead, yeah? When he said himself, you need to keep your wits about you and be smart. Have you ever been dehydrated, Bee?” She just glared back at me.
“A person can go three days without water,” she told me confidently.
She had no idea what the reality of that would feel like.
“And in those days, you become tired and weak. You start to get really fucking confused, and then, you fucking die, Bee. Is that how you want to end this? The coward’s way?”
“It’s not being a coward, showing self-preservation.”
“Again, let’s talk about that snake we’re going to skin. Do you think you’re going to be the best you can be if you’re dehydrated? Will you be able to fight?” I shook my head. “You won’t even be able to fucking stand properly, are you—”
“For fuck’s sake, Will,” she snapped. “If you’re gonna do it, just fucking do it. Drink the bloody water. Leave me here to see this through on my own. I don’t care. Just stop talking and get it over with.”
I’d never leave her to fight this on her own, but I also stood by what I’d said. And so, I lifted the water bottle to my lips, took a gulp and then lowered the bottle and waited.
Seconds ticked by.
The silence was deafening.
And then.
“See? Nothing.” It took everything in me not to fake choke and fall on the floor. Everything. Because usually, that’s exactly what I’d have done. But even I knew not to push it in these circumstances. Who knew I could rein in the jokes when I needed to. Not me, that’s for sure. But here we were.
“Now, will you take the damn bottle and have a drink, for me?” I held it out to her, and she faltered slightly, then reluctantly, with a huge sigh, she took it. I gave her a smile to say thank you and opened the other bottle to drink.
Once I’d almost downed the whole thing, I put it on the floor and reached for the sandwiches, plain cheese on white bread. I took a bite, passing the bitten half of the sandwich to Bryony so she might eat it with the guarantee that it wasn’t tampered with. She took that too, taking the smallest bite then grimacing.
We sat together on the old mattress, me devouring the other sandwich while she nibbled on her half like a mouse.
“I knew we’d make a good team.” I sighed as I chewed my mouthful.
“Didn’t really have much choice, did we?” she replied, giving me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
