Games We Play

Prologue

“Do you know why you’re here?” sounded the mechanically distorted voice from behind her somewhere close.

“No!” Nancy Carrera squealed with her jumped.  Her heart hammered in her throat.

All had been quiet save her hitched breathing.  A little dazed, the ex-principal of a prestigious prep school established by her old, wealthy Virginia family, and former U.S. senator's wife, found her awareness of her surroundings confused.  Nancy last recalled being snatched from her bed in the dead of night. 

Disoriented after the bag was untied and lifted from her sweaty head, she stared through her thin hair she let go white.  Squinting about her with wariness, the light over Nancy obscured anything at a distance.  Darkness spread beyond the sparse light above her in the shape of a cone.  No one stood near that she could identify anyway.

The attempt at moving her wrists and ankles met with futility.  Duct tape bound them together to the cold metal chair where Nancy sat.  Gazing down at herself, she still wore her silk nightgown from her usual bedtime attire when not springing her cougar off the cream stick of her favorite boy toy.  The cool draft encouraged gooseflesh along Nancy’s bare arms and hardened her nipples. 

Each breath she took offered the unpleasant scent of rotting garbage.  Her only relief arrived in the knowledge that the twins resided with their disappointment of a father this weekend.  They were safe she hoped in the care of her ex-husband.

When nothing more was said to her, Nancy posed with some measure of bravado, “Is this how you get your jollies?  Harassing women in the middle of the night?  Is this another threat to show me how all-powerful you are, you pathetic dullard? Haven’t I upheld my end of the fuckin’ bargain?!” Nancy’s voice echoed when she spoke, making her think that she sat in a warehouse maybe. 

“Bargain?” the soulless voice questioned without inflection.

Nancy shouted in anger so tired of being bullied repeatedly by the man whoever he was, “I agreed to let Harrington go, didn’t I?  Why won’t you leave me alone?!”

“Maven—you hired him.  For what purpose?”

She scowled as she struggled against her bonds. “You know I hired him to kill the bitch who ruined my chances for the White House.”

“And ruined your marriage, of course?” the robot voice pressed. Nancy could not detect the gender behind it because it was digitally altered.  No one stood near her.  She was unsure just where whoever spoke originated from but knew she was not alone.

“You know all this!” Nancy sputtered in fury with all the games.  Her mouth twisted in sourness, and irritation settled into her bones, overriding her fear.

“Harrington screwed your husband, and so you wanted revenge?”

Nancy nodded in her exasperation. “Yes!  That bitch needed to die for interfering with what’s mine.  I warned her!”

“Why the need to hire Maven for such a simple job you could have very well done yourself?”

Nancy snorted with bitterness. “Yet as simple as it was, Maven failed me.”

“Did he?” the mechanical voice echoed.  A shape dressed in black appeared from the shadows before her, which made her gasp involuntarily.

“You know all this!” she repeated, almost whining this time. 

“Nancy, I think you have me confused with someone else.”

Her mouth dropped open with the form of a man drawing closer.  He wore black military camo.  Even his face was obscured by a facemask painted white like a creepy skull.  The wrap-around sunglasses shielded his eyes.  Gloves covered his hands balled in fists at his side.

“You’re not the one who’s been tormenting me?  Warning me against retaliation, are you?”

The man before her shook his head. “I seek Maven.”

Nancy’s mouth twisted in a sneer. “So do I to get my money back since I have no satisfaction.  I know he’s dead. I’ll never collect it now.”

A hand reached out to her shoulder and gripped a spot that brought tremendous pain. She clamped her mouth shut as she gritted her teeth and groaned. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”

“How do you know he’s dead?” the aggressive man asked as he dug his stiff fingers harder into her shoulder that felt bruised as it already ached a little.  Nancy winced at his grip and cried out when he refused to relent.  Her bindings to the chair prevented her from evading him.

Nancy wasted little time answering in the pain that shot up her neck. “The other told me so and said he would ruin me if I pursued my revenge!”

“What other?” he probed with the cold machine’s voice and slapped her when she took too long to answer him. “What other?” he repeated.

“I don’t know!”

The fingers dug and shook her. “What did you observe?”

“Ahhh!” Nancy gritted her teeth through the pain before she stuttered, “H-he knew every-d-damn-t-thing!  He t-t-told me he’d been wuh-watching me.  I-I had no choice but t-t-to let it go, or h-he’d ruin me.”

The man in black released his grip on her shoulder and looked around them. “He still watches you?”

Nancy sighed in relief from the pressure he’d been applying. “All t-the time.”

“Hmmm.  How does he contact you?”

The man in black smacked her mouth which stung as she tasted the blood slipping through her split lip.  When he sought to grab Nancy again by the same shoulder, at her failure to respond, she flinched and spurt, “N-notes at the school where I used t-t-to work or social gatherings sponsored by m-m-my family, or at my home.  Sometimes by m-my goddamn cellphone.”

“Interesting.” He tilted his head as if he were curious. “Explain why you needed Maven.”

Nancy sighed again, realizing that maybe this new guy wasn’t the one who threatened her, after all.  She found him to be a lot scarier because of his willingness to hurt her without a passing thought to find out what he wanted.  The other evil man never touched her, but he didn’t need to with the things he claimed to know.  If the bastard leaked any of her secrets to the press, her creditability and stature in the political arena would be destroyed since she intended to run for Congress next term.  Her prestigious family would never survive the disgrace. 

Nancy shrugged but grunted when a fist struck her stomach.  She bowed a bit, and then a fist of her hair was grabbed so that she could stare at the skull mask. Tears flowed down her trembling lips that already started to swell. 

“You might think about your children growing up without a mother if you don’t stop jerking my chain.”

Nancy relieved her bladder all over herself when she saw nothing reflected at her but her nose running with snot and tears rolling from her red eyes in fright. “I-I knew my imbecile ex-husband cheated.  Hell, all m-m-men do, but Harrington was not like the other muh-mistresses.”

“In what way?”

“Sex wasn’t enough.  My ex had t-to go and fall in love with her.  Stupid.  He threatened to leave me for that slut!  Filed for divorce and everything,” she growled with disgust as her anger over the facts overrode her fear of her predicament.

“And you couldn’t take that lying down, huh?”

Nancy glared up at the man in black who paced in front of her for a second. “John held a good senate seat and was well-liked in the Republican Party.  A lot of buzzing surfaced that he stood a real chance for getting me in the White House.”

The man in black paused and turned toward her. “Presidential aspirations, huh, Mrs. Carrera?  Not so much your ex?”

She clenched her jaw. “If I got rid of the whore, I believed that nitwit would come back to me.”

“Didn’t work out according to plan, huh?”

Nancy balled her hands into fists. “We could’ve pursued the presidency.  Such a damn waste.  Harrington was difficult to find once catching wind of the hit I put out on her meddling ass.  She fled the D.C. area, and my leads went cold.”

“To where?” 

Nancy lifted her shoulders. “I hired Maven to find out and kill her.” She snorted with the dismissive roll of her eyes in disappointment. “He was the best supposedly.”

“Was?”

Nancy ignored the question as she rambled on in her rage, “The bitch still lives!  My ex-husband confirmed it to me, and I’ve lost my children as a result of my involvement with Maven, who is nowhere to be found.”

“So the ex-senator is with Harrington after all?”

Nancy shook her head with her downturned mouth. “No. He’s still in town, but not her.”

“Pity.  All that effort for nothing.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and swallowed down her bitterness the best she could. “Yeah, I know.  Thanks for stating the obvious, asshole!”

“But you knew she was not in town?  How?” the man in black asked as he walked around her.  Nancy did not hear him but felt his movement.  She turned her head to watch him.

“Maven finally captured her last September.” Nancy licked her split lips and winced. “Seeing Harrington torture her for my amusement gave me great pleasure.  Taught that slut a good lesson, too, so she could feel my humiliation before Maven killed her for what she did.”

“You watched him in person torture Harrington?”

Her red eyes swelled open as she affirmed, “Over the streaming video, he posted on the internet for my convenience until the website went dark.”

“And you received the visit from the mystery man threatening you to stop pursuing Harrington after the site went dark?”

A moment passed as Nancy considered the question before nodding. “Right or I’d suffer worse than Harrington and Maven combined.”

“You believed him?”

She scoffed with the roll of her eyes, “I had no reason not to.  The assassin I hired disappeared before receiving final payment.  What would you think?”

“How did you contact Maven, by the way?”

“At the number he gave me, which is disconnected now.”

“So you took the word of this strange man you didn’t know because you were afraid?”

She lifted her chin in defense and sniffled. “You bet I did.  Besides, he knew everything about me.  Every secret.  Every lie.”

“Did he?”

“Look.  I saw how Maven tormented Harrington on that metal table.  He cut and beat her as I wanted.  Maven truly made that bitch suffer but enjoyed the work.  You could tell.  The man blackmailing and threatening me said that the same would happen to me if I didn’t leave the slut alone.  The last thing I wanted was to suffer any of that myself.  Of course, I stopped my pursuit of Harrington!  Besides, the bitch no longer held any interest in my husband.  I still got what I wanted.”

“You did?”

“His unhappiness.”

A mechanical chuckle sounded cold and sent a new chill through Nancy.

“Was it worth it?” he inquired in that strange robot monotone.

“What do you want from me?! What?!” Nancy whined in exasperation with the clench of her jaw.  She was wet and could smell the piss that ran down her leg and dripped on the floor.  Frazzled emotions ramped through speeds Nancy never endured before in their various trips.  Her body ached in being forced to sit in the most uncomfortable chair, along with being smacked around.

The mechanical voice echoed around her, “Only the truth, Nancy.”

“I’ve told you all I know, dammit!”

The person in black drew closer in silence, and in her ear, he stated, “Better be because then you won’t have to worry about that other man. No, Nancy. You’ll only answer to me with your screams after I fillet the skin of your children in front of you before I do the same to you.” 

A cloth shoved over her nose and mouth as her eyes went wide at the threat.  Nancy violently struggled for her life against the duct tape.  She squirmed and kicked weakly at the man in black.  He was firm in his dominance over her.  The cloth did not budge from her face. 

Instead, Nancy had no choice but to breathe.  She did so in desperate little pants with the erratic beat of her heart.  The more she inhaled, the more lethargic Nancy felt until she could no longer keep her eyes open.  Her struggle died shortly thereafter, and her eyes closed no matter how much her mind sought to protest.  Nancy's head fell slack to the side like the rest of her body where she sat.  The cone of light faded, and only darkness awaited.

© Copyright 2021 Amy F. Turner. All rights reserved.