“No, no, please!” Jamie’s screams startled me awake. “I didn’t do anything!” She cried.

I slipped from the concrete slab and placed my face against the hole. Two men were in her cell dragging her toward the door where Clover stood, revolver in hand. My breath caught in my throat as I clamped a hand over my mouth, knowing they couldn’t see me in the dark, but not wanting them to hear that I was awake either.

Clover knelt down in front of Jamie so they were eye level, “It’s inevitable, my dear.” He smoothed his free hand across her cheek. “You either play the game or I’ll do it for you.”

Jamie cried harder than I’d ever heard anyone cry before as she rapidly shook her head back and forth, refusing to play Clover’s sick and twisted game of roulette. I wanted so badly to yell at her to play the damn game, that if she made it through the round they’d treat her better than if he had to pull the trigger himself. I’d seen it before with the two people he'd had when I first awoke.

“Well, looks like I get to play juror today, then.” Clover stood and pressed the revolver harshly against Jamie’s forehead. I couldn’t take my eyes away as he wrapped his finger around the trigger. “Anything you’d like to say before we see how fate plays out?”

“Go to hell, you sick bastard,” she spat, and the gun went off.

I screamed as her body collapsed to the floor and blood pooled around her head. Jamie was dead, and Clover was staring directly at the hole where my eyes peered through. My heart was in my throat as I quickly backed away and pulled my legs to my chest.

“Well, what do we have here?” His fingers curled into my cell from Jamie’s side of the hole.

Lights illuminated from above and my body quivered from fear pulsing through my veins. There was no telling what had set Clover off this time; Jamie had been better to him than I had. So why did he kill her?

My cell door swung open and Clover stepped in. Cocking his head to the side he eyed me from the doorway. Tears streamed relentlessly down my face.

“She was your friend?” The word friend sounded foreign coming from someone like him.

I nodded, tucking my chin into my knees as my tears continued.

“That’s okay, sweet girl, I have you a new friend coming.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and sent up a silent prayer that he was wrong, that whoever his henchman had tried to kidnap got away. But the sound of multiple footsteps echoing as they slapped against the concrete floor was indicator enough that I was about to meet my new neighbor.

“Go on, take a gander,” Clover nodded toward the hole in the wall.

Without hesitation I did as he asked, I lifted from the slab and knelt down so I could see through the hole. I watched as two men carried a woman into the cell and laid her on the concrete slab much similar to my own. Something about her seemed familiar. But I couldn’t focus on that. No, I was too busy focusing on the fact that they hadn’t moved Jamie’s body, just stepped over her as if she was nothing.

“What are you going to do with her?” My eyes connected with Clover’s.

“She’ll stay here like you do.”

“Not the new girl, Jamie. What are you going to do with her body?”

He rubbed his chin and looked toward the ceiling for a brief moment before his eyes landed back on me. “I suppose we'll get rid of it, much like the others.”

“You’re the reason all of those bodies have been turning up throughout the city, aren’t you? The murderer the news has been talking about.”

“Well,” Clover narrowed his eyes and rolled his hand around in the air as if he didn’t know how to explain himself, “I suppose so. But I don’t like the term murderer very much. I prefer to think that fate does the work. I simply have a deed that’s been placed in my hands to act out. The rest is up to whether someone is meant to live or die. It’s as simple as that.”

Sadly, I knew he wasn’t kidding. Clover was a sick individual, and if he was placed on the stand before jurors he would likely get off with a plea of insanity. Although, I wasn’t sure he would go that route. He was convinced that everything he was doing was okay. That there was a higher meaning for it all and fate was the reason those people had died. He would be the type of person who would want the world to know that he had a hand in it all, so I doubt he would take an insanity plea. The only way that ruling would come down is if the judge handed it out on their own.

“Try psychopath!” My neighbor cried.

I cringed, knowing Clover wasn’t going to take her words lightly. His head whipped in the direction of her cell and he held his index finger up signaling he’d be back in one moment. As badly as I wanted to keep from looking through the hole, I couldn’t help myself. Clover stormed into her cell, snatched her chin in his hand so roughly she almost fell over as she yelped in pain or surprise. Probably both.

“I’ll give you this one since you aren’t familiar with how things work around here. You keep your worthless comments to yourself; actually…you keep your mouth shut the majority of the time. Unless you’re spoken to by me, don’t speak at me. Do you hear me?” His grip tightened as his knuckles turned white. “Do. You. Hear. Me?” His voice grew louder with each word.

“Yes,” her response was barely loud enough for me to hear.

“Good.” He shoved her face back, sending her tumbling into the wall behind where she was seated. Her head slapped the concrete hard enough to make a sound.

She winced and rubbed the back of her skull. I knew just how badly that had to hurt. I couldn’t offer her my sympathy until Clover was out of the room. I leaned back against the slab as he stepped into the doorway of my cell. Then it hit me, he’d left the door completely opened when he’d when back to her and I hadn’t even noticed. I was too caught up in watching what he was doing. It might not have been the best chance to escape, but it was a chance that I’d missed. As weak as I was, I knew if I had realized what he’d done and tried to leave, either he or one of his men would’ve gotten to me before I had a true chance of getting away. But the realization of how much I was tied to Clover’s actions against other people hit me hard. I was too worried about trying to ensure the people around me survived that I’d missed a small chance of survival on my own.

That pill was a hard one to swallow.

“I have business to attend to, but I’ll see you again soon.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead before leaving me in a locked cell once again.

My hands were trembling. I rubbed them together to try and get my nerves to calm. The girl in the cell beside me sobbed uncontrollably. I remembered the many times I’d had breakdowns much like the one she was having. It was a part of the process, learning that your reality was being held captive, being abused, and inevitably losing your life when it was all said and done.

“It’ll get better.” The words I offered sounded horrible speaking them out loud. Telling someone that being held captive by a psychopath would get better was like telling someone that losing a leg was for the best. “I mean, with time it won’t hurt as much. It’s like your brain shuts off certain parts of you, and you become numb.”

“That sounds lovely,” she spoke through her tears, but her sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed.

“You know, I was the same way you are right now when I first woke up. Bitter, angry, wondering just what in the hell had I allowed to happen to me. But lashing out at these men…especially Clover and Joel, it’s not good. They get off on hurting others, just please heed my warning. I don’t want you to end up like Jamie and all the others.”

“She was your friend?”

“I didn’t know her before they brought her here.”

“How long have you been here?”

“It seems like a lifetime, but honestly I don’t know.”

“Why did they shoot her?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Probably to make room for me, I’m the reason they shot her.” She began to cry again.

“You can’t look at it like that or it’ll eat you alive. You had no say so in this happening to you, just like I didn’t, and just like Jamie didn’t. These men…they’re evil, evil men, and they’ll do what they feel like doing whenever they please.”

“I’m beginning to realize that.”

We sat there in the dark shadows for who knew how long while awaiting the sun to come up. I hadn’t gotten a good look at her through the hole. A hole I was surprised Clover didn’t have filled once he realized it was there. But just because he hadn’t, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t have it filled in the future.

As the sun peeked into the window at the top of the wall in her cell, I was able to see her a bit more clearly. “I’m Blair, by the way.”

“Blair?”

The way she said my name was as if she’d heard it before, or possibly knew me.

“Yeah?”

“I knew a girl named Blair a long time ago. She was nice, like you seem to be.”

The hopes of her knowing me deflated with that statement.

“Thanks.”

“I’m Maggie.”

“I wished we’d met under different circumstances, Maggie.”

“Me too.”

She turned toward the hole and I really got a look at her. The reason she seemed so familiar to me before was because we looked so much alike, the shape of our face, our natural wavy dark hair, the build of our bodies, and even the curve of our waist and hips. We could definitely pass as sisters, possibly fraternal twins even.

Like a ton of bricks my stomach dropped. Clover had picked another woman who would remind him of Juliana. Which meant if I didn’t play my cards right, he’d have me killed, or do it himself. The water had officially gotten deeper around me, and I was afraid to drown.