Chapter 67

A lone light, in a back office, on the second floor.

Huge windows, bathed in the black of a British Columbian night.

Kade Williams sat, butt glued to his chair. The best ergonomic chair money could buy. The new Keurig, with clean, piped-in water, with the coffee pods. The new laptops, the crazy big monitors. All around him. The very best.

The phone rang again. He didn’t move his head, just flicked a glance at it.

No.

Not tonight.

Not when he had a lodge full of people, damn it. Not just the wealthy, or those with easily disposable income they could call upon.

But kids, for hell’s sake. He hadn’t wanted them here. Anywhere else but here.

Sick kids. Even worse…

And seniors. Oh, god, the seniors.

It didn’t listen, kept ringing. Ringing. Ringing. He wanted to take the damn thing, heave it out into the storms that were threatening to engulf everything that had the tiniest filament of life growing in it. Anything reaching out, expanding. Getting strong on its own accord. Not allowed, by the conflagration.

Like the storms in his own life.

But one always had a choice, right?

He exhaled a burst of air sharply.

One did not always have a choice.

As anticipated, the text came in next. He read it perfunctorily, though he already knew the gist. It wasn’t the first call he’d deliberately ignored. There was always a cost.

But only to him, at this point. After the first, horrific time? Only to him.

The message was to the point: No more games. Or else…you know.

And then, because he knew it would haunt him if he didn’t, he played the video clip attached to the text.

The tune from his childhood, that he’d loved, once upon a time. The circus theme song from the time they’d gone to the bigtop, and his dreams, he’d thought, were actually going to start coming true, right in front of his eyes.

Excitement, joy. The world open before him. All of it.

Until they dissolved into the morass that was worse than his nightmares.

Much worse.

He clicked the arrow, heard the familiar tune they always attached, as it played clearly. Entry of the Gladiators.

And as always, it gave him the message they wanted him to get.

Pretty things can turn bad. Quickly. Dreams can go dark. Sinister. All a prelude to what will happen if you …don’t. If you simply disobey…just once more.

And because he didn’t want to invoke the main act, ever again, he waited for the email, clicked on it.

And started the ordered tasks, the donut beside him tasting like sandpaper.