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“Do you want some more water?”

AJ shook his head. The dull ache in the centre of his skull was finally starting to fade. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had felt this bad. He also couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted a drink this badly. The cravings were hurting him more than the pain in his head. All he wanted to do was curl up with a bottle of liquor and drink away his misery.

“You should have more water.” Brian kept talking as he stood up and moved towards the tiny sink to fill up AJ’s empty water bottle. “It will make you feel better.”

AJ rubbed at his heavy eyes and resisted the urge to groan. He knew that Brian was only trying to help; that he was trying to apologize for attacking Howie by being extra attentive.

“Stop moving! How do you expect me to get it in your mouth if you keep turning your head?”

This time, AJ fought back the desire to laugh as he redirected his attention to Nick and Kevin. The two of them were sitting on the floor; Kevin was leaning against the wall and Nick was sitting cross-legged in front of him. Every few seconds, Nick would rip off another bite-sized piece of Kevin’s sandwich and pop it into the older man’s mouth. Unfortunately for Kevin, Nick’s aim appeared to be a bit off.

“You should just be happy that I’m doing this for you.” Nick retorted in response to Kevin’s angry growl. “Hell, you should just be happy about the fact that they decided to feed us at all.”

“I hope yours was poisoned.” Kevin grumbled as Nick mashed yet another piece of the ham and cheese sandwich into his nose. “Seriously? How hard is it to get in my mouth?”

“That’s what she said!” AJ let loose a long cackle at his own joke. He immediately regretted his decision and grabbed at his forehead as his own laughter aggravated his headache. “Worth it.” He announced as Brian returned from the sink and handed him the re-filled bottle of water.

“Do you think they did poison the food?” Nick ignored AJ’s crude remark and widened his eyes at Kevin. “Why wouldn’t you say something before we all ate it?”

“It’s not poisoned!” Howie rolled his eyes at Nick. “They want to keep us alive for their stupid games, remember? Do you really think they would have gone through all of this trouble if all they wanted to do was kill us with some tainted lunch meat?”

AJ followed Howie’s lead and rolled his eyes at Brian as the older man sat down beside him. He jerked his head in Nick’s direction. “Are you really sure that you want to be friends with that again?”

Brian grinned. “His paranoia is endearing.”

“I can hear you!” Nick shot back. He crammed the final piece of sandwich into Kevin’s mouth and leaned back to glare at Brian and AJ. “I’m not paranoid. I’m realistic.”

“Sure, Nicky.” AJ rolled his eyes for a second time. He took a sip of water and swallowed hard. God, he wished that he was drinking something much stronger. Maybe if he pretended that he was drinking a beer ...

“You feeling less fuzzy yet?” Brian dropped his voice so that his conversation with AJ could be more personal. “Still feeling dizzy?”

“I feel more focused.” AJ shrugged.

“Did – do you think that the vodka messed you up?” Brian lowered his eyes to his hands as he spoke. The thought of AJ relapsing after he had been sober for so long was hard to digest.

AJ hesitated. He didn’t want to tell Brian the truth. His friend already looked so wounded, and he didn’t want to hurt him any more than he already had with his earlier bout of verbal diarrhea. Still, he felt somewhat obligated to share his true feelings after reaming out the others for not being man enough to air their grievances.

“I want a drink so bad, Bri.” AJ sighed. “I can’t – I don’t remember ever wanting one this badly. Maybe whatever drug they gave me is making the cravings worse ...”

Brian licked his lips. That was the answer that he had been afraid of. “You’ll be able to fight it.”

“Ya think?” AJ chugged some more water. His brain still felt a bit fuzzy, but the effects of whatever drug he had ingested were definitely starting to wear off. He really wished he knew what he had been given. Whatever it was, the dosage was still lingering almost forty-eight hours later. “I’m gonna have to pee again.”

“It’s Kevin’s turn to shield you.” Brian chuckled. “Try not to splash him this time.”

“We really should have started this whole blocking the camera rotation before I flashed my goods all over the Internet.” Nick grumbled. “I don’t even want to know how many people captured a screen-shot of me taking a piss.”

Kevin let out an undignified snort. “You should have thought ahead.”

“Since when do I ever think ahead?” Nick raised his eyebrows. “Ya’ll should have warned me.”

“I thought you guys didn’t need me to solve your problems.” Kevin’s voice lost its jovial tone. He looked pointedly at AJ. “I thought that my lectures made you all want to pry your eyeballs out.”

“They do.” AJ deadpanned. “But that doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate them to some extent.” He let out a long breath before continuing. “Listen fellas, I meant every single word that I said before. We all do shit that piss each other off, but none of us can change who we are. The only thing that we can change is the way that we deal with each other.”

“What the hell did they put in that vodka? A truth serum?” Howie quipped. “What’s with all the deep, meaningful thoughts, J?”

“I dunno. Maybe I’m just trying to convince the voters that I’m not a liar so that I don’t have to play another one of these assholes’ stupid games.” AJ wiggled his eyebrows at Howie who was sitting on the ground next to Kevin. “My liver can only take so much.”

This time it was Brian who snorted. “Pretty sure I’ve won this one.” He held up the iPad for emphasis. “Two minutes to go and I’m well in the lead.”

“How many people have voted?” Nick stood up from the floor and bent his back into a deep stretch. “Would it kill these guys to give us a couple of pillows?”

“There have been over twenty-five thousand votes!” Brian’s eyes widened as he answered Nick’s question. “They even upped the price to two dollars per vote. You would think that all of these people would have better things to do with their money.”

“These jerkoffs just made fifty thousand dollars by exploiting our misery?!” Howie pressed his eyes shut. “The whole world is going to hell.”

“Now, now, Howie, that’s a very pessimistic comment.” The mechanical voice crackled to life. “The whole world isn’t going to hell ... just the people who voted.”

“And you.” Howie opened his eyes and focused his steely gaze on the camera. “You’re going to hell too.”

“You’ve already told us that, Howie.” The voice chided. “You really need to come up with some new material.”

“New material, huh? Like what? Your names?” Howie sneered. “I could let the whole world know who you guys are!”

The voice laughed. “Go ahead, Howie. Tell the world who we are.”

Howie bit at his tongue in frustration. Of course, he couldn’t actually remember the names of the two men. He had just been trying to get under their skin.

“What’s the matter, Howie? Cat got your tongue?” The voice continued to laugh.

“Assholes.” Howie folded his arms across his chest and sank back against the wall. He felt like an idiot.

“Now that Howie is done with his little tantrum, we can all get back to business.” The mechanical voice turned serious. “It’s time for the next game to commence, and it seems as though Brian is the winner. How do you feel about that, Brian?”

“Just peachy.” Brian’s sarcasm was approaching a whole new level. “Ya’ll gonna drug me too?”

“You’ll just have to wait and seeeee.” The voice drawled. “Wait for us by the door. We’re coming to get you.”

“Don’t go!” Nick grabbed a hold of Brian’s arm as soon as the static cleared from the speakers; the tell-tale sign that the man behind the voice had left. “Don’t just wait by the door and let them take you away.”

“It ain’t gonna be that bad.” Brian looked up into Nick’s determined, yet worried, face and tried to force some confidence into his own voice. “They’re probably just gonna hook me up to a lie detector and ask me some stupid questions.”

Nick ran his tongue across his lips and gripped Brian’s arm a little bit tighter. “We can’t just keep letting them control the situation. There’s five of us and only two of them. We know that they’re going to come in here with guns, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t overpower them. Kevin’s pretty much useless because of those stupid handcuffs, but the four of us can still rush them and take them down.”

“Nick’s right.” AJ stood up. He still felt a bit wobbly on his feet, but he was game for attempting an escape. “We can tackle them as soon as they open the door.”

Nick nodded eagerly at AJ. “Howie and I will go for the bigger one, and you and Brian can focus on the other guy.”

“I dunno ...” Brian was still staring up into Nick’s face. His heart was beating a mile a minute. He knew that Nick was right; he knew that they needed to at least try to break free, but he was still petrified of making their already bad situation even worse.

“Let’s do it!” Kevin slid himself up the wall and got to his feet. “I’ll wait by the door. Seeing me standing there instead of Brian should confuse them just long enough for you guys to make your move.”

“This is a gamble.” Howie clenched his teeth as he watched Kevin take up his position next to the door. “It could be a big mistake ...”

As soon as the words were out of Howie’s mouth, the massive lock clunked over in the door. The handle creaked under the pressure of someone’s hand. It was now or never.

“Please, Bri.” Nick dug his fingers into Brian’s arm and glanced anxiously at the door. “Let’s just try.”

“Fine.” Brian relented. He shrugged out of Nick’s grip and the two of them moved forward to join AJ and Howie who were both waiting with bated breath for the door to open.

“Ready?” Nick whispered as the door inched open. He waited until the bigger of the two men had put one foot inside of the room before giving his final instruction.“Go!”

As soon as the man’s eyes narrowed in confusion at the sight of Kevin standing by the door, Nick ploughed forward; catching the beefy man around the waist in a football-style tackle. The man grunted in surprise and stumbled backwards, but, much to Nick’s dismay, he remained on his feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick could see AJ and Brian rushing at the other man. He could see Howie reaching for the bigger man’s neck, and then he was all of a sudden flat on his back.

“Stupid!” The bigger man screamed as he slammed Nick into the cement floor with one smooth twist of his body. “Did you really think that you would be able to fight me?!”

The man placed the bottom of his boot against Nick’s side and kicked him roughly out of the way. He then kicked at Howie who was already on the floor; crab-walking as fast as he could to get out of the way. Raising his gun in one hand, the large man used his other hand to yank AJ backwards by his shoulder; sending him tumbling to the floor next to Howie.

A single bullet dislodged from the chamber and Nick felt his blood run cold as he listened to the cry of pain that reverberated through the room only seconds later. He drew his hands up to cover his head as he rolled along the floor, but he knew that the action was pointless; the man had already hit his target.

“Take him!” The man yelled the instruction to his partner. “Leave the rest of them to deal with the consequences of their mistake.”