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Howie balanced himself precariously on the metal edge of the cot; his fingers splayed against the cinderblock wall. Why did he have to be so damn short? If he were just a few inches taller, he would be able to tell for sure if the small black object mounted on the ceiling was a camera. He flattened himself against the wall and craned his neck upwards as far as his muscles would allow. The circular object was the only thing that seemed out of place in the grey, sterile room. Hell, it was the only other thing in the room aside from the cots, a small sink, and a stainless steel prison-issued toilet. Even still, it had taken him over five hours to notice it. If the object was, indeed, a camera, someone had gone out of their way to make it look as inconspicuous as possible.

“It’s a camera, Howie.”

The voice caught Howie off guard, causing him to lose his balance. His shoes slipped on the thin metal frame of the cot and he pitched forward into the wall. Despite the ungraceful movement, Howie somehow managed to land on his feet; a good thing, considering his knees couldn’t afford to take another hit, even from a short distance.

“It took you a while to notice it.” The voice continued. “I’m surprised. I thought that you were more observant.”

Howie stayed silent; raising his eyes to the black disc. The voice was clear but distorted; purposefully disguised to be indistinguishable in terms of gender or age. Howie struggled to keep his expression neutral. Now that he knew for sure that he was being watched, he didn’t want to let his captors know just how scared he actually was. The camera had obviously been installed for a purpose, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to find out the reason.

“The camera acts as a two-way speaker. Kinda like a baby monitor.” The voice chuckled. “I bet you know all about baby monitors, don’t ya, Howie? You must have used them with James and Holden when they were little.”

Howie swallowed hard. He could feel his forced neutral expression falter at the mention of his sons’ names, and he quickly broke his self-imposed silence. “How do you know about my kids?”

The voice let out a long, tinny laugh. “I know a lot more about you than you think, Howie. Have you forgotten that you’re a celebrity? Have you forgotten that Google never forgets anything?”

Right. Howie could have kicked himself for being so stupid. The creepy voice made a good point; practically every single detail of his life was available to anyone who had the time and the desire to look hard enough.

“But don’t worry. This has nothing to do with your boys. Your family is safe and they’ll stay safe ...” The voice paused. “... as long as you and your friends continue to cooperate.”

“In fact ...” The voice ploughed ahead before Howie could open his mouth to interject. “I’m pretty sure that two of your buddies are here to join you right now.”

The words were still reverberating off of the walls as the door opened. Howie was so stunned that he didn’t even think to try to escape. Hell, he didn’t even think to take a single step forward. He just stood there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot as Kevin and Nick tripped into the room. The two of them still had pillowcases over their heads and their hands were still firmly cuffed behind their backs, so they inevitably knocked against one another as they each struggled to keep their balance.

The door slammed shut as soon as Nick and Kevin had both cleared the doorway, and it took Howie a good thirty more seconds to convince his feet that they needed to move. He heard the industrial lock on the door slide into place with a heavy clunk as he reached up and tugged the pillowcase off of Kevin’s head before doing the same for Nick.

“Howie?!” Nick gasped for air as the fabric was pulled away from his face. He had never been so relieved yet so terrified at the same time. “You’re okay!”

“I knew it!” Kevin delivered his own exclamation in-between his gulps for air. “I knew that they had taken you too!”

Howie flipped his eyes back and forth between Nick and Kevin. They both looked rattled; their faces were flushed and puffy and their eyes were red-rimmed from fear and a lack of oxygen.

Howie didn’t know what to say or what to do. Part of him was happy that he was no longer alone, while the other part of him was feeling guilty that his abduction had clearly been the start of this whole ordeal.

“How long have you been here?” What’s happening? Have they hurt you? Who are these people? What do they want?” Kevin let loose a string of questions as he darted his eyes around the room. He didn’t like what he saw. He especially didn’t like the sight of the five cots.

“A few hours. I don’t know. Not really. I have no idea. They haven’t said.” Howie answered Kevin’s questions with practically no emotion. He didn’t know much more than Kevin did at this point.

“How come they took your handcuffs off?” Nick interrupted the terse exchange between Kevin and Howie. He stared longingly at Howie’s unbound wrists. “These things hurt.”

Kevin snorted. “You act like this is the first time you’ve been in handcuffs.”

“Kevin!” Howie admonished the older man as he saw a wounded expression overtake Nick’s face. “Really, Kev?! Do you really think that now is a good time to say shit like that?”

“Sorry.” Kevin directed his apology at Nick. He actually did feel bad for being so insensitive. “I’m just ...”

“Whatever, Kev. It’s cool.” Nick shrugged. He walked away from the two older men and sank down onto one of the cots. He glanced briefly at the four empty beds. “I guess that we should be expecting AJ and Brian to join us.”

“Excellent observation, Nick.” The creepy mechanical voice was back. “I’m a bit confused as to why everyone seems to think that you’re the dumb one.”

Kevin’s eyes flew to the ceiling before coming to rest on Howie. “What the ...”

“They’re watching us.” Howie nodded his head in the direction of the tiny, almost completely hidden camera. “And listening to us too, I suppose.”

“You’re shitting with me!” Nick locked eyes with Howie before twisting his neck upwards to try and locate the camera. “So, we can’t say nothin’ because whatever we say they’re gonna be able to hear?”

“You can say all that you want.” The voice laughed. “We’re here to answer all of your questions.”

“Is that so?” Kevin balled his tightly bound hands into fists; ignoring the pain that shot through his wrists as the handcuffs cut into his flesh. “Does that mean that you’re going to tell us what we’re doing here? Does that mean that you’re going to tell us what you want?”

“You want to know why you’re here, Kevin?” The voice laughed again. “You’re here to play a game.”

“A game?” Kevin’s voice had lost some of its bravado. “What do you mean?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

Kevin, Howie, and Nick all directed their attention to the soft, scraping sound that started coming from the door as the eerie mechanical voice boomed off of the walls. An iPad Mini suddenly shot through the small space between the floor and the bottom of the door, and Howie instinctively hustled to retrieve the tablet before it could smash against the far wall.

“Turn it on.” The voice instructed.

His fingers shaking, Howie pressed the circular button on the bottom of the tablet and swiped right to access the screen. The device had been cued to a webpage broadcasting a live video feed.

“Oh God ...” Howie could barely get the words out as he stared at the image of himself on the screen. He watched as Kevin and Nick hurried towards him to find out what he was looking at; their movements on the screen delayed by just a matter of seconds.

Kevin started down at the tablet and let out a strangled grunt of fear and surprise. He glanced up and stared directly into the small camera that was mounted on the ceiling; resisting the urge to vomit as he saw his face come into full view on the screen. What was going on?

“Take a look at the poll.” The voice sounded gleeful despite its distortion. “That will answer your earlier question about the handcuffs, Nick.”

Howie licked his lips. His mouth had suddenly become painfully dry. He didn’t want to look beyond the video, but his eyes betrayed him; flipping to the left side of the screen to take in the quickly changing bar graph.

“Who should get their handcuffs taken off?” Nick read the words as if he didn’t know what they meant. “Is this some kind of fucking joke?”

The creepy voice actually snorted with laughter. “Of course not! People, your fans, are voting for you, and in just a few minutes we’ll have a winner. You should be happy, Nick. Can’t you see that you’re winning?”

Nick looked down at the bar graph. The voice was right; he was in the lead. Out of the 1876 votes, he had 1102 of them. The little timer positioned underneath the graph indicated that there were only two minutes left for people to cast a vote.

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and leaned against Howie’s shoulder to maintain his balance. The knowledge that these men were asking people to choose between him and Kevin was making him feel sick to his stomach. The fact that people were actually voting was making him feel even worse.

“Fifty cents?” Kevin’s disgusted voice cut through Nick’s unhappy thoughts. “People are paying fifty cents to cast a vote to determine if Nick or I get our handcuffs taken off?!”

“That’s right!” The voice’s gleeful tone had returned. “But this is just a trial run. Don’t worry; the price of a vote will increase once the real game gets started. We just had to make sure that people were interested.”

“This is sick.” Howie choked. “You’re sick!”

“Maybe.” The voice deadpanned. “But, by the looks of things, we’re also going to be very rich.”

“If all you want is money, we’ll give it to you.” Nick opened his eyes and looked to Howie and Kevin for confirmation. “Just tell us how much you want.”

Howie nodded hastily in agreement to Nick’s offer. “Exactly! You guys name your price and we’ll pay it. Then, you can let us go and all of this comes to an end.”

“It’s a nice offer, but we don’t really want this to end.” The voice let out a cringe-worthy, overly dramatic sigh. “We want to have a bit of fun first. Plus, it wouldn’t be fair to AJ and Brian; they haven’t even had the chance to join you yet.”

“I’m sure they’d get over it.” Kevin mumbled. He glanced at the timer just as it expired. Over two thousand people had cast a vote and he had only earned 826 of them. He wasn’t surprised that people had chosen Nick over him, but that didn’t stop the hybrid feeling of disappointment and dread from bubbling up in his stomach. If each challenge was a popularity contest, he was going to lose every time.

“Looks like we have a winner!” The voice announced. “Howie, you can do the honours.”

A single key promptly slid under the door. It skidded along the cement and came to a stop less than an inch from Howie’s left foot.

Sucking in his breath, Howie bent down to pick up the key. He could practically feel the tension radiating off of Kevin and see the guilt seeping out of Nick’s body. With one quick motion, Howie slipped the key into the slot on Nick’s handcuffs and easily removed them from the younger man’s wrists. Even though he knew what the outcome was going to be, Howie turned and tried to do the same for Kevin.

The key wouldn’t fit.

“I’m sorry, Kev.” Nick resisted the urge to rub at his sore wrists. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Kevin lied. The hurt in his voice was obvious. “I didn’t expect to win against you.”

Nick opened his mouth to offer some useless comment, but the mystery voice beat him to it.

“No need to be sad, Kevin. I’m sure that you’ll win the next one. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait a few more hours for the next challenge to begin. Until then, you can enjoy reading our special Twitter feed.”

“Twitter?” Kevin couldn’t help it; he raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You can’t be fucking serious?!”

“Everyone has Twitter!” The voice shot back. “We thought that it would make it easier for people to stay in the loop. So, in case you’re at all interested in what we have to say, the timeline will stay on your screen until the next challenge is ready to go.”

Howie dropped his eyes to the iPad that he was still clutching in his left hand. He positioned the screen so that Nick and Kevin could read the feed over his shoulder. He could feel his whole body tense as he read the words.

This really was a game, and they really were the pawns.

Phantom @NetPhantom (2 min)
@nickcarter for the win! Stay tuned to find out what happens when @brian_littrell & @skulleeroz show up!

Phantom @NetPhantom (1 h)
You’re next @brian_littrell and @skulleeroz. You’re next.

Phantom @NetPhantom (4 h)
Who wants to play a game with @backstreetboys?