THE PLAYGROUND

  I should not have drank so much last night. I’m not the only one who feels that way, Zachary and the guys have their heads hanging in their hands, Rhodes has thrown up twice in the last thirty minutes, and every time the strobing lights passed through my eyelids the urge to hurl something at the wall increases.

Which is every second by the way. Since we’re at the Playground.

None of us had bothered to read the part of our envelopes that asked us to be here bright and early this morning. I imagine the guys were all disoriented when we got the call and the not so subtle threat that we have replacements at the door, waiting for our opportunities.

 “We really shouldn’t have had that last round.” Lawrence whispers harshly, head bowed.

His voice sounds like it’s booming in my ears even if he’s speaking in a register that’s barely audible.

 My hang over is worse.

A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of last night. Most of it pleasured shivers. The hot hands on my legs… the deep gravelly voice that rumbled at the pit of my stomach.

 My dick twitches in my pants.

What in the fresh hell?

I shake my head in an attempt to clear it, only to end up triggering a massive headache.

 A groan slips through my lips as the door to the waiting room creaks open. A woman with a trolley strolls in, right behind her is another woman with perfect red mouth, stretched into an amused smile.

 “Last night must have been fun.” she says, not bothering with her volume. A few of the guys groan. I grit my teeth to take her in, my mind working hard to catalogue every single detail about her.

 I’d tried to do that when we came in. We were all picked up in a party bus, I tried to take note of the routes we followed, but the curtains were drawn and I couldn’t even see ahead of us. So no idea where we are. Just a vague idea of ‘one of the Playgrounds’. If the guys picked up on the weird secrecy, they didn’t say.

 “My name is Trisha, and I’m your guide through the Playground. Everything you need to know, I’m the one with the answers.” The executive looking woman says, pulling me right back to the present.

“What about what we don’t need to know?” I ask, meeting her eyes.

She blinks at me in surprise, recognition filling her irises as she beams at me, her eyes straying past me for a brief second. I follow her train of sight, only to meet the wall. I frown at it, senses going on alert– as much alert as the hang over would let me.

“Top dog.”

“What?”

She waves a dismissive hand with a chuckle.

 “That’s what they call you now. With the not bottoming and all.”

The guys snicker and I roll my eyes. That’s an ass nick name, among all the ones I’ve had over the years.

 “To answer your question, Top Dog,” she lays the words down thickly, giving me a sweet smile, I snicker at it.

“You’re here to work as an entertainer. I’m sure you don’t need to know how we run our business.”

Again, her gaze flits to the wall behind me. I straighten.

There’s something behind that wall. Something runs down my spine the same time it hits me.

 We’re being watched.

Did they suspect they’ve been infiltrated?

They shouldn’t be suspicious so early. I’ve blended in quite well. This mission is important to me. If I lose this, I lose everything.

 I can’t.

“Will you teach me how to hold a split then?” I ask with an easy grin.

Trisha brightens, clapping and making us wince, she quickly apologizes before gesturing to the trolley lady, who in turn serves us hang over tea.

 While I sip on the tea, I can’t shake the feeling of eyes on me.

They feel eerily familiar.

I try to shake it off as everyone introduces themselves, it’s pointless. Even when I shift in my seat, it’s like laser focused on me. I’m not sure why that’s happening.

 I’ve not done anything wrong.

Yet.

 “So, each of you will have a personal trainer. Some of them, well, most of them, veterans. They’ll teach you everything, including how to hold your splits.”

 A few chuckles go round, even I manage to chuckle, the pin prick feeling slowly working it’s way to the back of my mind.

 “The rules are simple. You can’t swap out your trainer. You can’t request a new trainer. You must obey your trainer. Whatever they tell you, you just say yes and go with it.”

That simmers all of us. We exchange worried glances with each other. Lawrence defiantly raises his chin in the air as he asks what the consequences of disobeying the trainer means for us.

 I mean, they could ask for anything and the answer is already yes.

That kind of power over another person is intoxicating. Who knows what they could ask for?

 Trisha doesn’t smile, in this moment she’s more the company’s representative than our guide.

 “You quit.”

That is not an option.

 I swallow.

“Do we at least get to pick out our trainers?”

Trisha gives me a smile, all radiant and friendly again.

 “No silly. Do you know any of our veterans?”

It’s true. Nobody particularly knows the entertainers from Devil’s Playground. Once you get indoctrinated, and you officially join them, there’s no going back to the poor masses. Everyone here hardly has a family to go back to.

One thing we have in common.

 It’s an unofficial requirement. Once you’re in, I hear you won’t even feel like you haven’t lived more than half your life alone.

 Trisha claps.

“You’ll be called to head to different rooms, once you’re there, you’ll meet your trainer. They’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you. You just have to accept them.”

 And then she’s gone, leaving all five of us in the waiting room alone. All of us deep in thought.

Well, this is it.

I just have to blindly obey whatever it is my trainer asks of me, for three months. I can do that. CIA training was longer than that, more intense. If I survived that and came out on top, I can do this and remain on top.

 Rubbing my palms against each other as the familiar feeling crawls up my spine. Pumping me for whatever it is that awaits me.

 “I forgot to say, thanks for bringing me home last night.” I say to Zachary.

He rolls his eyes.

“I volunteered because we were going the same way. But do not make me do that again next time. You weigh like a whale.”

“Are you calling me fat??”

He rolls his eyes again. “The same thing you asked last night, almost like you’re fishing for compliments.”

 I grin at him. I’ve been accused of that plenty, it doesn’t make it true, or false.

Then I frown at thought of the thing I’m sure I saw in my room last night, but didn’t see when I woke up this morning.

 “When you were in my room last night, did you happen to see any shadow?” Even as I ask the question, I hear how nuts it sounds. Zachary gives me a look.

“Shadow?”

I nod.

“The thing you see when there’s light in a room?”

Another nod. He snorts.

“There was light in your room dumb ass, there should be a shadow.”

I open my mouth to say this  shadow had a form, my memory is very fuzzy from the alcohol, but I’m sure it had some shape.

 A crackling sound fill the room, snatching our attention.

“Zachary Mildred. Room six.”

I glance at Zachary, amused as I eye him up.

“Mildred?”

He glowers, but his lips quake with a smile.

“If my trainer doesn’t ask me to kill myself, I’ll see you after.”

I snicker and watch him leave.

The next person called is Lawrence Payne. Then Rhodes, before Danny.

I sit alone in the room for the longest time.

They never call my name.

My eyes stray to the wall, where Trisha had been staring at earlier. I stand in front of it with my hands cupped, straining to see past the wall.

 A harsh gasp escapes me when I find myself staring into a pair of green eyes.