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Matt is getting a little sick of being captured, to be honest.
He yanks at the cuffs securing his hands to the post behind him and grumbles, “This is the second time I’ve been tied up tonight, I’m really starting to think someone has it out for me.”
Joey laughs from where he stands across from him. “This isn’t even the first time I’ve been chained to a post. Or the second, now that I’m thinking about it.”
Anyone else would side-eye the Savant, but Matt’s mind is already putting pieces together. “So I was right then,” he says, and Joey’s bright blue eyes find his. “My theories on the slaughterings. This has happened before. Exactly like this?”
Joey looks away, towards the tent’s exit, like he expects someone to come rescue them any second. When it’s apparent that rescue isn’t coming, he sighs. “It’s a long story.”
“I mean, I’m not going anywhere.” Matt tugs on the cuffs for emphasis, and Joey cracks a smile.
“I guess that’s true, huh?”
“So?”
There’s a long stretch of silence. And then Joey tells him everything. How he received a house through the will of a distant relative. How the house turned out to be evil. How it killed his friends one by one, and implanted evil in him that a sorceress took advantage of a year later. How, to break free of the spell, his friends had to die. How he ended up being one of them.
The church, the two SAE members who told him that he could come back, but he had to play the game again. One more time.
Matt’s head is swirling. He wants to be angry, but this had been confirmed hours ago, that Joey knew exactly what he was doing when he invited his friends to this little excursion. But it doesn’t explain the thing he’s been wondering since he got the invitation. “And you chose me. Why?”
It’s not like he and Joey aren’t friends. They’ve known of each other for ages, met through Youtubers REACT, had several civil conversations before the vlogger dropped off the map. When he’d received the invitation in the mail, he’d figured it was because Joey was running out of friends to invite, or that because Ro was going, he also should, since they’re attached at the hip these days. Or they were, at least. Matt’s heart aches.
Joey peers at him from across the tent. His voice doesn’t waver when he tells him quietly, “Because I knew you could win.”
Oh.
Matt flushes. He’s not quite sure how to take that. “So…” he says, trying to wrap his brain around the information he’s been given. “When I died…”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Joey says, voice flat. “These challenges… they’re not usually physical, at least not like this. Not where only a couple of us could be voted in in the first place. They keep changing the rules and it isn’t fair.”
He sounds like someone who’s done this too many times, and that’s already of concern to Matt. “So I was supposed to survive. I was always supposed to survive?”
“Yes.”
“What about the others?”
“I…” Again, he looks away, anywhere but Matt’s hardened gaze. He already knows what he’s going to say.
“They weren’t.”
“I mean, not all of them, but—”
“Even Ro?”
“Someone has to die,” Joey says, but he sounds defeated, and Matt’s anger drains right out of him. “It’s the way the game goes.”
“You could’ve said no.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then
help me
understand!” The frustration leaks into his voice as he lunges towards him, forgetting that he’s chained to a wooden beam. “Help me understand why the
hell
you would put us through this, Joey, just to save your own skin—not even to
save
yourself, you were already lost, and you chose to trade the lives of people who
love you
and
trust you
so you can come back? Are you
serious?”
Joey’s expression across from him is both tragic and determined. The visage of a tired man, one who’s almost at the end of his journey. One who’s holding onto one more thing, one last goal to accomplish, one final huzzah before he goes. It makes Matt wonder if he really took this quest to bring himself back to life, if maybe something more is going on.
Instead of answering, Joey says, “When you died. What did you see?”
“I told you, a church.”
“What else?”
There is something else, but Matt can’t remember it. Glimpses of a wheat field and a cork tree and a face he knows but can’t place. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Why?”
Joey stubs the toe of his boot into the floorboard at his feet. “I mean, Matt, you’re the only other person who’s died. No one else is like us. I just… do you remember how much it hurt?”
Matt swallows the terror threatening to climb his throat and doesn’t quite succeed. “Yeah,” he says. He can't forget it. He didn't die immediately. He didn't even black out right away.
“I had so much hope,” Joey mutters. “I was so excited to go home. I thought this was never gonna happen again.” He takes a deep breath. “But I died. And I made this happen again. And I dragged you into it. But I really thought that with your help, we could defeat the Carnival Master and get—” He catches himself, gnawing on his lip, quiet for another moment. “It was supposed to be you and Safiya. I did my best, but, I mean… I'm sorry.”
What is he supposed to say to that, Matt wonders. His brow furrows. “Is that why you stood up for me when Manny and Nikita said I should die next?”
“I mean, sure,” says Joey, “but I meant what I said, Matt. You're not expendable.”
“But you need me.”
“Because you're my friend,” Joey tells him, blue eyes wide and earnest. “And I don't… I don't want you to die. Not after Ro.”
His voice cracks on her name. And Matt understands. He understands everything, finally. And he believes him.
He's the first to break eye contact. “We need to get out of here, then,” he says, with renewed determination. There's a pile of beanbags next to his left foot that seems oddly placed for a carnival tent. “Is there anything you need a beanbag for?”
And when he meets Joey's gaze again there's a fire there that's been relit. It isn't quite forgiveness, because Matt has lost a
lot
over the course of this night. But he finally understands Joey's behavior. He understands why he's here.
Now, it's time to go home.