Read Online Endgame Novella #1 by James Frey - Free Book Online

got no such advantage: You were sent on your way with a small bank account and a forged high school diploma, and you hoped that would be enough. You spent the rest of your life on call to any Player who might need you—except for the ones who came crawling back, volunteering to be minders, because they could imagine no other life. But actual Players? It was like winning the lottery. Assuming you survived long enough to cash in your ticket.
    “Totally free of responsibility and obligation, the boy and girl moved to a beautiful mansion in Abu Dhabi. They got married and had two very handsome sons, and promised each other they would never be apart another day in their lives. And they lived happily ever after.”
    Kala rolls over on her side so she can get a clear look at his face. “So do you really want that?” she asks.
    “What, marriage? Kids? Yeah. I know we’re young, but eventually . . .”
    “No, not that. I mean, yes, that, I’m glad you want that, because . . .” She shakes her head. Everything’s getting muddled. Until tonight they have never talked about the future, and now suddenly it’s all laid out before her, a street paved with gold. It’s so much, so fast. And there’s so much he still doesn’t know about her. “I mean, do you really want to be chosen as the Player?”
    “Of course I do.” He sits up, looks at her like she’s a stranger. “Don’t you?”
    She sits up too, and takes his hands. It’s good to hold them, but not as good as it is to be held by them, to curl her body into his embrace and feel cut off from the rest of the world. “I guess? I don’t know, I never gave it much thought.”
    “Yeah, I can see how that would be, given that it’s our entire purpose in life . And has been since we were born.”
    “Not since we were born,” she says quickly. Because that’s the whole point.
    “Get picked as the Player and you get everything ,” he says. “It’s not just an honor; it’s being set for a lifetime. You watch so many movies—but do you know what the world’s really like? The world outside Hollywood? It’s hard and it’s expensive and it’s getting shittier every day. Yeah, I want to be the Player. I want the chance to save the world. And after, I’ll have enough money and power to live life the way I want to live it.” He gives her hands a very gentle squeeze. “And protect the people I love.”
    Love . It is the first time either of them has said the word.
    Except that Players don’t love. Everyone knows this. Those chosen to be the Player are broken of the habit of love, and they never regain it. Even those who live on to old age choose to die alone.
    He must tell himself that he will be different. Kala has noticed this about human nature: everyone likes to believe they are the exception to the rule.
    She’s not going to argue with him, certainly not after he’s used that word. Letting someone believe whatever he needs to—maybe that is also love.
    “It was a good story,” she tells him. “Really good.”
    “How about you?”
    “I’m not really much for stories,” she says.
    “No, I mean, what do you want?”
    She reaches for him, with pointed purpose.
    He laughs and pushes her away. “Aside from the obvious, I mean.”
    Now is the moment. She can lie to him, make up some trivial desire, some stupid thing like a motorcycle or a Nobel Prize—or she can show him the part of herself that she’s been keeping secret all this time. Say it out loud, this truth that she’s never exposed to the light. She can trust him enough to hear her dark desire, the desperate wish at the base of her life, and love her anyway.
    Maybe he will even understand her dream.
    Maybe he will share it.
    She turns away from him and, for good measure, closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to see his face when she admits it.
    “I want a family,” she says.
    “What, like kids? You know I want to give you that. I mean, not anytime soon, obviously, but—”
    “No,” she