"Why is she so important to you?" Amanda whispered.
"She's not important to me." John replied, his eyes not leaving her face.
It was tomorrow, and – as most people who watch the Saw movies know – Amanda was about to shoot Lynn because Hoffman was blackmailing her. Hoffman himself was right beneath them, tied up to a chair that would 'electrocute' him right next to Eric Matthews, who was suspended over an overly large ice cube.
Pity there was no drink to go with it.
And – SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ANYTHING PAST SAW II THEN MENTALLY BLANK OUT THESE NEXT FEW LINES AND SING SOMETHING RANDOM (yes, Jedward included) – if you have watched the Saw movies the events that would've happened go as follows:
1: Amanda shoots Lynn, her husband Jeff shoots her, and then cuts John's neck open with a saw – funny world, isn't it?
2: Jeff then gets shot by Strahm, who gets locked in by Hoffman. Fool (had to say that).
3: Hoffman has shot Rigg and left the three dead bodies (the guy – Art, right? – was shot by Rigg and Eric Matthews had his head crushed by more ice cubes. And there was STILL no drink...).
4: Strahm gets out of the room, but gets captured by an unknown person (Oo-er) and gets his head stuck in a flooded TV set. Fool.
5: Strahm escapes, which pisses Hoffman off as he was meant to be the only guy to survive.
6: Strahm finds out that Hoffman is John's protégée and gets himself crushed to death as a consequence. Fool.
7: Hoffman almost gets found out by the FBI and John's ex-wife Gill puts him in a reverse-bear trap on John's wishes. He gets part of his jaw ripped off. Lovely woman.
PREDICTION: Lawrence Gordon is alive, he is testing Hoffman for John and in the end Hoffman dies. It hasn't happened yet, but you never know...and perhaps it will happen in 3D...
Of course, for the observant you would've noticed that I said WOULD'VE.
And so, this is the mirror world events of things...
"Stop! Halt! Desist!" A strange figure with – what Amanda thought was – a Jedward quiff blurred between the two women, went too far, crashed into a wall, got up and walked back in between them. "Look, this is going to seem really random, but do any of you have a muffin lying around somewhere?" Amy looked at all the confused faces, and then slapped her head. "THAT wasn't the point I was trying to make..."
"Moron..." Georgina muttered as she stalked into the room.
"Err...can I ask what is going on?" Asked John, confused. He directed the question at Georgina because she was the one without a quiff and seemed at least partially more sane than the other weird child...teenager...thing...
"Ok, here's the low-down –" Georgina began, but then two more figures with quiff-shaped objects on their heads hurtled into her and knocked her flying.
"Hi," Said one breathlessly, getting up. "My name's Shaz –"
"And my name's Kat –" Said the other just as breathlessly, her dark tinted glasses askew.
"This is Gina –" Shannon pointed at Georgina.
"And that is Aimes." They both chorused, pointing at Amy, who gave a little wave.
"You sure there are no muffins around?"
"Anyway," Georgina butted in. "We're here because –"
"We've been spying on you –" Katherine said bluntly.
"But don't take it personally!" Amy said quickly, noting John's furious expression. "We had our reasons, and we quite enjoyed – hey, can you point the gun somewhere else, please, Mandy?"
"Don't," Amanda snarled, her finger curled on the trigger. "Call. Me. Mandy."
Amy nodded slowly. "Ok..."
"Anyway," Georgina glared at Amy. "We found out that Hoffman –"
"Was planning on blackmailing Amanda to kill Lynn –" Katherine said hesitantly.
"And we thought we'd better stop y'all before you did something stupid." Amy finished.
"But now we've done that," Shannon added. "We can go and see Hoffman for you –"
"And fuck him to death –" Amy said dreamily.
"Because he's so –" Katherine breathed.
"FIT!" The three of them sighed, then caught sight of Georgina's executional glares and flinched.
"That is," Amy continued. "Apart from Ms Grumpy over here."
"ANYWAY –" Georgina was pretty pissed off with the way her friends were behaving; they'd better not interrupt her this time. But as it turned out, it was John who interrupted.
"You do realise that you just disturbed a life lesson." He intoned calmly.
Katherine looked blank. "Is that like a Science lesson? Because I'm sorry, but how is learning how plants breathe going to help us with our future career choices? It's all a load of bull-"
John sighed. "You teenagers really don't get the fact you need to respect yourselves to respect your life, do you?" He asked. "You're prepared to go and basically rape a man many years older than you that doesn't even know your faces just because he is – in your slightly demented opinion – fit."
Georgina watched in amazement as the three girls squirmed, muttering apologies. In all her years of blowing up at them, she'd never even got close to such a shame-faced reaction. She didn't agree with most of what John did, but at least he got results!
"You still want muffins?" Amanda suddenly asked abruptly.
Amy beamed. "Yes please!"
Amanda grinned back, which surprised everyone in the room. "Well, you did save my life, so I guess you could have some of my favs..."
"Choc chipper...?" Amy asked excitedly.
"Yup." Amanda laughed as Amy cheered enthusiastically. "C'mon, us insane people have to stick together...you ever heard of the song 'Kenya'?"
The five other occupants of the room listened to the totally un-musical melodies of Kenya fading away into the distance, then John turned to Katherine. "Kat, will you please knock out Lynn and take her home?" Katherine nodded and swiftly stuck the nearest needle into Lynn's neck. As she collapsed onto the floor John nodded approvingly. "The drugs should make this seem like simply a bad dream; she will not remember this tomorrow."
As Kat and Shannon pulled her out of the room, John called after them, "Don't forget about Jeff; he should be along soon." As if on cue a door banged open, there was a muffled scuffle and a large painful-sounding thud.
"Kat, you're underneath the fat-arse!"
"I'm fine, Shaz...just give me a hand dragging them out..."
The two of them listened to their efforts, then John turned to Georgina.
"You're real names are Amy, Shannon, Katherine and Georgina." He stated matter-of-factly, as if reading from a book. "You're the foursome that always does the craziest things, the ones that literally live in Jedward world. People at school think you're absolute spazes but you don't care, in fact you take it as a complement. That isn't healthy, and I could give more facts about you which prove just how unhealthy you are..."
"How the fuck do you know?" Georgina asked, shivering.
"Facebook." John laughed at Georgina's expression. "Oh, come on. Anyone can get information off there about absolutely anyone." Then his eyes glinted and the smile slipped off his face like a snake. "But, of course, I'm incredibly interested about you four..."
"What do you want from us?" Georgina glared at him with confidence that she didn't feel.
"You're brave," He said simply. "You have the nerve to do things that no-one else would do; you stand in the way of control and don't care about the consequences or what people think of you. You seem almost unstoppable. And that's why I want you four to help carry on my work...especially you."
"What?!" Georgina could hardly believe what her ears were hearing. "But...GCSE's..."
"Taken care of." John dismissed Georgina's worries with a flip of his hand. "You have everything you need to study for them under this...tin roof." He frowned as he realised that he hadn't needed his oxygen pump for a long time – maybe Lynn's op had done better than he thought. He noted Georgina's battle of wills and leaned as far forward as he dared himself to allow. "You'll be making a difference...that's what you want to do, right?"
Georgina continued fighting the already lost battle with herself, but finally gave in. "Fine." She shook John's outstretched hand. "When do I begin?"
John smirked and handed Georgina a plastic cup. "Getting me some water is a good start." He noted Georgina's fuming expression at being made subservient to him and added, "Please."
Georgina rolled her eyes and took the cup. "You still want the straw?"
And so began a – not very perfect at all – work relationship between four teenagers and a psychopath.
When Hoffman arrived back at the warehouse after escaping his own game and being released after subjected to endless amounts of questioning it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Of course, he didn't pay any attention to that because he still thought that Amanda and Jigsaw were dead.
Which was why, when he rounded the corner, he was caught unawares by two horribly memorable figures...
"Oh, God," He moaned. "Please, not you!"
"I don't think he likes us." Commented Shannon to Katherine as they both dragged him into the main room of the warehouse.
"To hell with that," Katherine grumbled. "I'll just be glad when we've finished with him; I've had it up to here with dragging bloody heavy people everywhere."
"I'm not that fat!" Hoffman glared at the offending figures with Jedward hair. "And you still owe me for breaking my window and stealing all of my muffins!"
"They tasted nice, thanks!" A disembodied voice floated through the air, followed by a whacking sound. "Ow!"
"Shut it, Amy!"
"Ok, ok..."
Hoffman closed his eyes. Hopefully this would just be a dream, and when he opened them...
A dark, ominous shadow loomed over him. Slowly, hesitantly, Hoffman opened his eyes to see Amanda standing over him with a furious scowl on her face.
"Ah." Said Hoffman. He was starting to see that his plan had a major flaw in it; neither of the people that should be dead was dead.
"You BASTARD!" Amanda screamed, pulling him upright. And then she punched him in the face. There was a crunch and Hoffman reeled backwards, blood trickling between his fingers. Amanda laid into him, having a slight advantage before Hoffman regained his balance and launched himself at her.
The four girls watched and winced as the two adults clawed at each other, using every effective part of themselves to wreak severe damage on the other.
"I'm placing £10 on Hoffman winning, but being worse off than Amanda." Amy whispered to the others. "Any other takers?"
"Done." Katherine said.
"Done," Shannon agreed. "But Amanda will have a pretty bad black eye."
"Done." Amy said solemnly. The three girls shook hands.
Georgina wasn't paying them any attention. She was staring at the far door, and as the three others followed her line of sight they saw why.
John was standing – no, leaning – in the doorway, watching the fight with an eerily emotionless face. He'd draped his customary red and black theatrical cloak around himself, and even though he was cancer ridden Georgina had to admit he made a dramatic sight.
"Hoffman." John's tone was icier than usual and at the sound of it both Amanda and Hoffman stopped fighting and slowly stood and faced him. Hoffman had clearly won the fight, but he had a quickly darkening black eye and his nose was still bleeding. Amanda had no black eye; Amy let out a hushed cheer and the three of them began to squabble over the question of the money.
"Out of everything I have taught you, you have clearly learnt nothing." Hoffman looked uncomfortable. "Out of all the things you could sink to, blackmail is one of the most unacceptable."
"And I suppose it was ok for you to do it then." Georgina froze and the other four women – Amanda included – stared at the two men. Hoffman was as emotionless as Jigsaw was; Georgina swore she heard the rustle of popcorn and Shannon whispering, "Ohh, this is going to be good..."
"It was entirely necessary for me to...give you that decision." John snapped.
"Decision? Ha!" Hoffman laughed derisively. "It was blackmail, and you didn't need to do it!"
"You were ruining your life!" John hissed dangerously.
"Yeah well, I don't see any sense in damaging it further!" Hoffman shot back. "Face it, my life's in more of a mess now than when you decided to chuck more shit at the fan!"
There was a tense silence. The two men glared at each other, and Amanda helped herself to more popcorn.
"Got that off your chest now, Hoffman?"
Hoffman looked John in the eyes. "Yes."
John turned and walked away.
Hoffman laughed. "Is that it? You're just going to leave?"
John turned, and Hoffman didn't like the wide grin on John's face. "Oh, yes. But, you see, Amanda clearly won't. And I'm not going to stop her from killing you." John's smirk grew wider at Hoffman's expression. "What's wrong, detective?" He taunted. "Has more shit hit the fan?"
"You...you bastard!" Hoffman screamed. "You can't do that –"
"To you?" John shook his head slowly. "This was your choice, Hoffman. I'm only carrying out what you deserve." He turned to Amanda. "His soul is in your hands now." With that he turned and walked majestically out of sight.
Amanda looked at Hoffman, and a very Billy-the-puppet like grin spread over her face. Grabbing hold of his arm, she pressed her face right up close to his and smirked as he winced in pain as she squeezed the cuts her nails had made on his upper forearm. "Welcome to hell..." She murmured before dragging the unfortunate man out of the room. "You'd better be prepared for hard work..."
Katherine watched them leave, and then turned to her friends.
"Well, this looks like fun." She remarked.
Sorry if you didn't know any of the details I put at the start, but I DID tell you not to read 'em if you hadn't...
I am told if you hit the review button, a muffin materialises in front of you...hopefully...