New Fiction Idea #32

The original random spark of an idea was using humans as trading cards, but it ended up turning out like this.

Working Title: Dead Man's Hand

Genre: Action/Adventure

Protagonist: Adrian, a twenty-something man with average-length, straight, brown hair and grey-green eyes. Fairly big-boned, he's tan but freckled. After a few years' history of killing target after target, he's trying to sort out his morals.

Other Main Character: Helen, Adrian's eighteen-year-old little sister. Tall, she has straight, dark brown hair to the middle of her back and is pretty but not beautiful. A bit of a brat sometimes (usually around her brother), she can be clingy but can take care of herself.

Antagonist: Various other members of the organisation.

Setting: Modern-day America, east coast. Adrian is part of an odd gambling organisation. It plays a card game, with cards carrying higher values than others. The players get their hands, and the one with the highest amount wins a very large amount of money. The cards are generated by a computer, which randomises 52 people—enemies of the organisation as well as a few others to disperse suspicion—and assigns them a card identity unbeknownst to the players. Players collect a hand of five cards by assassinating Cards on the list. The loser of each deal gets the blame for all deaths in the round.

Plot: Adrian continues to gamble with his organisation, hoping to win the jackpot to split his winnings with the victims of his killings. For this round of dealing, however, Helen turns out to be one of the Cards, and Adrian scrambles to her side. Between trying to assemble his own hand and continuing to hide his actions from her, keeping her alive proves to be quite a task.

Point of View: Third person, limited to Adrian.

I already have a cover idea, too—a dark background with a young woman (Helen). Her back is turned towards us, and she's wearing some sort of backless dress so that we can see the design of the Seven of Diamonds on her back, bloodlike.