Emily only thought a little while before matching Max's bet. Although it might have been possible for others to also get a flush, she felt that hers must've been better if Jack had gone through all the effort in order to show those cards directly to her.
Other than Leo, everyone else had folded. While he didn't say anything, he appeared quite confident. Though he didn't do anything too crazy, only calling.
The next card was revealed to be a 2 of diamonds.
After thinking for a little while, Emily decided to put down a bet of 3 chips. She figured that it would be enough that the other person would want to follow through with it, but not too much that it would make them fold.
Yet, when it shifted Leo's turn, he seemed to catch something. A frown formed on his face before he quickly folded, disregarding the fact he already put down 7 chips.
Most of the others at the table were both surprised and confused by his decisiveness.
Ava raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her seat.
"You got out of there real fast considering how confident you were before."
Leo shrugged his shoulders before prodding at his raccoon a few times.
"My little buddy here was telling me to go go go, but eventually his girlfriend, my ducky, hit him on the head for being stupid."
He then pointed towards a ring on his finger that had a duck engraving on top of it. Once again, his explanations granted him several strange looks. Despite the fact there were literally two children in the room, he still appeared the most childish out of everyone.
However, Leo himself either wasn't aware or simply didn't care about that fact.
After a short silence, Brian dealt the next card.
It was an Ace of Spades. Unfortunately, that didn't exactly help Max out, considering he had a Queen and a 3.
Before Max could even get the feeling that he wasn't in the best position, both his cards and Emily's had flipped over, revealing them.
Naturally, Emily's flush beat out Max's Queen pair. And with that, all of his chips were taken away, and brought over to her instead. Suddenly, she found herself with 65 chips, well over the total of 50 needed.
As for Max, he found himself without any chips left.
Brian clapped his hands twice after collecting the cards. His gaze was focused on Max.
"Unfortunately, you've lost this game. Do you have a 5 of any suit to pay compensation?"
Max didn't respond immediately. His eyes were wide open and he hadn't blinked for at least 10 seconds. The shock eventually caught up to him, as shown by the fact that he began hyperventilating.
He violently shook his head, trying to recompose himself rather desperately.
"N-No. I don't have a 5. But I still have a few other cards to turn into chips! I'm not out yet!"
Brian let out a small sigh, his smile only very briefly disappearing. He then shrugged his shoulders helplessly before pulling out a rusty machine with old blood stains and a square funnel at the top.
"I'm afraid you are not allowed to do that. If you wanted to pitch in more chips, you should've done it before you decided to all-in. Since you cannot pay by card, your punishment will be to remove one of your ears or your nose and provide it to me within 45 minutes. For ease of removal, you will be provided with a blunt scalpel. Whether or not you removed a sufficient enough piece of said nose or ear will be told to you afterwards."
As he said, Brian got out a clearly rusty scalpel and slid it over. To even call the scalpel just blunt was a severe understatement. It looked so old, whether or not it would even last long enough to cut off an ear or nose was rather dubious.
Max looked down at the scalpel with a rather terrified look. He was clearly quite against doing such a thing. From how his skin was unblemished, it was fairly clear he hadn't done anything even close to that caliber before.
"I-I... I don't want to do this."
Brian let out a somewhat malicious chuckle.
"You don't have to. Of course, you will end up paying an entirely different price. I like to call it, giving your body to the House of Cards. It's your choice which you would prefer."
Jack walked over to Max and tilted his head to the side slightly. A bright smile was on his face.
"You should choose to cut off your nose! That's the most fun option. Why would you give up all of the fun for someone else to have?"
Max shivered in his seat. As he looked at the scalpel once more, an ugly frown formed on his face.
"I don't want to! I don't want to! I don't want to!"
Jack narrowed his eyes ever so slightly while the smile briefly disappeared from his face. It was oddly similar to how Brian had done it.
"The way the house takes people isn't that fun. I saw one get turned into many little fingers! If there are only fingers to break, then you'll get bored of it way too quickly. If you haven't tried it before, you should! It's so much fun."
He clapped a few times before pointing at Maverick.
"You can even ask him! He obviously didn't like it as much since he wasn't the one who did it. But the feeling is still great!"
After being called out, Maverick only awkwardly looked away, still holding on to where his nose used to be.
Max didn't seem to take that too well, regardless of what intentions may or may not have been.
"Why are you guys making me do this? Does this help you?"
Jack let out a laugh as though it was a joke that was just told.
"What do you mean? It's fun to do that! I think it's great to spread happiness around, so I guess it does help me!"
Brian let out a muffled chuckle by keeping his mouth closed.
"Why, in truth it would benefit us more if the house takes you. But we make suggestions in the best interest of you. However, we aren't forcing you to do anything. After all, it isn't of any consequence to us. To say that we are making you do this is a far stretch. As I said before, the choice is yours to make."
Although his words seemed reasonable, something about them felt sinister.
Max looked far from stable. But despite what most would've believed him about to reach his breaking point, he had calmed down quite significantly.
"If... I don't do this, then I will die."
Brian shrugged his shoulders while idly shuffling the deck.
"Saying that you'd die is putting it a bit lightly, but it isn't too far off."
Most had to take a second to realize what exactly he was saying, though surprisingly enough it seemed Max understood it immediately.
He stared down at the rusted scalpel for a little while longer before reaching out to it with shaky hands.
"This is... the only way I can get Mom back."
His eyes glazed over as he brought the scalpel up in front of him, like he was holding onto a sword.
"Then Dad won't be so afraid and sad. I will never need to buy flowers again... And we can all be happy."
While gathering his resolve, he brought the rusty scalpel up to the top of his nose bridge. Then, Max gripped onto the handle so hard his knuckles went white. As a tear fell down from his eye, he pushed it down with all of his might.
"ah...AAAAAAH!"
He broke through skin, and just barely made an indent in the cartilage.
It wasn't as though he hadn't tried to put force behind it. However, the blade was dull and the arms of a child were inevitably quite weak. Still, as little progress he made, what wasn't little, was the pain from using a dirty blade to pierce skin.
"It hurts... It hurts. I don't like it. I don't like it at all!"
He partially cried and partially screamed out in pain in an awkward blend. Jack couldn't help but look confused. He put a finger onto the tip of his chin and tilted his head to the side.
"You don't like it? But you should like it!... Ah, but Dad did say it was bad to do it. Maybe your dad said the same thing, so you aren't allowed to like it. It's not right, but you should still enjoy the fun! Don't worry too much about what's right."
With tears in his eyes, Max slowly turned to look at Jack. He sniffled a few times.
"You... can you do it for me? Please... I'm too scared. But I also want to see Mom. But I'm scared."
Jack let out a giggle.
"Why would I do that? It would be stealing all the fun!"