Page 53 of Cracked Ice (The F*cked Up Players #1)
LUCIEN
One month ago
@BladeSpinner
What are you doing?
W ithout removing my eyes from the ceiling, I slap around the bed until my hand reaches the phone. When I see it’s them, I grin. Time to play a little game. I text back.
@therealLucifer
Why?
@BladeSpinner
I’m curious.
@therealLucifer
Well stop. Curiosity killed the cat.
Something tells me we’re way past the stopping point though.
@BladeSpinner
Cats have nine lives. What’s one more?
@therealLucifer
Too bad you’re not a cat.
@BladeSpinner
You don’t know what I am.
@therealLucifer
The same could be said for me. You have no idea who I really am.
The three bubbles that indicate they’re typing flickers before finally their response comes through.
@BladeSpinner
I’m learning.
@therealLucifer
You’re playing a dangerous game here.
@BladeSpinner
High risk. High reward. My favorite game to play.
@therealLucifer
Ohh when I catch you
@BladeSpinner
Run run as fast as you can you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man
SYDNEY
@BladeSpinner
What if life as we knew it wasn’t really like what we knew at all and everything we knew about the world was a lie?
What do you think?
@therealLucifer
I think you’re high.
@BladeSpinner
I don’t do drugs.
@therealLucifer
Why not, I hear they’re life changing.
@BladeSpinner
What if I don’t want my life to change?
@therealLucifer
You just said life as we knew it was a lie.
@BladeSpinner
I said what IF it was a lie.
@therealLucifer
Then I guess we could do as many drugs as we wanted.
@BladeSpinner
Touche.
If you could do one drug, what would you take?
@therealLucifer
Something that would knock me out and put me to sleep.
What about you?
@BladeSpinner
Something that would overstimulate me, like shrooms or acid. I wanna feel colors, and see sounds. I think it’d be kinda cool, to hallucinate a new reality. Don’t you?
@therealLucifer
I think I’d be too pissed off when I was inevitably brought back to the real world and the dream ended.
@BladeSpinner
Way to ruin the thought experiment.
@therealLucifer
Shouldn’t you be asleep?
@BladeSpinner
Shouldn’t you?
@therealLucifer
I would if I could
@BladeSpinner
Having trouble sleeping?
@therealLucifer
Having trouble staying asleep.
@BladeSpinner
I can help with that
@therealLucifer
Is that a threat?
@BladeSpinner
It’s an offer
@therealLucifer
Could have fooled me
@BladeSpinner
It’s not my fault you jump to the worst conclusions.
I just want to help.
@therealLucifer
There’s only one thing that helps.
@BladeSpinner
Which is?
@therealLucifer
Goodnight Little Stalker
SYDNEY
“You can’t be in here,” says the new Bean Cup assistant manager aka the second victim of my plans to speak with Lucien. Seriously, this establishment is getting a shit ton of money from me as of late. I’m doing this blackmail thing all wrong. Dad would be disappointed.
I hold up a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill, newly withdrawn from my emergency account this morning.
“I need a favor,” I tell the frumpy guy.
He stares at the folded bill between my fingers then me.
“What kind of favor?” he asks as he reaches for the cash.
I pull it back.
“First, you need to hear what it is.”
I could easily be identified and caught if this guy really wanted to come after me, but the way his eyes are more focused on the money in my hand than my face, I’d say there’s a good chance that’s not gonna happen.
“What’s the favor then?” he drawls, uninterested in who I am in the slightest.
I reach in my back pocket, swapping the money for the plastic item tucked between my fingers.
Holding up the small baggie of crushed pills I got last night, I wiggle it in front of his face.
“I need you to put this in Lucien Morrow’s drink when he gets here in .
. .” I sweep my wrist up to my face so I can check the time on my Apple watch, “ten minutes.”
“The fuck? I’m not—” I slap my free hand over his mouth.
“Lower your voice,” I grit. “Are you trying to get caught?”
We’re tucked in the back of the shop and early risers are starting to fill the building.
The coffee shop opened, and I caught this nitwit when he made the unfortunate mistake of leaving the back door open long enough for me to jam my foot in the door and sneak in.
The door was heavy as shit, and I almost broke my damn foot, but here we are.
“I’m not trying to get involved in any of this,” he backs away. “I don’t know what the fuck your deal is but I’m not drugging the most popular guy in this school so you can do God-knows-what to him, you freak!”
“I am not a freak,” I gasp. “And what would you do if he wasn’t popular, hmm? He’s a guy. A regular guy. You don’t need to point out his popularity status. What are you, thirteen?”
The guy in front of me is, in fact, not a teenager but a grown man. I’d say twenty-six or twenty-seven, if I had to guess. He’s a scrawny dude with glasses and a goatee that looks like he spent his whole life trying to grow it.
“No,” he huffs, “but people are bound to notice a drugged-out hockey player if I give him whatever that is.” He points to my hand still holding the drugs. “Jeez, what even is that? Are you trying to kill the guy or something?”
Anger zips through me. I curl my fist into a ball in his dingy brown apron, crinkling it along with his fresh-pressed white button down beneath.
His name tag dangles, the name Will etched in block letters.
Pushing him back, I shove him against the stock shelves.
Various metal bowls and containers clang from the force, and he squeals like a schoolgirl.
“I would never hurt him. I’m trying to help him, okay?”
I will admit, our current positioning, with his shirt jacked up to his throat, doesn’t help my case.
The threatening look in my eyes probably isn’t doing me any favors either, but I can’t bring myself to let him go without getting this very important point across.
I’m not like them ; I don’t go around hurting people. I’m a good person.
He holds his hands up. “Okay, okay, fine. You wanna help him, sure,” his expression is scared and frazzled, and his eyes keep darting toward the office door.
I know he’s looking for an exit, but I’m just as anxious as he is.
I have one shot at this. I nibble frantically at the corner of my thumbnail, checking behind me at the door.
“Look, he’ll be here any minute. This,” I pull my thumb from my lips and hold the bag up again, “is just to help him sleep. To you he may be some big hot-shot hockey player, but there are some of us who actually care about his well-being. You get me?” My brow quirks up, prompting him to respond.
“Yeah . . . Yeah, I get you.” His arms are still held up in surrender and I roll my eyes and take a step back.
“Put your fucking arms down. You look stupid,” I huff. “I don’t even have a weapon.”
His arms slowly come down as he seems to figure out how ridiculous this looks.
“So, that isn’t going to hurt him?” he asks again, gesturing to my hand.
“No,” I answer, handing him the baggie so he can take a closer look at it. “It’s not cocaine or anything like that. They’re just some really strong sleeping pills that I crushed up.”
“And what? You want me to slip them into his coffee?” he questions.
“Yes.”
“And they’re supposed to help him sleep?”
“Yes,” I nod.
“And the drugs wear off, right? They’re not gonna fuck up our chances in the playoffs?”
“You care about that?” my face turns up at his question.
“You don’t?” he retorts.
I actually hadn’t thought about it.
“No . . . I mean, yes, I care, but no, they’re not going to mess up his game performance.”
I made sure these wouldn’t hurt him. I even tested them on myself the other night.
This is the second batch I bought since I had to prove I wasn’t a narc after my first purchase.
Only then was I given instructions and tips on how to properly use it.
Who knew drug dealers had integrity and solid business practices?
“And you’re sure about doing this?”
“ Yes ,” I say, exasperated with his questions. I peer behind me at the door again. He’ll be here any minute.
Will still appears wary but he seems more committed to the cause than he did ten minutes ago.
“How much you gonna give me if I do it?”
I hold up the hundred-dollar bill again, and somewhere in the last sixty seconds it seems he found a backbone in this stuffed storage office we’re in.
Will eyes the money and scoffs.
“I’m gonna need more than that. This is Lucien Morrow we’re talking about. I don’t know the guy personally, but I’ve heard the stories. If he finds out I had anything to do with this, I’m as good as dead anyway and that’s best-case scenario.”
“Seriously, what’s worse than death?” I ask.
“Oh, I dunno, taking drugs from some shady-ass chick who breaks into my coffee shop and asks me to drug a student, then going to jail if the guy keels over and dies.” His finger jabs toward the ground as he drives home his points. “I’d be complicit to murder !” he hisses.
“So, what, we thinking three hundred . . .” I tilt my hands in a tipping scale motion.
“I’m thinking a thousand ,” he pronounces.
If I had water in my mouth, I’d spit it at him.
“A thousand dollars! Are you insane ?”
“Are you ?” he shoots back. “I don’t know who the fuck you are or if what any of what you’re saying is true.
I’m just supposed to take your word and drug someone because you ask me nicely, which, by the way, you didn’t even do.
” He’s waving his hands around at this point.
“You accosted me and then tried to bribe me with a measly hundred-dollar bill when you knew how high the stakes were.”
Well, fuck, he’s got me there.
Will cocks his head as he folds his arms, as if to say, checkmate, bitch . I check my watch one more time and secretly curse his name.