Page 82 of Cracked Ice (The F*cked Up Players #1)

I close my eyes, allowing the darkness to free me from the light. The light is lying. It’s showing me things that aren’t real. I open them again and I fall back against the hood, lightheaded and sick.

They’re . . . They’re all . . .

Why do they look like that? Why do they look like that , and I look like . . . I focus on my reflection in the cracked windshield, shifting my view from what’s on the other side to what’s reflected back at me. Splintered pieces all showing me the same thing.

Why do I look perfectly fine? There’s not a scratch on me save for my scraped knee and glass-filled palm. I’m . . . perfectly fine.

“Help!” a voice shouts.

My head snaps up trying to trace the voice.

“H-help,” I hear someone slur, but the bodies in my car are unmoving.

I peer around the broken vehicle I once shared to find a Civic with the passenger door hanging off its side.

The driver’s side door is completely gone.

In the driver’s seat sits a man in an ugly Christmas sweater with blood seeping from his nose.

He’s slumped toward where the door used to be and his throat bobs as he swallows. I hear him stutter for help again.

“Help-p,” he drawls. He sounds funny. I walk over to his car, my feet moving of their own accord.

I feel numb, like I’m floating or sleepwalking.

I’m shivering too, but I don’t actually feel cold.

I don’t feel anything . Even the tingles have stopped.

The snow is coming down hard and I feel the sharp bite of the air nipping at my skin but none of it feels real.

“Oh, hey,” he chuckles. “Evening, officer,” he slurs.

His breath hits me with a sharp kick. He reeks of alcohol, and I can see barf on his ugly sweater. He tries to move, pushing himself up to get out, but his seatbelt is stuck over his chest.

As in, so embedded into his flesh it’s cutting him.

His floorboards are covered in empty bottles and in his hand is a clear bottle of liquor that’s broken at the neck, like his hand locked around it and he couldn’t let it go.

My eyes reach his, and though he’s breathing, I can tell this man is already dead inside.

I point to his car that’s been rammed through by the guard rail, almost splitting the car in half.

“Did you do this?”

It doesn’t even sound like me but it is. I sound like my dad when he reprimands us.

“Help me,” the man groans, his tone impatient, like he’s expecting me to help him and wondering what the holdup is.

“I asked you a question. Did you do this?” I look between the wreckage of our cars, from my parents back to him. “Is all of this your fault?”

His eyes are barely open, and I can tell he has no idea what’s going on.

“I’m innocent, officer,” he stutters. “He ran into me .”

Fire consumes me, a red hot heat that engulfs me from the inside despite the freezing cold around us.

“ What did you just say?” I seethe.

My dad is the world’s safest driver. The man who insists on driving five miles under the speed limit and gets on my case every day about wearing a seatbelt.

I’m almost sixteen and he still makes me wear a helmet when I ride my bike.

He won’t let me practice hockey without a cage helmet on, even when my friends get to.

This piece of shit wants to blame MY dad?

I wrench the broken bottle from his hand and cut him loose from the seatbelt, throwing him on the ground with a heavy thud. He groans and he’s bleeding from other places judging by the amount of blood, but I don’t know where. I don’t plan to find out.

He’s laid out like a starfish, mumbling incoherently and gurgling.

I look at him with no sympathy, no feelings at all.

I should call for help, or panic. I should do something. But what can I do? The damage is done, right? I look down at the disgusting shit-for-brains below me. This is his fault.

“You did this. It’s all your fault!”

I bend my unscraped knee and settle it onto his heaving chest. His eyes bug out and he’s bleeding from his mouth.

There’s a soft hiss in the air from his car that I hadn’t caught before, but the sound is swallowed by the night air.

Snow keeps falling and it sticks to everything, burying this terrible moment beneath frozen dirt.

“This is all your fault,” I repeat as I continue pushing, applying more and more weight. “Your fault.”

He coughs and splutters, but he doesn’t fight me or try to shake me off. I don’t think he can anymore. I bring my face closer to his and his eyes lock onto mine as I pinch his nose.

“You can’t be saved,” I whisper, leaning down for him to hear. “I won’t let you.”

When he stops moving, I rise. Heading back to our car, I slip through the broken back window, and slide back into my spot. The empty spot I vacated when I was thrown from the car because I didn’t put on my seatbelt like Dad asked.

I look over to my little sister, buckled safely like she’s supposed to be.

“Lilith . . .” I reach over and tap her on the shoulder, but she doesn’t answer me.

“Lil?” Her head rests on the back of the seat, her hair covering her face. I reach out to brush it behind her ear, but freeze, rubbing her arm instead.

“You must be freezing,” I mutter, looking around for her fuzzy pink hat.

She doesn’t move.

“Look, it’s snowing,” I urge her to look, but she doesn’t move.

The silence is deafening. Mind-bending and ear-splitting quiet that eats away at me every second I’m forced to endure it.

I rub her again. “Hey, don’t leave me, okay?

Y-you still hungry? I can take you to McDonald’s.

We’ll stuff our faces with all of the chicken nuggets you want.

I won’t even care if you slather them in barbeque sauce.

I still prefer ketchup but . . .” I sniffle, laying my head on her lap. “We can get whatever you want, okay?”

There’s no response.

“Okay?” I ask again.

“Lil, please say something.” I scoff, working to see if teasing her will wake her up.

“C’mon, is this because you think I called you dirt? Because I swear I didn’t mean it. It’s the snow. The stupid . . . fucking snow.”

I snivel, rubbing the snot from my running nose. “I’m sorry. I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar, two, if you wake up.”

My nose continues to run but it dawns on me too late that it’s not just snot on my jacket.

It’s blood. I feel another trickle on my forehead and my vision goes blurry.

I wipe my face with the back of my hand, staring at the bright red smear.

I know for a fact that it’s not me that’s bleeding.

Some of it is probably that guy’s, but the rest of it . . . is hers.

More blood spills on me, soaking into my clothes. It’s warm, comforting in a way as I lie here.

“I don’t want to be alone. Please don’t leave me alone,” I whisper.

Tears, blood, and snot streak my face.

“You can’t leave me here. No one understands me like you.”

I force myself to laugh, “People suck and you’re kinda cool when you wanna be. So how about it, huh? Let’s get out of here.”

Silence. “I’ll play all the games you want, and I won’t even complain . . . just please wake up.”

More silence.

“Please . . . please,” I plead.

Not even the wind responds.

I blow a shaky breath. “Okay, okay then. How about this? If you can’t stay with me . . . I’ll stay with you. Take me with you. We can play then.”

LUCIEN

Two days ago

I can’t seem to find my little stalker. What’s even more annoying is that they can’t seem to find me. It’s been radio silence all day. All day I’ve gone without them sending a GIF, sharing some weird trending video or asking me some existential question about life.

I’ve grown accustomed to their complete lack of boundaries and social awareness.

I like their creepy little habit of following me to class every day and their uncanny ability to be more on time to my practice than I am.

By the time my skates hit the ice during my private practice, I can feel their presence, my own guardian angel.

Except today, I haven’t sensed them anywhere.

Lucien 12:04 AM

Hello

@thereallucifer

Hey you there?

@thereallucifer

Come out come out wherever you are

@thereallucifer

You wouldn’t be ignoring me, now would you?

Lucien 1:11AM

You up?

Lucien 10:36 AM

Have you been kidnapped?

If you have, I swear to God I’ll go full Taken on their ass.

Wow, nothing? Not even an ‘lol’ huh?

Then I do something neither of us have ever done; I call.

It rings and rings. For a second, I swear I can hear ringing outside.

An obnoxious chime blares through the phone.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is not accepting calls at this time. Please hang up and try again.”

Are they done with me?

I send one more text.

@thereallucifer

Why are you hiding from me?

SYDNEY

I need to leave him alone.

@thereallucifer

Why are you hiding from me?

He’s better off without me. And if I want to dispel any rumors about us, then I need to keep my distance. I wanted a whirlwind romance, not to trap him into a relationship based on lies and rumors. That would have been step one if I was a conniving bitch like Tiffany, but I’m not. I’m scared.

I’m scared he won’t want me like I want him. Even if he did, we’d be torn apart like we are now. I’m missing practices, and Father would never approve. I should let him go.

I walk across the quad, looking ahead as Lucien walks with his head down, his face in his phone. Someone calls his name and he looks up to give them a nod and a wink.

He’s the big man on campus, so I’m not too surprised.

But I wonder . . . can they see what I see?

Can they see the bags under his eyes? Can they see the veins in his hands protruding as he grips his phone?

Can they see the red in the whites of his eyes?

He’s fuming. Mere moments from shattering apart.