Page 124 of Dark Little Game

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t ever feel like you need to keep something from me again,” Wes says as he releases me.

“Of course.”

“But I’m never speaking to my brother again.”

Fuck.

I was afraid of that.

“I know you’re going to need time to process.”

“My brother will hurt you. And I know, deep in my bones, that you will regret stepping anywhere near his world. I can’t see you get hurt. The people around Hunter always get hurt.”

“He wants to help me, Wes. He wants to find the attackers more than anyone else does.”

Weston isn’t convinced. “Hunter only cares about himself. That’s how it’s always been.”

A creeping fear spreads through my veins when I see how certain the look on Weston’s face is.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Week after week, I’ve been growing closer to Hunter.

IknowHunter.

He’s been showing me things he doesn’t show his brother, and I finally feel like it’s not stupid to build up trust in him.

But how well do I really know Hunter Knox?

Even now?

I know the dips and curves of his body.

The feel of his lips.

The constellation of freckles along his arm.

But there’s still the shred of doubt that plagues mymind when Weston seems so convinced about him. And that doubt tells me something else.

Maybe I only know what Hunter chooses to show me.

When I walk backto my room I know something is wrong.

I step along the floorboards in the hall and see a thin streak of dark red coming from the bottom of the doorway.

The fear that’s shot through my nervous system only worsens.

It’s not alotof blood.

But it’s blood, unmistakably.

The door is only cracked open, and I have no idea who is inside.

My fear turns to pure panic.

For a split second I’m caught between two decisions.Do I run back and get Weston? Ask him to go inside with me?