Page 130 of Dark Little Game

I’d like an IV injection of black coffee. See you there.

I take off down the hill and onto Red Row, heading out toward the main part of campus.

The snow flurries fall neatly through the air, and there’s no wind at all.

The campus is beautiful in the snow.

Or it would be, if it didn’t feel like a fucking battlefield.

Outside the Kettle I find Briar leaning against the stone wall.

“You look stressed,” I tell her, seeing her expression knit into a frown as she looks down at the notebook in her hands.

“Isn’t that everyone’s way of telling somebody they look like shit?” she asks, shoving the notebook into her backpack.

“You don’t look like shit. Your hair looks cool.”

She has her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, with little wispy tendrils coming down in front of her face.

“I need to go back in time and tell myself not to major in Biochemistry. I want to be a doctor, not a laboratory scientist.If I see another amino acid molecular diagram I’m going to lose my mind.”

“One day, maybe you’ll be able to save a patient by knowing what the structure of an amino acid molecule looks like.”

She snorts, tossing her backpack over her shoulder.

We head into the Kettle, grabbing sub sandwiches and cups of soup before heading toward the back wall. Snow falls past the windows outside and I slurp chicken soup like it’s liquid gold.

“You know how athletes guzzle Gatorade after a tough game? That’s you with that chicken soup right now,” Briar tells me, watching me polish off the whole cup.

“I was outside for a couple of hours in the cold.”

“What were you up to?”

I put the cup down on the wooden table, looking down and wishing there was double. “Had to take care of some things,” I tell her.

It’s my default answer.

Even with Briar, I’m not exactly an open book about what I do.

She knows nothing about my time in London, and I don’t share details about the research I’ve put into trying to find the person who is after Onyx Society members.

I look up at her finally, watching as she just nods and takes a big bite of her sandwich, and a strange feeling curls through my chest.

Guilt.

Is this whatguiltfeels like?

Briar has been the first person who’s tried to befriend me in years, and still, I give her nothing.

What. The fuck. Is happening to me?

I pick up my sandwich, then put it back down again. “I,uh,” I start to say. “I’m trying to help the Onyx guys figure out who’s fucking with them.”

“The stuff with James and Ethan?” Briar asks.

“And some other things. Yes,” I finally tell her. “It pisses me off, knowing there’s someone out there who just thinks they can get away with this.”

She nods. “And I’m sure you don’t want your brother in danger, even if you don’t get along with him.”