Page 166 of Let the Game Begin

Of all of Neil’s friends, though, Jennifer was still the one I hated the most.I hadn’t forgotten what she’d done to me. And yet she was Neil’s preferred choice among all his lovers because she was shameless, wicked, and most of all blond.

I shook my head and kept answering Alyssa’s questions, trying not to think about Krew Barbie, because even picturing her awful braids or sexy-yet-vulgar body made me feel anxious and ill at ease. Instead, I tried to focus on the unsolicited but still helpful advice that Alyssa tried to give me at the end of class.

According to her, I was much too good and naive a girl, and my personality wasn’t suited to someone like Neil. He was a person with a forceful, intractable character; he was clever and calculating.

Experienced and shrewd.

And I knew that better than anyone.

***

Later, at home, Alyssa’s words continued to echo through my mind as I sat in the living room with Logan. He was munching on his favorite cereal despite the fact that it was well into the afternoon.

“Neil isn’t a boy, Selene. He eats innocent girls like you for breakfast. You need to be a woman to be with him, someone capable of standing up to him.”

And then,“Learn how to deal with him, or he’ll end up grinding you down like one of his cigarette butts.”

“I can see the gears in your brain whirring at an impressive speed,” Logan observed. He was sitting on the sofa with his leg stretched out in front of him, per doctor’s orders. He was supposed to rest and take painkillers for at least three weeks before resuming his normal activities.

I didn’t answer and just lifted my glass of juice to my lips. I wasn’t sure if I could tell Logan the true reason for my torment. I opted instead to change the subject slightly.

“Alyssa knows about the situation with Neil,” I said. Logan abruptly stopped chewing and watching the rerun of a basketball game, turning to stare at me with an indecipherable expression on his face.

“And she gave me some advice,” I added awkwardly, hoping he wouldn’t ask about it in detail because Alyssa had also given me some sex tips that I’d rather not recount.

“You already know how I feel about that.” Logan sighed. “Neil’s a unique sort of person.” And he was, he truly was. He was a riddle that was nearly impossible to solve. “You can keep it casual with him, Selene, but there’s no future with him. I’m only saying this because you don’t seem like…” He looked at me, a small, sweet smile flitting over his lips. “You don’t seem like the kind of girl he usually surrounds himself with. You put so much feeling into everything you do, so you need to be careful and never forget that he’s different from other people.”

I knew perfectly well that Neil wasn’t a boy who needed a little coaxing and a fix-him-up mindset to get him to bond with someone. He wasn’t just hostile to love; he refused, from the outset, to admit that love even existed.

My train of thought was interrupted by a glance from Anna, who was busily polishing the silverware. Her attention had been drawn by Logan’s sincere speech. Here was a woman who had known Neil since he was a child. She was the one who advised me not to judge him but to try to understand him. To learn how to interpret his silent language and figure out what he was saying even when he had no intention of exposing himself to me.

However, that was considerably easier to say than do.

I shook myself and changed the subject again, spending a couple of easy hours hanging out with Logan. We were both trying to distract ourselves: him from his accident and me from my worries. Later, Chloe joined us, but instead of getting in on our conversation, she just fell asleep next to her brother, lulled by what she called “this boring game” on the TV. When it finally ended, Logan made a grimace of pain, which I noticed immediately.

“Logan,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, and he shook his head reassuringly at me.

“There’s some pain every now and then, but it’s fine.” He smiled at me in that sweet way of his, and I sighed in relief. It couldn’t have been easy, living with trauma caused by a maniac who was bent on harming us for some inexplicable reason.

“I saw him, you know.” He leaned back against the upholstered sofa and allowed his head to fall back, staring upward. His eyes, fixed on the ceiling, were shadowed with memories of his horrific accident. “He was wearing a white mask,” he added before I had a chance to ask him any questions.

If he’d gotten a good look at him, we might have been able to take a description of his appearance to the police. It wouldn’t have been much, but it might have helped a little. Instead, fate was conspiring against us. Whoever Player was, he knew what he was doing, because he never left a trace of himself, other than the puzzles.

“He was behind me in a black Jeep. I don’t remember the license plate. He just kept screwing with me, blinding me with his high beams.” His voice dipped to a pained whisper as he hung his head, staring at his outstretched leg. “Other than the mask, the only thing I saw in the rearview mirror was him waving at me right before I…” He stopped and his voice shook. I didn’t want to push him to talk to me, so I just waited and rubbed the back of his hand as I did so.

“I tried to brake before a curve that was too sharp, too deadly. But the brakes wouldn’t respond, and I lost control of the car and…” He couldn’t finish and swallowed thickly instead, squeezing his hands into angry fists. I regarded him intently, surprised by this revelation. This added an additional clue to the puzzle that Neil was attempting to decipher. How many more riddles would there be? How many of us would Player attack? And above all else: Who would be next?

“Does Neil know about this?” I whispered, squeezing his hand in mine, a muted pain weighing down my chest. Logan nodded and chewed his lower lip nervously.

“Yeah, I told him everything, and he’s pretty on edge these days.” He looked at me like he was trying to give me some sort of warning. I had no intention of trying to change his brother’s mood, but Logan still seemed worried for me.

Player 2511 had now shown himself to us, albeit while wearing a white mask, and according to the photos he sent, he’d been watching us like a true stalker. He was hunting us. He might have been there, right outside the house, or maybe he was lurking underneath the windows of our rooms or on campus or around the cafés we frequented. He was always watching us, like an invisible devil whose presence we could only sense but never confirm.

It felt like we were walking a labyrinth filled with insidious dangers andwe were all wearing blindfolds. No one was above suspicion; anyone could be an enemy, even the nicest neighbor or most unassuming friend.

I thought about it for the rest of the night, even as I took a long, hot bath to ease some of the tension from my rigid body. But none of it reassured me, so I got dressed and decided that I needed to talk to Neil. The only people who knew the truth of the situation were the three of us: me, Logan and…him.

I went to his room at nine o’clock after putting on a big, loose hoodie that fell to below my butt. Underneath I wore a simple fitted T-shirt and a pair of leggings. My hair was down and wavy because I had just let it dry without doing anything to it. My face, as usual, was pale and bare.