Page 203 of Let the Game Begin

Neil had gotten close to me to kiss my forehead, and perhaps, at the same time, he’d…he’d…

I grinned like a little girl and clutched the small iridescent cube tight to my chest. I would take this gift with me to Detroit along with so many other things about him.

But what no one—including me—knew was that I wouldn’t get back to my city. I would never arrive at the airport, never take that flight. My journey was about to end right there.

“Miss!” the driver called out to me, and there was palpable concern in his voice. I leaned forward to speak with him.

“What happened?” I asked, still a bit shaken up by Neil’s surprise. The driver kept looking behind us in the rearview mirror.

“There’s a car, a black Jeep that’s been following us for about twenty minutes now, but it’s getting dangerously close!” he exclaimed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.

I turned around to see the vehicle in question, and my eyes went wide when I spotted a figure behind the wheel, his face concealed beneath a white mask. He raised one black-gloved hand and waved sarcastically at me.

“Go faster!” I shouted at the driver, who stomped on the accelerator, causing the odometer to spike. But the Jeep continued to follow us.

It was him.

Player 2511.

How had he known I was leaving?

I gripped the seat and stared out the back window. The Jeep caught up with us quickly and began flashing its brights.

“Please! Can you go faster?” My eyes bounced between my driver and the Jeep, which, in a sudden maneuver, rammed the back of the taxi, sending us into a skid.

And that was it.

It happened in the space of a second.

The whole world stopped.

I heard the driver scream. I saw the too-tight curve.

I didn’t have time for any realizations as the car veered off the road and crashed into the guardrail.

My head was thrown violently against the window and a dull pain began to spread throughout my entire body.

I tightened my fist around the glass cube as my eyes drooped closed.

All at once, it seemed like I could feel Neil’s fingers gliding through my hair, his golden eyes warming like rays of sunlight and his lips curving into a loving smile.

“Would you say the darkness going hand in hand with the moon was strange?”

That’s what he’d asked me and it occurred to me that, if I had a second chance, I would have answered him, “Yes. I would call it strange. As strange as calling a woman Tinkerbell and likening her to Neverland. As strange as slipping a pearl trapped in a cube of glass into her pocket. Everything about you is strange, my disaster, but please keep on making the darkness walk hand in hand with the moon because…because the stars seem to have aligned over you.”

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Player 2511

I took my phone out of my pocket and dialed his number again, hoping this time would be the right time.

He answered after two rings.

“Finally! I called you six fucking times!” I burst out furiously.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he sighed. “Everything went as planned,” he told me.

“Is she alive?” I asked, bringing a cigarette to my lips.