Page 76 of Let the Game Begin

“I can’t go on like this. I can’t do it. I can’t keep letting you use mewhenever you want. I feel soiled.” I stared down at his hand squeezing my left breast then glanced back up at him, silently begging him to release me.

Neil blinked and glared at his own hand as if it had moved by itself—an instinctive, possessive gesture. He relaxed his fingers and stepped back. For a brief instant, he even looked upset, but then he turned inscrutable and apathetic again. Neil seemed to be having these confusing moments more and more often.

But he was in another world, too far away to know.

A person could face almost anything in life—hatred, anger, pain, desperation—but not an absence of love. I could deal with anyone who feltsomething, but I could not deal with someone who didn’t feel anything.

20

Neil

I stared at the cigarette and vomited a cloud of dense smoke back into the air.

I’d been addicted to nicotine since I was an adolescent. I loved smoking because it relaxed me; it calmed me down, even if calm was not usually one of my strong suits.

The air that day was cold and biting; people were swathed in overcoats and wool sweaters, and I just stood there, looking around indifferently.

“You wanna get a move on? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

The Krew were waiting impatiently for me to go into one of the restaurants near the university. I didn’t get why Xavier always insisted on going to that one shitty place after classes, but I suspected he’d fixated on one of the waitresses there. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Go in. I’ll catch up in a minute.” This cigarette was sacrosanct, and I was going to finish it.

“Fuck this!” Xavier walked into the restaurant, followed by Luke, Jennifer, and Alexia, while I stayed outside, deep in thought. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before. Instead, I mused constantly about the note and its hypothetical sender. The list of my enemies was a long one. I had made a lot of mistakes over the years, and now that was making everything more complicated.

I thought I had left my past behind me, but apparently it was chasing me down like a shadowy demon, impossible to fight. What I was most afraid of, though, was that whoever this maniac was, he might hurt my family, my siblings.

They were my Achilles’ heel. I would have killed with my bare hands anyone who dared to touch them.

My nightmares had also come back that night. I had seen Kimberly again, and it felt so real that I vomited up my entire dinner. My only consolation in the morning was the knowledge that she was still in prison, serving her sentence for what she had done, and I would never, ever see her again for the rest of my fucking life.

I chucked the cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it, sticking my hands into the pockets of my jacket. Then I joined the others inside, sitting at our usual table by the window.

“Finally, asshole. How long does it take you smoke a cigarette?”

Ignoring Xavier, I sat down next to Jennifer. Not because I wanted to be close to her, but because it was the only seat available. She gave me a smile, probably thinking that I was going to accept the suggestion she’d made a half hour before that we lock ourselves in the restaurant’s bathroom.

Delusional.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, like usual. Instead, I made myself comfortable and stretched my arm out over the back of Jennifer’s chair. Then, my eyes caught on a man at the counter who was reprimanding his son. He had him by the arm and he was shaking him all because the boy had spilled fruit punch on his pants.

Suddenly, he slapped the kid across the face so hard that it made my stomach knot up. In that moment, I could feel in my own body exactly what that boy was feeling in his. The burning sensation on my cheek, the throbbing in my head, the hot tears of humiliation…all at the hands of his own father.

Myown father.

I hated that piece of shit William Miller with every fiber of my being. I was ashamed to even share blood with him. I dreamed of the day I’d see him dead, because that was what he deserved.

“Hey.” Jennifer tried to stroke my face, but I grabbed her roughly by the wrist to stop her. One cutting look from me was enough to make her tremble.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered emphatically, though all the others heard me as well. She bobbed her head like a good bitch, and I released her wrist, though not before noticing Xavier’s sharp eyes fixed on me.

“Looks like someone’s edgy.” He quirked up one corner of his mouth and slapped the ass of a passing waitress, making her jump.

“Hey, baby, we asked you for four beers about ten minutes ago.” The girl blanched and then walked away without saying anything. We hadn’t been there ten minutes, but they never dared to argue with us.

“Can you try, for once, not to be a dick?” I gave him some shit because I hated it when he acted like a fucking bully. I didn’t like a lot of ways he acted, though I knew I did similar things.

“Sure thing, boss.” He pasted on a phony smile and glanced around, bored. Alexia sat beside him, waiting to be given a scrap of attention. Alexia had some kind of thing with Xavier, even though I fucked her, too. He was fine with me getting down with her. Him-her-me, her-me-him… That was how it had always been. We were used to sharing, especially when it came to women.