Page 96 of Let the Game Begin

“My personal life is none of your concern,” I hissed through gritted teeth. Ours was a specifically female challenge, and we were not playing on a level field, as she now knew a lot more about me than I did her. All I wanted to do was take Jennifer by her dumb pigtails and smash her head into a wall, but I couldn’t do that. I was like her. I wasn’t likethem.

“Okay, then. If you don’t want your man to find out everything, then stay away from mine,” she threatened, and I nearly laughed in her face. Stay away from herwhat?

Apparently, Jennifer was having a one-sided relationship with Neil. He wasn’t exclusively sleeping with her any more than he was exclusively sleeping with me. But the problem was clear: Jennifer was possessive and jealous all the same.

“Really, now? Can we say that Neil is ‘yours’? From what I understand, he’s still fucking you through a rubber so he doesn’t get an STI!” I’d blurted it out before I even really thought it through. I had grabbed on to Neil’s admission that he used condoms with everyone except me, hoping that he hadn’t lied to me. Judging by the disbelieving look on the blond’s shocked face, he hadn’t.

Jennifer’s mouth fell open, and then her face turned furious just before she launched herself at me with shocking violence. She pulled my hair until I screamed and then slapped me so hard my eyes shut automatically. I groaned in pain. I fell to my knees and tried to shield my head with my arms as she started raining punches and kicks down on me.

I couldn’t see anything; I could only feel my body jerking in the places where she hit me. A blow to my left side, another to the right, another one to my shoulder while the taste of blood spread across my tongue from my lower lip. It already felt swollen and painful.

People saw, people heard, but they did not act. They did nothing at all. It was like everyone was petrified. As I cowered on my knees, taking a beating that I didn’t deserve, I realized that no one was ever going to stop people like the Krew from hurting others. Fear, social pressure, and threats alwayswon out over the defense of dignity, which people like them trampled on the daily.

I didn’t make a sound, and no tears ran down my face. I was all alone there, my hands raised up to protect my face, unable to get to my feet. In my heart, I had already decided that I was going to hold out; I was going to outlast her. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of hearing me beg her to stop.

“Selene!” I thought I heard Alyssa’s voice and then Logan’s. Finally, it seemed that someone might be coming to help me. It was definitely my friends, but I couldn’t see anything except the darkness of my own hands over my eyes.

Someone tried to stop Jennifer; I could tell from her outraged screams, but by that point, she had transformed into a ferocious beast, thirsting for revenge. Her jealousy had completely taken over, and perhaps she really did intend to kill me.

A final strike against my hip made me flinch. Instinctively, I dropped my hands to cover the wounded area, curling forward. My breath caught at the intensity of the pain; for a moment, my lungs were getting no oxygen at all.

“Jennifer!”

That voice… That baritone was the only one in the world that could have given me enough strength to lift up my chin.

Neil grabbed the blond girl by both arms and stopped her blows. He crushed her against his chest and then turned his golden eyes on the victim of Jennifer’s ire. When he saw me, he look surprised, like he had been expecting someone else.

I looked at him, and that was the moment when I felt like crying. Tears seemed to well all the way up from the bottom of my heart to the corners of my eyes.

“Oh my God, Selene! Are you okay?” Logan rushed to kneel down next to me, but I couldn’t look at him. I remained trapped by Neil’s eyes as he just kept staring at me in utter shock and disbelief. Jennifer was breathing heavily, her arms still forced against her sides in his grip. He released her in slow motion, like his body had been drained of energy.

“Selene.” Logan touched my face, and I felt his cool hands on my lowerlip, examining the wound there. But still my eyes couldn’t look away from Neil. He pursed his lips, and in the working of his jaw, I could see how tense he was. Then he tightened his hand into a fist and slowly looked back at Jennifer, who was now surrounded by the rest of the Krew.

“Okay, man, chill out.” Xavier tried to neutralize the situation, smiling a nervous smile. “It was just a stupid catfight.”

Neil’s honey-colored eyes were alight with rage. He ignored Xavier and continued to stare menacingly at Jennifer, who didn’t have the nerve to emit a single syllable. Beautiful and fearsome, he was daring her to say something in her defense, knowing full well that it would be useless. When she kept silent, he advanced on her. She began to shake, taking a step back from him.

Neil put both hands around her throat and slammed her back against the wall. The natural color drained out of Jennifer’s face, and it began to go violet. He lifted her cleanly off the floor and the blond girl began kicking frantically against Neil’s incontrovertible strength.

“Feeling short of breath, Jen?” he said softly, just a short distance from her lips. He looked like a lunatic. Even his voice sounded deeper and more far away—far from reason. Jennifer shook violently, her body racked with involuntary convulsions, and her eyes rolled back in her head. She was suffocating.

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.” Neil was quoting Thich Nhat Hanh. “How are you feeling right now?” he said, staring at Jennifer, whose face had begun to turn gray. She made only occasional guttural sounds as she attempted to draw in breath, and even her legs had stopped shaking.

“What does it feel like to suffocate?” He questioned her again as her eyes flicked back to him, begging him silently to release her. But Neil’s fingers continued to exert deadly pressure around her neck.

No one stepped up to defuse the insane situation, not even Xavier or Luke. Even Logan just stood there next to me, dumbstruck at what his brother was doing.

This was unreal: Jennifer could very well die, and no one was lifting a finger.

“Touch her again, and I’ll kill you. I’llkillyou, Jennifer,” Neil menaced,right up close to her face before opening his hands and letting her collapse to the ground. She coughed uncontrollably. Her face was all red, her eyes were teary, and there were livid marks on her neck.

Neil walked over and knelt down beside me. He didn’t speak; he scooped me up gently in his arm. A pained grimace had been etched into my face, but it immediately disappeared when I put my head against his marble chest.

“Show’s over, assholes!” he snapped at the people still inertly watching the scene. I didn’t have the strength to say anything or to get him to let me go. So I allowed myself to be cradled in his strong arms as I soaked in his amber scent.

He moved through the space like a victorious gladiator traversing the arena after a bout, but there was no enthusiasm in the air around us, no celebratory atmosphere, just a deep, anguished silence.

“Thank you,” I murmured, before my eyes fell shut and I allowed myself to lulled into unconsciousness by a sudden drowsiness…