Page 64 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

“Alas! Julie hasn’t given it up to Adam yet,” Jake said, laughing along with Cory.

“Shut up, you moron!” Adam admonished, throwing a wadded up paper ball at him.

“So this is how you all study, huh?” Kyle came up behind his cousin Cory, resting his hands on his shoulders.

He was wearing the same long black coat over his tall, slim body, and his dark hair was gathered into a messy knot at the nape of his neck.

A silver ring gleamed in one ear, and his enchanting blue eyes focused immediately on mine.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back easily.

“Hey, Nabokov,” he teased me.

“Do you really think we get much studying done with these idiots?” Alyssa grumbled as Kyle’s gaze continued to burn into me.

He watched me with a marked persistence, which made me hugely uncomfortable.

Only one person looked at me with that much intensity, and his golden eyes were the only ones I wanted on me.

I looked away, breaking eye contact with him and saw Professor Cooper talking to the librarian not far from our table. There was a swell of dread in my chest when I remembered the way Neil had threatened her in that empty classroom.

I observed her for a long time, focusing on one particular detail that had been right there under my nose this whole time: she had blond hair. She was a blond. Like the nurse at the health center, like Jennifer…like I wasn’t. All of Neil’s other lovers were blond.

I just kept staring at her as she sat there in her tasteful dark pantsuit, which made her look beautiful and definitely highlighted her rosy glow.

“Blond…” I whispered, as though this was another piece I needed to complete the puzzle that was Neil Miller.

Lost in these considerations, I grew preoccupied, even ignoring Logan right beside me.

“You’re quiet today,” he told me later when we were heading home in his Audi R8.

“Does your brother have some sort of fixation on blonds?” I murmured, looking out the window at the illuminated signs in all the stores.

Logan was silent for several seconds, and I turned to look at him.

“What makes you think that?” He was watching the road in front of us, but it suddenly seemed like he was on edge. He worried his upper lip and kept drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“His lovers are all blonds,” I pointed out in a searching tone. I didn’t think it was just coincidence.

“Sure, but I wouldn’t call it a fixation, more like…” He paused to consider. “A preference,” he finished.

So it was true: I wasn’t his type of woman, but until two weeks ago, he had seemed to want me anyway.

I shook my head in frustration. Logan knew his brother better than me, and maybe I was just seeing connections where there were none.

Neil might have preferred blonds to brunettes, but it wasn’t like rejected the latter either.

“I think he’s also got a fixation on personal hygiene. I mean, how many showers do you take per day?”

We stopped at a traffic light and Logan sighed. He took a long time to respond, and by that point, he seemed actually nervous.

“No, he’s just really into cleanliness. He’s always been like that,” he said placatingly, pretending not to know how many times a day Neil washed himself and how long he spent in the shower.

Whatever Logan knew, he wasn’t going to tell me. Neil was still his brother, while I was just…a friend, I supposed.

When we arrived at the house, I got out of the car and slowly made my way up to the front steps. I took them sluggishly, but before I could reach the front door, I spotted a package right in front of it.

Another one.

I glanced around, but there was no sign of anyone, so I knelt down in front of the package, careful not to touch it.

“Selene, what are you doing?” Logan caught up to me and halted when he saw the dark box that had my full attention.

“Shit. Again?” he asked warily.

“Again,” I confirmed, looking up at him.

After just a moment’s hesitation, we went into the house, carrying the box and all the stress that came with it.

We sat down on the living room sofa, not even bothering to greet Anna, who was occupied with household chores. Both of us were experiencing a wicked case of déjà vu.

Logan sighed, and I gave his shoulder a pat to encourage him to open the package. He did so with such creeping slowness that it shredded my nerves and skyrocketed my anxiety.

When it was finally open, he pulled out an object wrapped in black paper, which he tore roughly away. All we could see was…

“What the hell?” he blurted out.

“It’s a music box…”

It was white and blue, decorated with clouds and angels, presumably to represent heaven.

“This should make it play.” I turned a small crank on the back of the box, and a strange piece of music began to waft through the living room. The music box slowly rotated on its base and then opened like a shell to reveal an angel with clipped wings, its face painted red and its eyes gone.

“God!” Logan flinched back, as if to protect himself from the shocking figure, but I watched the angel as it spun, accompanied by the delicate yet macabre melody. Eventually, I spotted a small note carefully folded up and tucked between its wings.

“Logan.” I swallowed hard and tapped his shoulder, pointing out the paper.

He set the music box down on the coffee table in front of us and grabbed the note to read it:

An angel whose wings have been clipped, deprived of its own glow,

thrown into the darkest shadows, unable for so long to see the sun’s light…

An angel who did not know the word HATE, an angel who did not

condemn the wounded rose, an angel who learned to dance

in the darkness, transforming itself into the worst of devils,

transforming its world into the worst of Hells.

The Devil is in the details.

The Devil is also with you.

The mystery of the music box.

Player 2511

Logan and I remained silent for an unknowable amount of time.

The sender was Player 2511 again, and this note had also been typed and printed.

My heart was pounding like a jackhammer against my rib cage.

I looked over at Logan and saw that he was as shocked as I was.

Neither of us knew what to do or say in that moment.

The sound of footsteps drew our attention to the marble staircase in the center of the room. Neil. His black sweatshirt clung to his chest, displaying its breadth and strength. His easy, masculine presence sidetracked my train of thought, making me forget for a second the situation we were in.

We didn’t need to explain anything to him. Neil stopped right before the table and stared at that damned music box. The he looked at the open package and the note in his brother’s hand. “Him again?” I could hear concern in his voice.

Logan nodded and handed him the piece of paper. Neil’s golden eyes flickered over the ominous words, and his face twisted into a focused, thoughtful expression.

“Does it mean anything to you, Neil?” Logan asked. Neil threw the note back onto the coffee table and glared at the music box.

“No, I have no idea what it means,” he answered. He ran a hand over his face while the other went to his hip. For the first time, he seemed agitated as well.

“I think we should go to the police,” I said, and his honey-colored eyes snapped to me. I sucked in a breath at the force of his stare, which had pinned me to the sofa as surely as if he’d done it with his large, strong hands.

“And tell them what? All we could do is file a worthless complaint against an unknown person and nothing would come of it,” he bit out, making me flinch.

“I’m just suggesting solutions. You don’t need to snap at me like that.” I scolded him, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

“Calm down, everyone.” Logan cut in to defuse the tension. “Try to think, Neil. Could it be someone you know? Maybe one of the Krew?” he asked thoughtfully, but Neil tossed his head and gave him a mocking smile.

“I know you hate them, little brother, but my friends would never do something like this to me. Not to me , for fuck’s sake!” he answered firmly, pointing at himself as though it were impossible to even imagine such a thing happening.

To be fair, Neil wasn’t just a member of the Krew, he was clearly their leader. Someone whom both Luke and Xavier seemed to fear quite a bit, which I’d seen for myself on several occasions.

“I’m just trying to figure this out,” Logan argued, getting to his feet.

“Planting doubts about the Krew? Nice move, bro.” Neil winked at Logan and ran a hand through his chestnut hair, ruffling it.

“Would you really be surprised if it was them?” Logan insisted.

“They’re insane, and that blond you’re screwing beat the crap out of Selene not even two weeks ago!

” he shouted, then turned to point at me.

Neil turned to me as well and examined me thoughtfully.

A shadow passed over his face, further darkening his grim expression before he turned back to his brother.

“That blond I’m screwing,” he repeated pointedly, “has learned her lesson, and she, like the others, knows not to touch Selene again.”

They were talking about me like I wasn’t even in the room and had no say in this matter. Yet, I felt strangely…protected.

“You should distance yourself from them. It’s your fault we’re even in this situation.

You and the people you hang around with and all the shit you pull!

” Logan accused him, and Neil recoiled as though he’d been slapped.

I didn’t understand what specifically they were talking about, as I knew little about Neil’s past and somehow even less about his present.

The human disaster in front of me, however, must have known exactly what Logan meant.

He huffed an annoyed breath and then quirked a corner of his mouth as his gaze shifted to the music box.

He picked it up and held it in his hand, turning it this way and that for a few moments as it rested in his palm and then…

he hurled it against the wall, reducing it to a thousand tiny pieces.

The deafening, unexpected noise bounced off the walls of the living room, and I shut my eyes against it. When I opened them again, I saw Logan standing frozen, observing the entire scene.

“Feel better now?” he asked coldly while Neil panted. The skin on his cheekbones was red, and the tendons in his neck stood out. One raised vein protruded from his temple, and his full lips were parted and dry.

“Fuck you,” Neil hissed menacingly, leveling a glare at his brother.

Just then, someone opened the front door and walked in. Chatter filled up the room. It was Mia and Matt, along with Chloe.

“I’m so happy you’re going back to school tomorrow and…” Mia’s smile fell as she noticed the shards of ceramic scattered all over the floor. Matt, on the other hand, shut the door and immediately put an arm around the baby of the family.

“What’s going on here?” Mia looked from the destroyed music box to her children before turning back to Chloe and shooing her away. “Go on to your room, darling,” she said in a soothing voice, though I was sure that she herself was feeling shaken and concerned.

With just a fleeting glance to her brothers, Chloe went across the living room and up the stairs without offering a reply. Matt stepped up to join his girlfriend, and apparently not at all surprised by the situation, looked closely at Neil.

“Are we back to this, Neil?” Mia addressed her eldest child directly with a stern, investigatory tone. Neil said nothing but held his mother’s gaze without any sort of fear. “If you can’t stop having these sorts of reactions, I’ll be forced to—”

“Kick me out? Or send me to the nuthouse?” he said with a goading smile as he turned to face his mother. Mia swallowed hard and shook her head, shifting her eyes to the music box that had been demolished by her son’s rage.

“Where did I go wrong with you?” Sadness shadowed her pale face, and Matt rested a hand on her shoulder to bolster her.

“Everywhere,” Neil answered, staring intently at her.

“It was my fault, Mom. I provoked him,” Logan added, but his mother didn’t even look at him. She stared stubbornly at Neil.

“You got every part of it wrong,” Neil continued.

“You never listened to what I was trying to tell you with my silences. You never looked into the things I drew or my teachers’ suspicions.

” His gave her a mirthless smile as he moved closer to her.

“You were too focused on yourself, too busy with your career and the dinners you were going to with William while the world pulled me down and the monsters devoured my soul.” He wasn’t merely looking her in the eyes, he was incinerating her from the inside out; the tears that had started pouring down her cheeks were evidence of that.

Matt remained silent, saying nothing in Mia’s defense. Presumably, he knew something that I didn’t and maybe it was somehow justified, this hatred that Neil had for his mother.

“I drew it for you. The black was for fear, yellow was for her hair, and red…red was for hell. Was it really that hard to decode? I was a kid; I didn’t know any other way to tell you what was happening to me…” he continued in a whisper. Mia bowed her head, audibly sobbing.

For my part, I couldn’t understand any of this, but I could feel Neil’s pain. Surprisingly, I felt like crying myself. A chill crept under my skin, despite the warmth of the room. The chill of his words and his faraway eyes, sucked into the darkness.

“I’m sorry…” Mia’s thin voice shattered the intense silence. Matt allowed his hand to slide from his girlfriend’s shoulder and lowered his arm, surrendering her to her cruel fate. There was nothing to be done to fill the void in Neil’s golden eyes and in his beautiful, miserable face.

“Doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter anymore.”

Peter Pan had ceased to fly.

He didn’t want to.

The stars were winking out; the curtain was descending.

The show was over.