Page 79 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

EVA

The first rental car company wouldn’t rent to me—too young. The second wouldn’t either. But the third, I slipped a twenty across the desk and flirted a little bit, letting my too fucking big breasts push up against the counter and peek through the unbuttoned top of my coat.

“Are you sure, babe?” the woman at the counter said, blowing a bubble and popping it like the worst fucking stereotype of customer service. “They’re calling for more snow.”

Yes, I was fucking sure. I’d walked all over this podunk fucking town in my sneakers. My feet were freezing. My back ached. I wished I’d packed more warm clothes—clothes I didn’t think I’d need, not for moving from hotel to practice rink to arena and back.

The receptionist looked at me more closely, then clackity clackity went her nails over the keyboard. “Hold up. I can price match you if I can find a cheaper price online.”

She kept talking about what she could throw in for me, then looked up. “You’re not gonna steal it, right?”

My short laugh brought pity to her eyes .

“Right,” she said, going back to her keyboard, clack clack clacking clacking. “And you’re sure you don’t want to take the bus?”

A wave of dizziness passed over me, and I pressed a hand to my heart. Fuck. “Doesn’t leave until tonight,” I rasped. “I need to get home.”

She looked up at me, bottle blonde, not much older than myself but somehow more fully formed, as if I were a chimera, a mere illusion of a person who’d fade away at the slightest resistance. “You okay, honey?”

I took a deep breath, embarrassed of how my emotions played across my face, unable to hide them. They’d finally broken me, those fuckers, and I didn’t intend to stick around to see how much more damage they could do.

“No,” I said shortly, shoving my credit card across the counter, praying the infinitesimally small payment I’d made last week had freed up enough of the balance.

I must’ve looked a mess—rat’s nest of curly red hair, my eyes red with suppressed tears, my jaw set in a hard line.

My poverty embarrassed me too—so broke I didn’t know if I could afford to rent a car to go home.

Her fingers clacked some more. “Okay, darlin’. It’s about as cheap as I can make it. You’ll return it in Yorkfield tomorrow?”

I looked over my shoulder at the flurries of snow dancing outside. “Yes,” I said shortly.

She gave me the total, and it was cheaper than I expected—less than a ride share would have cost me, that’s for damn sure.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Get home safe,” she told me.

Ten minutes later, I slid into the driver’s seat of the small sedan, dropping my overnight bag in the passenger seat .

I’d learned to drive as a teenager, but I hadn’t driven much since then. No matter. It was like riding a bike. I just had to get the fuck out of this town and back to Yorkfield before I fell apart. Six hours. I could do this.

I started the car, enjoying the luxury of heated seats as the car warmed up, then shrugged out of my coat, wishing I hadn’t abandoned my sweatshirt in the locker room during my little temper tantrum.

My pride had driven me in there—the need to see Alek’s face, and Cole’s and Tristan’s, as I walked out on them.

Their apathy had broken me. I hadn’t cried, not yet. God knew I wanted to. I wanted to break down into a thousand pieces, shatter on the ground, and wail my misery to heaven.

But it wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

Instead, I put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

An hour into the trip, the flurries turned into fat snowflakes, meandering on their path down from the sky, melting as they hit the pavement.

I grinned at my luck. An odd flutter in my chest reminded me I should have eaten something this morning instead of avoiding any chance of running into the team at the hotel’s free buffet.

Then my phone started buzzing as text messages poured in. The game must have ended.

Too bad.

I turned off notifications so I wouldn’t see them then swiped back to the GPS app, ignoring the itchiness in my limbs, as if my arms were heavier than usual, especially my left.

Two hours into the trip, I turned the radio down as the snow began to stick, cars around me giving each other a wide berth and turning on their flashers. The dull ache in my chest, the one I’d been ignoring, intensified .

Shit.

It was fine. I could do this. I flexed my fingers around the steering wheel, trying to shake off the numbness in my fingers.

I was Eva fucking Jackson. I’d survived open heart surgery.

Twice. I’d figured out how to pay the mortgage on my childhood home as a teenager.

I’d convinced one of the world’s richest men not to kill my father.

But I’d never driven in conditions like this before.

Cars crawled past me, headlights dim in the whiteout. One by one, their taillights disappeared into the storm until I was alone on the highway.

My full attention on the road, I tried to ignore my heart skipping a beat, then another.

No.

No!

I took deep, shuddering breaths, forcing my lungs to work in a steady rhythm as I fought panic. My vision tunneled, and I hunched forward as I clutched the wheel.

C’mon, Eva. You can do this. Just a little further until the next exit.

My knuckles whitened as I tightened my grip on the wheel, hunched over, swearing softly as the snow limited my visibility, eyeing the cars pulled over on the side of the road.

Did I even have enough gas to keep the heat on in the car for hours?

No, I couldn’t afford not to get home tonight.

I didn’t have enough money for a hotel, much less for food.

Shit.

My heart skipped another beat, and this time, I couldn’t catch my breath.

A flash of red caught my attention, brake lights ahead, suddenly too close. My foot jerked toward the brake pedal as my heart stuttered in my chest. Too fast. I was going too fast .

Time slowed. Through the curtain of snow, I saw it all with horrible clarity—the semi-truck jackknifing across three lanes, the cars sliding sideways on black ice, the guard rail rushing toward me as I yanked the wheel.

My heart seized.

Not now. Please, not now.

High beams blazed in my mirror as another car spun out behind me. The sound of screeching tires cut through the muffled silence of the snow. I tried to suck in a breath, but my lungs wouldn’t work. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in at the edges.

And then metal screamed against metal, glass exploded inward, and my car shuddered with a sickening crunch between the two forces crushing it.

The airbag erupted in my face, filling my nose with the smell of gunpowder and burning plastic.

Through the broken window, snowflakes landed on my cheeks, each one a tiny, beautiful shock of cold.

Please.

Dad.

I’m sorry.

And then, the darkness took me.