Game over boys, p.14
Game Over Boys, page 14
Also, I can’t breathe. Also, also … somehow I have ice cream all down the front of my dress. When did that happen? Maxine sheepishly hands me the clutch that I dropped at the party, and it’s somewhat comforting to see that even she is a tad intimidated by Tess Vanguard.
Tess strides into the living room before turning to face us, her eyes moving straight to Parrish. She licks her ice cream, as if nothing at all is amiss, but I see the way her other hand squeezes her own clutch. That, and she’s left the barest of indents in her waffle cone.
She’s upset, but she’s trying not to show it. With her clutch, she points at the signal jammer on the coffee table, dropping her hand just in time for Laverne to walk in.
“You proposed to Lumen Hearst?” Laverne asks, sniffing in a pompous, perfunctory sort of way. “You’re a good boy, Parrish.”
The smile that taints his lips is pure deviance. Nobody in their right mind would ever call Parrish Vanguard a ‘good boy’.
Especially not me.
I want to stomp on his foot. I want to slap him. I want to curse and yell and break things until somebody notices how silently I’ve been screaming all this time. I look over at him, and even if I know this is one of Justin’s stunts, it hurts. It stings.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so angry that my rage went from hot to cold.
There’s a glacier inside of me, a fissure ripping me up, a chasm of ice that descends into shadows.
I’m going to bury Justin in it.
It’s not just a thought anymore, not just an idea: it’s a fucking promise.
“You are not going to marry Lumen,” Tess says, her voice a blade of steel. I imagine that steel pressed to Justin’s throat, and it fortifies me somehow. I reach up to my face and realize there are tears wet and glistening on my cheeks. “You don’t have to, is what I mean. If, after you turn eighteen, it’s what you want, I won’t stop you.”
“I’m going to bed.” Parrish turns and takes off without offering me comfort. How can he? Even with the signal jammer, there’s the threat of the staff. There’s Laverne. There’s Maxx. I curl my lip in a scowl as Parrish saunters off, turning to toss one last, insouciant quip over his shoulder. Ever the cruel, little prince. “Punish me later, if you want.”
Laverne watches him go before turning a challenging look on Tess.
“If he wants his inheritance—and I assure you that he wants it more than a teenage crush on his stepsister—he’ll do what he’s told.” Laverne heads down the same hallway where Parrish disappeared, leaving myself, Chasm, X, Maxine, and Tess in the cavernous living room.
I imagine my grandparents are asleep in the guestroom. A small reprieve in the unending nightmare that seems to be my life. They don’t need to see me right now, silent tears streaking my cheeks.
“You’re all in on this, aren’t you?” Tess asks with a bitter laugh and another lick of her ice cream. She’s staring at the wall now instead of at any of us. “Am I the last to know?”
“I imagine the authorities are the last to know,” is how I respond, and Tess looks up, a brief flicker of guilt in her eyes before she fortifies herself. Parrish … literally just proposed to Lumen in front of half our school. There’s a good chance I might be sick.
I turn away and head for the stairs, uncaring who—if anyone—is following behind me.
Unfortunately (fortunately?) for me, Chasm is always a step ahead.
His palm slams into the door, and he slips in behind me, closing it by leaning his back against it. His face is a mess of fury, spattered with droplets of blood that might be his or … just as easily could be somebody else’s. I hope it’s Gavin’s. Or Antonio’s.
I hope Veronica’s face hurts as much as my knuckles.
“Hey.” Chasm’s voice is soft as I head in the direction of the bathroom, stripping off my borrowed dress as I go. There’s the quiet murmur of foreign curses behind me, the click of a lock, and then he’s following me into the bathroom. “You know he’d never hurt you on purpose, right?”
“You mean like Maxx?” I toss the question over my shoulder, turning back to the shower and starting it as Chasm’s sturdy footfalls sound behind me. Was it really only a month ago that we had a threesome in this room after prom? Feels like eons.
Is it possible that time isn’t simply measured by hours and days and years, but also by experiences? If so, I must be an ancient crone by now.
Chasm stops just behind me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body against my skin. He puts his hands on the curve of my waist, and my breath hitches.
“Like I said before, Maxx is a fucking wildcard. He always has been.” I turn around in Chasm’s arms, like a bee seeking a flower. I just want to see his face right now. He’s … it suddenly feels like he’s the only one left.
I know that’s not true. I know it. I want to kick myself. This entire night stinks of Justin’s interference.
And yet … it still hurts. The pain is digging so deep into me that it’s becoming harder to tell where it ends and I begin, like this is all I am now: fear and anxiety and pain. It’s psychological torture, is what this is. While I know it’s possible that Justin could be worse—believe it or not, there are bigger monsters out there—the stress is wearing on me. Big time. Huge.
I look up and into Chasm’s eyes, the pinch between his brows and the sharp downturn of his pretty mouth giving away his stress. He looks tired to me, like maybe there are even more secrets that I don’t know about. Knowing Justin, there very well could be.
Besides, I know these boys too well by now: if they all had to hurt me to ultimately save me, they’d do it. They’d do almost anything. Including break up with me. Including propose to someone else. Including murder.
And then I think about Maxx and my sister, and I’m confused all over again. If she was his primary concern all along, would things have played out any differently?
In the beginning, Justin had me hurting the people I loved, playing tricks, playing dirty. Now, everyone else is doing the same to me, and I hate it. It’s so much worse. I’d rather have my fingernails pulled off than endure this emotional pain.
“But Parrish …” Chasm finally hazards, sighing heavily and reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His eyes close, and I can’t help but admire the way his dark lashes rest against his pale cheeks. He really is very pretty. His eyes open again and catch me like prey; I can’t move. I’m paralyzed. He looks fierce as hell all of a sudden, and I suddenly realize that pretty is a very silly word to apply to Kwang-seon McKenna. He is nothing short of devastating. “No way. And with Lumen? I mean, come on.” He lets out a harsh laugh and then steps back, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. “I’m so tired, Naekkeo. Can I crash in your room?”
“Can you?” I ask with a small laugh that in no way reflects my actual mood. Not only is one of my friends dead, not only did Maxim Wright betray me, not only did Parrish just propose to freaking Lumen of all people but … I’m planning on murdering my dad. It’s sort of a lot to take in. “Will you please, more like.” I step back from Chasm, slipping out of my bra and underwear to get into the shower.
After a moment, he strips down and joins me, but nothing happens. Just like the shower we took together after we delivered JJ’s body to Mr. Fosser’s house and then, at Mr. Volli’s request, blew holes in his corpse.
What a night that was.
I’m sure I’ll have many worse ones before all this is over.
I hate being right all the damn time.
Thursday.
Which means tomorrow is Friday. As in, the night of the Camp Kellogg party. You know, the one where we’re going to kidnap Veronica, so we don’t have to kill her.
Between me and Chasm, I’m the first to wake up. I sit up, blankets pooling around my waist, and I stare down at him sleeping peacefully beside me. For the briefest moment, I allow myself to imagine what it’d be like to have a future with Chasm, one where I can wake up next to him every day and not worry that my father might have him executed if I don’t ask how high when he tells me to jump.
I reach up, running the fingers of both hands through my hair and exhaling heavily when I drop them back to my lap. My gaze is fixated on the dresser drawer where I’ve stuffed my phone. The thought of turning it on and checking my messages makes me sick, but, drawing on some well of inner strength I wasn’t even sure I had, I force myself to my feet.
As soon as I turn the screen on, I see that there’s a message from Justin.
Home on Sunday. I’ll pick you up at your mother’s on Monday morning, so we can attend the hearing together.
Bile rushes up my throat, but I choke it down, tossing my phone on the nightstand before I slip out the door and into the hallway. Softly, so as not to wake Chasm up.
“Hey.”
I find Maxx waiting there, leaned up against the wall, hands tucked into his pockets. He lifts his head slowly to look at me, green eyes dark enough that I wonder how I ever compared them to emeralds. They’re the color of envy, as if I’ve never seen the real Maxx Wright before now.
I pause there, my mind torn between worry over what’s going to happen on Monday—there’s no way Tess will let me go with Justin now and yet … she has to … more than ever, she has to—and Maxx. He pushes up off the wall and comes over to stand in front of me.
I’m immediately confused as to why he is here, and Parrish is not.
“What do you want?” I ask, trying and failing not to sound exasperated. He makes a show of using the bug detector, and it occurs to me that it’s always been him. Maxx checking for mics and cameras. Maxx checking my phone for me and reporting back. He’s had plenty of opportunities to be duplicitous.
He finishes and drops it by his side.
“We need Chasm up, so we can plan for tomorrow night. We can’t exactly wait until we’ve got Veronica lying on a tarp to start making decisions.” If I’m not mistaken, X sounds annoyed, like there’s something about this moment that’s pissing him off.
I give him a look, but before I can respond, Maxine’s door opens and she’s striding out to stand beside us. A few months ago, I’d have given literally anything to have her staying in the room next to mine—like, for real, I would’ve cut off a pinky toe—but right now? It just makes things more complicated.
Here’s the thing though: if having both Maxes around makes things uncomfortable and one of them has to go, it’s going to be the one with the XY chromosomes.
“What’s … happening?” Maxine asks, clearing her throat and shifting nervously. It really feels like I’m the third wheel in this situation, like I am the clueless little sister. I’m transported right back to the coffee shop that day when I met Maxx for the first time and he pretended not to recognize me.
Then I realize something that should’ve occurred to me a long, long time ago.
“Why were you driving your own car?” I ask, whirling to face Maxine with my hands trembling at my sides. Something is wrong here. Something is very, very wrong. Even worse than last night.
“What?” she asks, her expression this odd mix of innocence and guilt that makes me want to scream.
“That day at the coffee shop, when I met Maxx for the first time. He took me home, but you didn’t come with us.” I don’t like how accusatory my voice sounds, but I can’t help it. This random fact is really bothering me all of a sudden. “You told me that Maxx was driving you up in the Gladiator and then …” Not to mention that he got there before you.
Maxine laughs, and the sound freaks me out. It’s more like a surprised laugh, like I’ve caught her with her hand in the cookie jar.
She exchanges a look with Maxx over my head, and I freeze.
“Hey Naekkeo,” Chasm murmurs sleepily, opening the bedroom door. He has my phone in his hand, but he’s frowning as he stares at the screen. “You might want to check this.”
I take it from him with a trembling hand, both Maxes staring at me in such a way that I feel like I’m under interrogation.
“I … was mad at Maxx when we first left Eugene; I didn’t want to ride with him,” my sister admits, but I’m trying to drown her out. I won’t lie. I don’t think I want to hear what she’s going to say. “We put each other on Bluetooth and talked it out during the drive; I wasn’t mad by the time I got there.”
“Mad about what?” I ask, still staring at my phone but knowing that whatever is waiting on the other side of this screen isn’t something I’m keen to run headfirst at. I look back up at Maxine, at the kind lines of her face, the face of the person I trust the most in this world.
“We had a fight over Mom.” Maxine exhales strangely, like bringing up her past with X is actively painful. She looks like she might be sick, too. We’re both prone to throwing up during stressful situations; my sister just hides it better than I do.
“Over Mom?” I ask, looking to see if Chasm has any clue what they’re talking about. The way he’s staring at his friend, it’s hard to say. He could still be angry about X breaking my heart. Could be something more. Justin has successfully created a situation where I’m questioning literally everyone around me—even if I know they’re on my side. Just because they’re working for my benefit doesn’t mean they’re not full of shit, too.
Self-sacrifice is a big thing in our circle. Even I’m actively scheming to finish this on my own terms.
Even I am lying.
“I told her like it is: Saffron is a kidnapper, and she ruined Tess’ life. I wasn’t shy about it.” Maxx doesn’t sound apologetic whatsoever, looking at my sister with a tight mouth but a somewhat gentle gaze. His eyes say it might hurt, but keep going. His eyes say we’ve got this, Maxie. “Loving someone doesn’t mean agreeing on every little thing.”
Hm.
“We broke up for all of one night, but we were back together by the time we all met up the next day.” Maxine’s voice sounds choked, like if she could go back in time and save me from this, she would. She would fly to New York and stop Nevaeh from turning on that stupid, fucking Netflix documentary. She would keep me as Dakota Banks for as long as she could, the truth be damned. Truth is important to Maxine, but not as important as keeping me safe.
I’m shaking all over now, but it’s not her that I’m mad at: it’s X.
“I’m so sorry, Kota,” he tells me, and he sounds like he really means it. What he’s apologizing for now, I’m not sure. A fight with my sister that doesn’t mean anything at the moment? Something else? I don’t care.
“You sound like a broken record.” I ignore him, unlocking my phone to stare at the texts that Justin has sent me.
At first, I don’t process anything, not until Parrish comes stomping up the stairs. He looks about two seconds away from breaking someone’s face.
“Tell me you didn’t,” Parrish says as he sweeps down the hallway like a tempest, getting right up in Maxx’s face. “There are certain lines you just don’t cross.” He points at his friend, stabbing him in the chest. I think if he didn’t do that, he’d just hit Maxx and he wouldn’t stop hitting.
Something has shifted overnight, and it feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t know what that is.
Chasm, either, for that matter. He’s staring between his friends like he’s never seen them before.
“Oh, I don’t think I can do this,” Maxine wails, putting her face in her hands. Her shoulders shake like she’s sobbing. Fear lances through my heart. I can feel myself metaphorically bleeding to death. My eyes lift to Chasm’s, waiting for him to turn back to me.
I read Justin’s newest text again. One more time. No, no, a third. A fourth.
I’m still not getting it.
And then I turn and throw my phone down the stairs.
Parrish is still shaking with anger as he peers down the hallway to check for any of Laverne’s employees, and then he turns all of that anger back over to Maxx.
“Tell her this is all bullshit, that we’ll do what we have to do to get out of this.”
Maxine is practically weeping now.
“What did it say, Little Sister?” Chasm is whispering, taking me by the shoulders and doing his best to gently shake me back to the realm of the living. He asks me again in both Korean and Japanese. It’d be cute if I hadn’t just read what I read.
If I wasn’t thinking what I’m thinking.
Somehow, even after being kidnapped and living a lie, I was okay. Because I made friends with the boys so quickly. Because I fell for the boys so quickly. It was me and them; we were a team.
We don’t feel so much like a team right now, and I realize that if I lived sixteen years of my life not knowing that feelings and ideas are not quite as set in stone as we pretend them to be … then why not this? Why can’t Maxx actually be into Maxine? Why can’t Parrish actually be with Lumen?
Makes sense now, I guess, why Justin said he wanted them set up in pairs like that.
I start laughing then, and I can’t stop. It’s hysterical. It’s crazy. But what I just read makes act on your feelings for Chasm look like an easy task. I’m bent in half, howling as the three boys and one weepy older sister all go still and silent while they stare at me.
Then suddenly I’m on my knees without knowing how I got there.
Chasm is right there with me.
“You’re freaking me the fuck out here,” he murmurs, eyes so wide they look like marbles. “What did it say?”
Oh, one more thing, Princess.
I told you that everyone in this town is cursed—Maxim Wright included.
They are liars, cheaters, thieves. They are actors. They are heartbreakers.
I was going to request that Maxx and Maxine consummate their relationship, but it’s already been done. Many times over. Doesn’t seem like they ever stopped dating. Enjoy.
There were seven videos sent to me that I did not click on.
I stop laughing just long enough to notice Tess clambering up the stairs like a person possessed.
“Have any of you seen Kimber?” she asks, breathing like she’s climbed more than steps, like she’s scaled a mountain. “She sent me a text telling me she was going out, and I can’t get ahold of her.”
