“HA!” Lizzy screamed, raising her arms in victory as the air hockey puck slipped into my side of the table. “SERVES YOUR ASS RIGHT!”
I gave her an amused look. “Someone’s competitive tonight.”
“Yeah!” she responded. “Because you keep kicking my ass!”
I smirked.
Thanks to Jase and his training, yes.
The moment the previous moment sank deep into my thoughts… how he was pressed to me last night, I felt my cheeks heat.
“Hello, girls,” someone said from beside us.
Lizzy and I screamed, but I just gazed up to find Jase standing there.
“Really?” he said, smile widening. “Now both of you are on edge? Sad.”
I caught my breath before glaring at him. “You enjoy this, I swear.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I glared daggers, and he just gave me a dark smirk back.
Lizzy then smiled. “Hey, Jase.”
He glanced over at her then, and I cut my eyes to hers.
“You know, you should…” she paused before making some kind of definitive hand gesture that involved throwing something, cutting the air, and dumping some liquid into her mouth.
My brows drew together. “What?”
“Ah, I see,” Jase responded then, making me blink before he smiled at me. “She wants me to buy some credits so we can play some games together.”
I stared. “How the hell did you get that from her?”
“It was easy,” he said, walking past me. “Read the gestures. Some twin you are.” He then smirked. “I’ll be at the horror game, Darkness of the Typhoon.See you there.” He winked at me.
And he was gone.
I then snapped my eyes back to Lizzy. “What are you doing?”
“Making a move for you,” she responded.
“He’s stalking me!” I whisper-yelled. “He’s crazy!”
“Then why did you kiss him?!” she whisper-yelled back. “You’re clearly attracted to him!”
“Are you insane?!”
“Obviously!”
I just grumbled low under my breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.
She just smiled. “Go hang with him! I’ll hitch a ride home with Twilight and Pierce.”
I glanced over at her then, brows drawing together. “They’re here?”
“Duh,” she said then, waving to me. “By-eeeeee!”
And she skipped off.
I sighed then, closing my eyes tightly.
She was going to get me killed, I swear.
I then turned and made my way back to the back of the arcade, breaths softening as I continued forward, until I met the end.
It was dark here… screams echoing through the horror section as I stilled, breaths straining.
I stopped there, glancing around nervously before finding Jase leaning against a horror game with a curtain hiding the seats.
Great place to kill me.
He just smirked. “You look uneasy.”
“I don’t like horror games.”
“You’re playing with me. There’s no need to be afraid.”
Yeah, right.
He just nodded to the curtain.
I started to it then and slipped under the curtain, settling onto one of the seats as a bunch of zombies on the start screen jumped out at me.
I cried out, throwing myself back.
“The game hasn’t even started yet, chill out.” Jase laughed softly as he entered the other side.
He settled beside me and swiped his card on one of the games.
I sniffled; breaths uneasy as I stared at the screen.
He then pressed the start button, and I stared as the game chimed… and the first scene played out.
He and I were the two characters, and we were creeping through broken halls filled with corpses and some kind of… sludge.
I just watched the screen carefully, knowing this was a cut scene.
The moment my character took a step further, the world suddenly blurred.
I stopped watching, brows drawing together when the walls around me twisted and turned like the mirrors of a funhouse, and I pressed my hand to my head, brows drawing together.
Something smelled… was it metal? Was it popcorn? I couldn’t tell.
I suddenly felt dizzy, dizzier than I had ever felt, and I closed my eyes tightly, parting them immediately to catch my breath.
But a hand suddenly closed around my throat, and I froze.
“Shhhhh…” a distorted voice said, echoing through my thoughts as my eyes rounded. “Don’t scream.”
He moved, and something cold pressed to the front of my throat.
I just realized it was a blade.
Chills sliced through me.
I breathed uneasily, searching the room, but everything was distorted and uneasy.
It was Jase… it was Jase who was behind me… right?
No, but he sounded different.
My brows drew together as my breaths shook.
I couldn’t… I couldn’t think straight.
But suddenly, the blade removed, and I turned to confront the killer…
And something sharp pierced me from behind.
I gasped, back arching as pain flooded through me endlessly, and my eyes widened.
I opened my mouth to scream.
“Emma.”
The world around me shattered like glass, and I gasped, landing back on my seat as if I’d been standing on my tiptoes.
I then gazed down at my stomach, finding no blood… no knives piercing through me.
I pressed my hands to it, and I felt no pain.
But I… but I thought…
“Emma,” Jase said again.
I gazed up, my entire being still and pale.
He had another dark smile plastered on his face… as if he told a joke and was waiting for me to laugh. But also… as if he played a prank on the cruelest person on Earth, and was getting an overwhelming delight as to how it played out.
Something cold flooded inside me.
“Is something wrong?” he said with a smirk.
“I thought…” I said uneasily, shivers racking my body, “I thought I died.”
“You did die,” he said darkly.
I gazed up in horror. “What?”
He just pointed to the screen, and I glanced over, finding the “YOU DIED” logo flashing over and over again.
I breathed uneasily. “No, but… but I thought I really did die.”
“That’s the point,” he said then, still smirking as if he couldn’t sense my genuine fear.
“No!” I argued then, breaths stilling. “I swear everything blurred and there was a knife and—”
I glanced over to find his brows arched.
My lips parted as another cold entity swarmed me.
He smirked. “And?”
I looked away immediately, avoiding eye contact.
“And nothing,” I said then.
He didn’t respond further than that.
How could I have died but just imagined it? My hallucinations weren’t this bad when I was little… and I didn’t even hallucinate when I was little! I dissociated! This was a full blown out hallucination!
Was I going insane?
Jase… he could speak to my mind, he could ready my everything, he knew what to say to trigger me.
Not only this… but there’s someone out there who wants to kill me, and I thought maybe—at the diner—that I imagined all those voices… but now this?
Was I incredibly paranoid or was I going insane?
“You look very pale,” Jase said in a dark tone. “Is something wrong?”
I remained silent.
I don’t like what he’s doing to me. I don’t like how I feel about him. I don’t like how I can’t trust him.
What is he planning?
“Emma,” he said, smile softening, “are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“My,” he said then, chuckling, “that game must’ve scared you a lot, huh?”
“Yes,” I said, “the game. Yes, the game.”
He was silent then, watching me.
I was silent, too.
Yes, I was going insane. That was the only thing that would explain it.
“Why don’t I take you home?” he said then, lightly catching my hand. “Come on.”
“My sister—” I immediately broke off.
“Ditched you again?” he finished, brows arching.
I silenced, lips thinning. “Maybe… maybe I can call her.”
His lashes lowered when I pulled out my phone, and I started desperately typing on it.
I clicked her contact, and then clicked “call”.
It didn’t even ring, it labeled “call disconnected”.
My bones chilled further.
I called her again.
The same thing.
I called her again.
The same thing.
I breathed uneasily.
What was happening? There’d never been poor cell reception before!
I even looked at my bars, finding them all at four, even the WiFi!
“Can’t get ahold of her?” Jase wondered.
I then pressed my mom’s contact.
“Call disconnected”.
What the hell?
My stepdad’s.
“Call disconnected”.
I then set my phone down, staring off into space.
Jase leaned his arm against the arcade machine. “I offered to take you home.”
I swallowed something hard, knowing I had no choice.
But the fact that I thought someone murdered me, and they didn’t… and his cool personality right now… and the fact that they weren’t answering the phone scared me shitless.
“I can take you for food on the way,” Jase suggested.
I was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
I then followed him to his car.
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