Page 18 of Forbidden Game

“First, you really need to tone down those crime podcasts. Secondly, no. The Covingtons are not in the murder business. However,” he shoots me a quick grin before turning his attention back to the road, “we have a lovely network of blacklisting.”

“Parker, that’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly blacklist him from every gym.”

“What’s ridiculous is someone thinking they can disrespect what’s mine with their filthy words.”

My brows twitch together, and I stare at him out of the corner of my eye. Confusion laces its way through my system until it hits those bubbles sitting in my lower stomach.

“Mine?”

He swallows, and his knuckles tighten on the wheel. “Yeah, you’re my publicist.”

Right…

That’s what I thought.

And yet those little bubbles burst, leaving an empty feeling inside me.

I shake off the feeling, refusing to look at it closer, knowing that it can only bring me trouble.

Parker reaches forward and turns up the volume of the British EDM rap music blasting through the car. I’m a country music girl, but I’ve become well acclimated to the music preferences the guys have. It’s all some variation of heavy bass music.

I let the music thump around me as I stare out the window at the passing ocean. Sunshine glints off the water, and it makes me think of the man next to me.

My life has always been bubbling rivers, rolling hills, and quiet storms. Parker is a crashing wave, a flash of lightning, that first pile of leaves in the autumn you can’t help but stomp in.

He is a golden ray piercing through my cloudy sky.

The sunshine to my ice.

I’ve always been attracted to the sun, but I can’t afford to let it scorch me.

And there is not a doubt in my mind that Parker’s heat would burn me alive.

FOUR

PARKER

I pull out my pistol and shoot three enemies before slipping into the elevator. My fingers flick over the keyboard in quick succession, tapping out commands at a breakneck pace as I prepare for the upcoming skip.

My eyes flick ever so briefly to the timer perched to the right of my monitor.

Two hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty-six seconds.

I smirk.

I’m sitting forty-six seconds faster in comparison to yesterday’s run, but I can’t get ahead of myself. If I don’t time my next move perfectly, I won’t be able to clip my character between the elevator floor and the map below, which will cost me precious seconds.

I watch the elevator move on the screen and keep my left middle finger poised on the W key while my left pinky hovers over the SHIFT key and my right pointer waits on the mouse. My mind is silent in anticipation. A small flash of orange appears in the upper right corner—my signal—and I hit each key in succession.

SHIFT. W. CLICK.

My heart stops for a solid second as I wait to see whether I was quick enough.

My character falls through the bottom of the elevator and lands in the basement of the building I was sent to infiltrate. I let out a small sigh of relief at the successful sequence break before zeroing back in on the task on hand, my left hand moving quickly to rush my character to pick up a package sitting in the back corner.

This room is where the bomb is being kept, and that clip just allowed me to bypass the entire maze of enemies and locked doors I would’ve needed to beat to get here—something that would’ve taken an average player an hour or so to get through. If I’d messed up that move, I would’ve needed to reset to my last save, which would easily add on those forty-six seconds I’ve managed to shave off the run so far.

That’s the thing about speedrunning, every move counts. If you mess up even once, it could ruin everything.

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