Page 52 of Study Games

“Slice away.”

“Game recognizes game.”

I stared back at them. “That's it? You want me to hospitalize you?”

Each raised a shoulder. “It has to be you.”

“Waverly being hurt was our mistake.”

“This is our apology.”

I shook my head and nodded to the knife buried into the carpet. “You fuckers can fight over it. I'm done here.”

I made it to the end of the hall, and kicked open the door to the hidden stairwell there before they accepted my judgment. I stepped into the shadowy area and twisted back to find neither of them had moved except for their heads, watching me in perfect collaboration.

How fucked up that was.

“Waverly. She is free from my father. And she’s free from you. Is that right?”

The pair nodded as one.

“Yes.”

“Though we might pay our respects to her brother,” Kash added, as an afterthought.

I let my own strange smile mirror theirs. “Then instead of hurting yourselves, perhaps you'd like to add to the damage done to an old man lying in a puddle of his own blood on the third door on your right.”

Still smiling, I turned away but not before I saw the twins kneel beside the knife buried in the hallway floor.

I almost made it to the back door before my father’s screams began.

19

WAVERLY

“He’s here.” Celia peeked out the window, and wiggled her butt. She glanced over her shoulder at me with wide eyes. “He’s not covered in blood.”

My roomie picked me up from the hospital when my boyfriend didn’t materialize and I deemed him unworthy of the name at the time.

The singular caveat to that was if he came back crawling or covered in blood he’d might–might–be redeemable.

No such luck, apparently.

My stomach hung somewhere outside my body in permanent free fall as Celia maneuvered herself off the sofa and yanked on a pair of stonewashed, ripped jeans.

“Where are you going?” My mouth dried.

She sent me a pitying look. “You might have just come through some heavy shit, my wonderful, gorgeous, new found girl. But you’re about to have a showdown with your boy that will probably involve tears and other bodily fluids. I choose not to be present.”

“But–” I flapped at her.

Celia was already gone, grabbing a threadbare quilt from the sofa, the door swaying gently in her wake. “I’ll be on the floor above in the hallway. Don’t be too loud,” she hissed on her way out.

Too. Loud?

What in all the hells did she think we were going to do?

My naive little mind snickered at that, knowing exactly what she referred to, but my heart just wasn't in it.

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