Page 122 of Brutal Game

I nodded. “I need to. For her.”

I turned the knob and entered the office—an almost exact replica of the one in Hallister Hall.

Coach’s personal laptop was nowhere in sight.

“Fuck,” I muttered. I’d really thought I’d get the evidence this way.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out.

Levi calling, it said.

I answered. “Everything okay?”

“No Jack, it isn’t. Judah and I went to check on your girlfriend and her friends, bring them food. Apparently, your girlfriend snuck out the window. She’s gone.”

“What?!” I exploded.

Isaac eyed me, concerned.

“What is it?”

I put my hand up.

Visions of her falling, breaking her ankle, her fuckingneck, paraded in front of my eyes. I shook my head to clear it. “And she’s gone?”

“Yup.” Judah must have grabbed the phone. “No idea where she went.”

Without another word, I hung up on him, sliding open the tracker app.

And there were Aviva’s two dots—from her phone and her neck—heading across the quad toward Hallister Hall.

Where Coach probably was.

“Fuck!”

“What’s going on?” Isaac asked again.

“We need to get back to campus. Aviva’s about to get her ass into trouble, and we need to be there before anything bad happens.”

I texted Judah and Levi to meet us at Hallister, telling myself it would be fine.

But as we raced out of the house, down the street, and hopped into my car, my gut churned. I was lying to myself. It wasn’t going to be fine. Not if I didn’t get there fast enough. I needed her, needed her safe—from everything.

I sped down the streets, running every single red light on the way to campus.

It didn’t matter.

We were still too late.

Because when we arrived at Hallister Hall, there was smoke pouring out of the windows of the building.

And according to the tracker app, my little fury was inside.

41

Aviva

“Maybe we should watch something,” Leslie said cheerily. “Don’t you guys likeTed Lasso?”

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