Page 127 of Brutal Game

It couldn’t end this way. I wasn’t going to survive this. And all I wanted was one more chance to tell Jack I loved him.

“Wait!” I begged the closed door. “Please.”

From outside the office, a key turned in the door.

And locked it.

42

Jack

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with fire. If I got my hands on a match, I’d burn anything I could: Rebecca’s hair scrunchies, Micah’s notebooks for school, my father’s newspapers. I could sit and watch the flames forever.

Until the night my mother “forgot” to turn the burners off on the stove. A paper towel near the stove caught fire, setting off the smoke detector. We’d had to file out of our home late in the night and wait for the firemen to come. Fortunately, they were able to put the fire out. I took the blame, not wanting my father to hit my mother, even if she never stood up for us. He took it out on me; it was the only time he almost put me in the hospital.

The house survived, and my mom repainted the kitchen, but I swore I could smell smoke every day in that kitchen until the day I left home.

I could smell smoke now. And even though Ihatedfireand wanted nothing to do with it, I was about to confront it head on.

“Jack, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Isaac stared at me in shock and fear. “You can’t go in there.”

I pulled my hoodie up over my head. “Too fucking bad.”

Aviva was in there. I could see both tracker dots somewhere inside the building, right on top of each other. The building that currently had smoke pouring out the windows as a fire alarm blared from somewhere inside.

Parents with kids at Reina complained a lot that the fire station was manned by volunteer firefighters. Firefighters with other jobs, who were known to arrive late on the scene here. A frat house had burned down a few years ago for that very reason.

How long could someone inhale smoke before they had permanent brain damage or died? What if she was trapped? I couldn’t take that risk.

“Call 911,” I told Isaac. “And when Judah and Levi get here, see if you can figure out a plan to get her out.”

“Herout?!” Isaac was furious. “What about you, man?”

I didn’t answer him, just said: “Look, I’m sorry about what I did. I?—”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. With one last look at Isaac, I ran into the building.

Hallister Hall was chokedwith smoke. Wooden frames had caught fire; a wooden bust of one of the university founders was engulfed in flame. I looked down at Aviva’s dots on the app, ignoring how my overheated phone burned in my hand.

She was on the move.

Toward me.

“Oh, thank fuck,” I breathed. Relieved, I ran toward the stairs, which she seemed to be heading down.

And then paused.

One of the dots was moving.

The other one was still.

What the fuck?

I stared at my phone. Fear choked me more than the smoke did.

“Jack? What the hell are you doing here? We need to get out!”

I looked up. Joshua Jensen was running down the stairs, one hand covering his nose. His ear was bleeding. But if he was here, where was Aviva? And why was one of the dots still moving toward me?

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