Page 152 of Fake Game

The second we step outside, and the balmy night breeze licks my sweaty skin, the contents of my meal make a violent reappearance.

I vaguely feel someone holding my hair back so it doesn’t get caught in the mess.

Gods, I really hope there are no reporters back here or else this is going to be front page news.

Once it feels like the entire menu of The Bay has exited my body, Jackson lifts me into a waiting Escalade. He takes care of everything, buckling me in, cleaning me up, giving me water, and holding my hand.

“How?” I croak.

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t have long enough to talk to Phoebe.”

My body feels all gross and clammy, and my mind is spinning like a roulette wheel, going round and round and round. This is a fever dream, driving me to the very brink of madness.

I’m living in a haze and everything is blurry. Time passes fast and slow, and nothing computes in my brain.

“Deer, baby, I need you to breathe for me.” His voice sounds all muffled.

“What?”

“Breathe, you’re hyperventilating. You’ll pass out if you keep it up.”

My awareness starts to trickle back drip by drip, and I hear myself, hear the sharp intakes of breath that aren’t enough to feed any real air into my lungs.

Jackson puts a hand on the center of my chest, trying to get me to slow down, but it’s no use.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

Little black dots poke at my vision, like a screen going static.

And still, I can’t stop.

I can’t stop.

Not until my body gives out.

***

The world swims around me, like I’m underwater but my goggles have a crack, and everything turns murky as the salt assaults my eyes.

I can tell that I’m cradled in someone’s arms and they are carrying me somewhere.

Where?

Panic begins to claw at me like a tiger trapped in a cage, and it’s ripping my insides to shreds. I beg my body to move. I beg and I beg and I beg.

My leg kicks out and hits something metal, pain ricocheting up my shin.

“Fuck. Deer, stop.”

The voice settles over me like a blanket.

“Can someone please hit the penthouse button. I need to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.”

The voice continues to calm me, allowing the rational side of my mind to creep back in piece by piece.

Elevator. Jackson. Bodyguards. Me.

The elevator’s ascent sixty stories into the sky doesn’t really help the nausea that seems to have returned, but I pray to myself to hold it in. I squeeze my eyes shut, the fluorescent lights assaulting my senses.

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