Page 68 of The Game

“Of course, Alice. If you want us to leave…” I say softly. She shakes her head, pressing her lips flat.

“I…I think Nick is wanting to come, too, just to…be with her.”

I nod solemnly. Fordson hasn’t left Ellie’s side since the night she was rescued from that shipping container.

“Is anyone else coming?” Tristan says, a steely edge to his voice. Alice’s eyes flicker in confusion before understanding settles in. Standing to choke him out for that, tears well in her eyes and pull me up short as she drops her face.

“No,” she whispers before turning and rushing to her room, a choked sob echoing in the hall before her door shuts and the lock clicks. Tristan goes to stalk off, but he’s fucked up for the last time with her.

“When will you let it the fuck go?” I seethe. Running his hands through his damp hair, he shakes his head.

“Another man knocked her up—”

“And her uncle made sure that child died in her womb. You’re lucky she’s not irreparably damaged, that she still has a fifty percent chance at even having kids,” I hiss through clenched teeth, stepping close enough now to have to fight the urge to choke him out. It had been our dream before it all turned to shit, the thought of growing a family of our own. It would be unique, of course, considering our situation, but with our immediate family all dead and buried, the idea of kids seemed to fill that void for us.

That, and the thought of watching Alice swell with life that we created together made our cocks harder than steel for whatever reason. Perhaps it was a way to brand her, to mark her forever as ours. Maybe that is why Tristan feels so betrayed by this; he wasn’t the first one to give her that. He’s always been the jealous type.

His shoulders tremble with the familiar beginnings of his rage-fits.

“She wouldn’t have only a fifty percent chance if—” he cuts himself off, tearing his eyes from mine, but I don’t miss the sorrow and hopelessness that resides there. She’d lost one of her ovaries to a knife wound as well.

“Just let it go, Tristan. She needsyou. She doesn’t need your anger.”

Wiping at his face, he shakes his head and disappears, leaving me utterly alone.

CHAPTER 33

Alice

“Alice?”

Jameson’s voice is soft, so very soft, always verging on apprehensive around me now. It kills me, how fragile they think I’ve become when the reality is far worse; I’ve become an indestructible shell that doesn’t know how to cope with my emotions. Nothing will ever be the same. How am I supposed to go back? How am I supposed to give my love to anyone while knowing how dangerous love is? Love is far, far worse than death, because it carries on until your own heart dies, and in love, there is the worst type of grief.

“Ellie’s here,” he says when I don’t answer my door, his voice muffled by the slab of wood that separates us. Sighing, I stand, my brain going fuzzy. I still get woozy if I do anything too fast. A coma will do that to you, I guess.

Wish I was still in it.

Wish I was anywhere but here.

But like most aspects of my life, I am never given a choice. Someone else always holds the strings, telling me what to do, dictating my every action. My parents, Jameson and Tristan, then my grandfather and uncle. Teddy never did. He’s the only one that let me just fucking exist. I’ve not seen him since that night, since he handed me a gun and we locked eyes and I fled and couldn’t protect his child, the only thing in life I was supposed to be good at.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I push down the handle, my heart sinking to see he didn’t linger on the other side. Somehow, that’s worse; hoping for them to just treat me normal but being unable to put that into words because I want more than that. I want everything to be how it was, but it’s not and I hate it.

Pulling my cardigan tighter around me, I numbly make my way to the living room. Nick’s massive frame dominates the space, Ellie dwarfed in his shadow as his fingers hover across her lower back in a gentle but possessive manner. If it wasn’t for Jonah and Nick that night, we’d all be dead.

Maybe I should be mad at that, but I’m only indifferent at this point.

Ellie turns, the swish of her hair lustrous, her gem-like eyes brightening as she grins at me. Leaving Nick’s side, she rushes to me and pulls me into a hug, and it’s so shocking the entire room seems to suspend itself in time. No one’s hugged me, no one’s really touched me after the hospital. Jameson tried one night when he heard me having a nightmare, and I punched him on accident.

He’s been more gracious than I give him credit for. I know I’d been crying for Teddy aloud during that nightmare.

Shakily, my arms wind around Ellie, and she squeezes me even harder, her chest expanding against mine as she sniffles. She’s crying, and why that has me wanting to sob for the first time is beyond me, but I hold back the flood of tears as best I can, only allowing a few to slip loose.

“I missed you,” she whispers as I clutch her tighter.

“Can we just go back to high school now?” I tease, burying my face in her hair. She laughs.

“God, I wish.”

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