Page 29 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Then, because she was truly masochistic, she went hunting for news on Chloe Miranda. But there was nothing new. That famous podcaster was investigating. But he wasn’t going to find anything, nothing that could hurt Extreme. Because they’d fully cooperated with police, and there was nothing left to tell. She believed that with her whole heart.

“Ange,” said Maverick now, putting a hand to her cheek. “You look wrecked. You need to try to get more sleep.”

Before she could respond, he looked at Hector. “Are we ready to do this?”

“Yaaas!” said Hector, drawing out the word long and deep the way men do when they think they’re being cool but are really just being douchebags.

She gave one last look at the door, wondering what was wrong with Alex and what he wanted to talk about. Should she go after him?

But then, like everything with Maverick, the tide of events swept her away and she turned all her focus on him and the game ahead.

It has to be bigger, scarier, better than anything we’ve ever done.

And if everything went as planned, it would be.

Mav grabbed the two duffel bags, shouldered them with effort.

“Are you going to tell me what’s in those bags?”

She’d asked him twice what was inside. But all he’d offered was that mischievous grin.

“You’ll see,” he said. Then he was walking out the door.

Hector started packing up the rest of the stuff. Angeline turned to look at him.

“Go ahead,” Hector told her. “And I’ll get the other Rover packed up and follow you guys with the luggage and all the equipment.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Hector, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s my job.”

He’d taken the Chloe thing the hardest. It was his job to keep everyone safe, and he took it seriously. The fact that Chloe Miranda had hid during one of their games and was never found was something he carried. A kind of permanent look of sadness had etched itself around his eyes.

“Call if you need help,” she tossed behind her as she hustled after Mav. It would not be out of the realm of possibility that he’d take the car and leave her behind with Hector.

When she turned to look at him one last time, just to make sure he was really okay, he was already at work packing up the equipment.

7

BLAKE

InRed World, you could never die.

As the game began, you were dropped in the middle of a dystopian universe of your choosing. You might choose Urban Hellscape, a crumbling city populated by zombies, or Jungle Warfare ruled by militant apes. There was a universe that consisted of only sewer tunnels called What Lies Beneath, WLB for short. Eyeless, white troglobites ruled WLB, using their sonar to find you. Blake’s personal favorite was Death Mall, an abandoned five-level shopping center that also included an additional two levels of subbasement, if you found the right door, access always changing. Here, hot Stepford-mom robots with glowing green eyes and bouffant hairdos were the ones to kill.

No matter which world you chose, no matter how horribly your avatar was maimed in any of these places, or if you got trapped somehow and couldn’t escape before the red circle closed around you, or even if you got your head chopped off or chopped off someone else’s head, you always returned to The Locker Room,where you could choose a fresh skin, new weapons, and start again.

Tonight, though, Blake was headed to Haunted Amusement Park. He hadn’t been there in a while and supposedly there were some sick new upgrades.

Violet was in bed; he could hear the white noise coming from her room, a sound she always needed to sleep. Her homework was long done, of course. Because she wasperfect. Blake still had some math to do, and it was nearly eleven o’clock.

But just one more round.

If Mom was home, she’d have already checked on it to make sure it was done. No gaming until schoolwork was finished: that was a hard-and-fast, as Mom liked to say. But Violet couldn’t care less.It’s your business if you want to fry your brain with that stupid game.Violet, when she lowered herself to play with him, slayed atRed World, like she did at everything.

Blake checked the various computer windows he had open to monitor his mom.

There was the weather tracker, where he watched an unnamed storm in the Atlantic move slowly toward the island.

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