Page 73 of Silent Betrayal

“Angel, what you need to understand is we were going to get close to you, even if it wasn’t our job.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, her eyes lifting to Jasper in confusion.

He sighs, turning to face her properly. “Don’t you get it, Angel? We’ve both wanted you from the moment we met you, before we knew your connection to the case. The case was the excuse to get close, not the reason.”

She stares at him for a moment before reaching out and squeezing his hand. “Okay,” she says. I’m not sure what she means by that, but I don’t get to question it as she looks up and sees where we’re parked.

“Are we going to an arcade?”

Chapter thirty-one

The loud noises bombard me as a look around at all the flashing lights of the arcade machines.

“I’ll get us tokens, why don’t you two go and scout out the games?” Jasper suggests. Max grabs my hand and leads me to the left as I try to take everything in.

“So, we have shooter games like these,” he says pointing at games with guns attached to the front. “You got zombies, aliens, buck hunter and dinosaurs. Then over there you have skee-ball and hoops.”

He leads me around to another section. “These are games of chance, no skill involved, I don’t think you’ll like these so much. Oh! Here’s the racing games.” I peer down the next aisle and see a series of car and motorcycle racing games.

“They look fun. What’s your favorite game?”

He wraps his arm over my shoulder as we stop walking and look around us at all the games. “Me? I like most of them. Skee-ball, hoops, shooting zombies and any of the racing ones and probably my favorites. What do you want to try first?”

“You choose, there’s too many,” I say, noticing other people giving us glances. Or more likely, girls who are checkingMax out.

Jasper finds us and holds up a card as he smiles. “Alright I got us a bunch of tokens, what are we doing first?”

We’ve only been here thirty minutes and I've learned two things. I love skee-ball and the twins are so much fun to be with. They somehow manage to egg each other, and me, on, while at the same time, clearly not caring who actually wins or loses a game. They constantly check in with me to make sure I’m enjoying myself, and seem to genuinely care if I’m having fun. They keep touching me softly, on my arms or lower back, or with an arm slung around my shoulders, and my insides warm from their affection and attention.

The banter between them has a constant smile on my face, which is what led me to suggest they race against each other.

I watch from beside Jasper as the two of them twist and turn down the track on the screen, cheering for them both, until someone taps on my shoulder.

I turn to see a girl I vaguely recognize staring at me with disgust.

“Aren’t you that dumb mute girl from school? Didn’t you leave or die or something?” I stare at her with wide eyes, unable to believe someone would actually say such a thing.

“What are you doing here with them, anyway?” she asks, her head motioning to the twins racing behind me as a girl and guy come up to stand behind her, both staring at me with smiles of amusement. “You give really good head or something? Why else would they be with someone like you?”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out and all three of them start laughing. My face grows red, but worse, I start to panic. The humiliation at being talked to like that, and not being able to respond causes my chest to tighten and breath to come in hard as I try to hold off a panic attack.

“What the fuck are you three laughing at?” Max asks as he comes up to stand beside me. At the same time, Jasper stands up at my right side, and turns me to face him.

He grips my face in his palms as he whispers, “take a deep breath for me, Mina. Try to match your breathing to mine.”

“Oh my god, is she having a panic attack? What a fucking joke. She’s just doing that to get your attention, you know that right, Maxy?”

“Tiffany, you and your friends can fuck right off.” Tiffany, right, that girl that flirted with Max all those weeks ago at school. Was she still doing that when he was at school?

“Angel, focus on me, deep breaths now,” Jasper instructs again, and I watch his chest rise and fall, trying to match it. It starts to work as my breathing slowly starts to calm down. “That’s my good girl,” he whispers, giving my forehead a kiss, holding his lips there for a few extra seconds. I take the opportunity to wrap my arms around his waist and hug him. Just because I can. Because despite everything that’s happened between us, I love him, and he’s, once again, shown me how much he cares.

“You haveGOTto be kidding me?!” Tiffany shrieks. “Does she have a golden pussy or something?”

“What the fuck did you just say to my girl?” Max asks, anger lacing his tone in a way I've never heard before.

“You heard me. What are you gonna do about it? You can’t hit me, I’m a girl,” she says with a laugh.

I watch as Max takes a step towards her, a coy smile on his lips, making her laughter die out instantly.

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