Page 92 of Wicked Ends
I was rethinking the entire idea of coming and checking on Marcus, when I rounded the corner and an open door showed the rec room beyond. A couple of students were in there, playing pool. They ignored me when I went in and continued their game. I drifted to the corner where an old record player was playing. Marcus didn’t seem to be down here anymore.
Should I leave?The record finished as I stood there, and I picked up the needle and dropped it back on, starting the song again. The people playing pool finished and left the room, leaving aheavy kind of silence in their wake, punctuated only by the low, intimate beats of the song.
I should go, I decided firmly. He wasn’t here, and I was wasting my time. He was okay, though, as his friends had seen him. I headed back to the door. A shadow moved in the dark hallway that led back to the stairs.
A person in a white mask stared at me from across the hall. They were in one of those vintage masks, the kind that horror movies had made popular. A chill skittered down my spine.
“Marcus?” I called out.
The tall, broad figure strode down the hallway toward me. I backed up, retreating into the room, my heart beating wildly. It had to be him; I knew it was him by the shape of his shoulders and the way he walked. I knew it was him, and yet, a genuine thrill of fear slid through me. I stumbled into the pool table when he entered.
“Marcus, I know it’s you,” I called to him.
He closed the door behind him with a deafening snick. We were all alone.
That eerie mask tilted, and I questioned my certainty.
“I know it’s you, so don’t try and trick me…” I took my mask off and tossed it onto the velvet.
I slid along the pool table. He tracked me. I hurried around, putting it between us. We stared at each other, then I feinted left, trying to make him go in the other direction.
He didn’t fall for it, lunging right and grabbing me.
“You think you can misdirect me. I’m a goalie, remember. I’ll always catch you.” His arms went around my middle, and he hauled me against him. “Why’d you come here, Ari? I thought I was meant to be staying away from you until the end of the term, remember? Are you trying to torture me, or do you want something from me?”
I pulled at his arms around me, but they didn’t budge around me. “I was worried about you. You were hurt?—”
He released me long enough to let me twist around, and then he was there, caging me in against the pool table. I could only make out his hazel eyes through the holes in his mask.
“You were worried,” he repeated.
I nodded. “I-I can’t stop seeing your blood on the ice,” I admitted. The image of Marcus diving into the fray, and then the whistle blowing, and the red splattered against the white was haunting me.
I’d seen too many people I cared about be hurt and bleed. I couldn’t stand it.
“It was awful,” I said softly.
I couldn’t read Marcus’ face through that mask. I had no idea what he was thinking. He was unmoving, his arms braced on either side of me, his head lowered enough that he could stare into my eyes.
“Be careful, Ari… I might start to think you really do worry about me… and then, you should know—I’ll never let you go.”
A hand of fear and something else, something wrong and illicit… anticipation… clenched around my heart.
“Very funny.”
“I’ve never been more serious. Be very careful, Professor Moore, that you don’t seal your fate with your sweet concerns and bleeding, beautiful heart. People don’t worry about me, and that’s what I’m used to. You come in here and blithelycare—baby, you’re playing with fire.”
I rolled my eyes at his words, more because I didn’t know what else to do. It was outrageous, ridiculous, over the top, and in some demented way… the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me.
Then my attention snagged on his hand. He had a skin-colored bandage wrapped around it, so I’d missed it before. Our verbal games forgotten, I gasped and reached for him.
“Marcus, this is bad,” I muttered and brought his hand to my face to inspect it. The bandage was clean and dry, professionally applied, but the skin around it was red and angry.
“Mm-hmm, it’s fourteen stitches bad… Are you going to kiss it better for me?”
I stroked my finger along the rough bandage, concern flooding through me at the thought of those fourteen stitches going in. I hated hospitals and ERs. I hated the smell of antiseptic and the sudden boom of the loudspeaker system as they called for a doctor. Trauma upon trauma hid there in my memory, and I was too much of a coward to face them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to the hospital. I-I the smell of them, the lights…” I took a deep breath. I felt dizzy at the very idea. “I can’t stand it.”
