Page 88 of Chokehold
Keith walks out the house and closes the front door, locking it, and I go straight to him. “What’s going on?”
He grins and shows me the iPad screen, red and green lights dotted around what looks like the digital blueprints of his house. “I have trackers in all the masks now. Was part of a project I was doing for school, but thought it would be a great idea to use them for this game. Neat, right?”
My eyes flicker around the screen. “The initials are their names?”
“Yeah. Here, there’s your little bro.” He points at a red dot on the screen. It’s moving quickly through the kitchen area and into the dining room. Four green dots are gaining on him.
I spot the initials on one of them. “Allie is playing?”
“Yeah, man. Is that alright? She’s been all over J all night. He said you were good with them.”
I don’t give a fuck about them. I’m not surprised either.
But then I see another two green dots join them, and they follow Blaise.
“J said he wants payback for Blaise taking his spot on the team. You ready to see your baby bro get fucked up?”
I’m shouldering past him before he can finish his shitty question. “Unlock the door.”
“What?”
“Unlock the fucking door!”
Keith laughs. “You’re kidding? You hate the prick as much as we all do. He deserves this.”
I grab his collar and yank him to me, so my forehead slams into his. “Unlock. The fucking. Door.”
“Blaise Rowle stole our friend’s spot on the team because he spiraled. You’re going to stand there and watch him get beaten to a pulp, because you hate him too.”
I grit my teeth and shove him. Backing away, I shake my head at my supposed friend, and turn, looking at the windows and how thick they are. Music pounds from inside the house. Blaise probably can’t hear himself think, never mind the fact the entire opposite team is hunting for him.
Mia grabs my arm. “I found a way in. Follow me.”
She runs in her heels and short dress around the side of the house, and I stay on her tail. No one comes with us. Keith is too busy drinking his beer and cheering when another red dot gets eliminated.
She slides on a flowerbed, and I grab her hips to keep her up. Snatching my wrist, she pulls me along. “Right over here. One of the windows on the first floor is open.”
We reach a drainpipe, and she looks up. I follow her gaze and see the partially cracked open window. “Can you climb up there?”
I nod. “Yeah. Go back to my car and wait for us.” I hand her my keys, and she takes them, hesitating. I glance down at her when she doesn’t move. “What happened the other day…” She chews her lip. “You only let it happen because it was with Blaise, right?”
I stay silent.
She nods a few times. “Does he feel the same way?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes glaze over, and she wipes under them. “I hope it works out.”
Me too. Me fucking too.
She gives me a flat smile and vanishes back to the front of the house.
By the time I climb up and manage to slip through the window into the pitch-black house, I wince with how loud the music is. It’s intentional. I remember Keith saying he wanted to set up some amusement park for this type of stuff. To have music so loud, you can’t hear your pulse throbbing in your ears, and the fear mixes with the adrenaline as the heavy beats of the songs play.
I faintly see from the moon and streetlights shining into the house. I listen for the running feet, but I can’t hear anything but Sleep Token nearly blowing my eardrums.
Making my way through Keith’s bedroom, I check the other rooms on this floor, swearing to myself when I realize it’s been twenty minutes since the game started, and they could’ve easily have caught Blaise by now. I know he can hold himself in afight. He’s solid, and it fucking hurts when he hits me, but when there’s multiple people after him?
