Page 23 of Wicked Little Game
Back when I thought behaving like the pretty, silent little thing he desperately wants me to be would get me his approval. Back when I was so dumb that I thought he had something resembling empathy for me. Not love, because I may have been naïve, but I was never that stupid.
I’m nothing more than a pawn for him. A pretty accessory to bring to business meetings and the country club, an asset that can and will be used as soon as the right business opportunity opens up. When he finds agentlemanwho offers enough money or business benefits to my father in exchange for my hand in marriage.
But after all those years, I know better than to fall into his traps. So I stay inside my room for the whole day, and then another one. From time to time, I check my security cameras, just because I want to see if he’s still there and not because I want to catch a glimpse of James.
Watching him proves to be interesting. Because James is on high alert, monitoring my father as if he’s guarding Fort Knox. I also don’t miss it as he subtly gets a hold of my father’s phones. One after the other, fidgeting around with them until he places them back where he found them.
It takes my father two long days until he finally leaves again. Relieved, I watch his car roll out of the driveway, waiting until the gate closes behind him before I make my way down to the kitchen.
I rummage through the fridge like a starved raccoon, because while I had tons of cookies and other snacks in my room for exactly this reason, my body longs for some real, nutritious food.
After I downed a bowl of salad that was so big that it could have fueled someone twice my size, I walk towards the room of a certain someone thatistwice my size. Apart from real food, I also crave real human interaction, and spying on people over hidden cameras does in fact not fulfill this need.
10
SAMUEL
There’s a knock on my door. A reluctant one, as if whoever knocked isn't quite sure if it’s a good idea. I know for a fact that it’s not Mr. Barron who’s waiting in front of my door, because he said his goodbyes around an hour ago and told me he’d be gone for longer this time. Business meetings in Europe, or something like that. I pull my balaclava over my head and walk towards the door.
“What do you want?”
With a sigh, I look down at Ruby. She looks a bit off, fidgeting with the hair tie around her wrist.
“You wanna watch a movie with me?”
My first instinct is to firmly tell her no, but something about her standing there hits a weak spot inside of me.
“Only because you did a good job cleaning up. But for the love of God, please don’t sneak into my room at night ever again, or else I’ll really shoot you.”
Her typical smile is back on her face, and I don’t understand why this is even important to me.
“What kind of lunatic sleeps with a gun under his pillow,”she says as we walk down the stairs, hurrying behind me like a lost duckling.
I catch her trying to take two stairs at once just like I do and I want to tell her to stop because she seems to have trouble making it down safely, even if she takes them one by one.
“No more dumb comments, or else I’m back in my room before any kind of movie even starts. And you better not think that you get to choose something,” I say as I take the far left end of the big couch. She takes the right one and I’m glad I don’t have to remind her to keep her goddamn distance.
“Fine,” she says as she throws the remote over to me. It lands against my shoulder with a thud and I shoot her an angry glare before I pick out a movie.
It doesn’t take me long. It never does.
I’m not allowed to pick out movies for movie night back on base anymore. Logan also isn’t, but that’s because he brought tapes that left all of us traumatized more than once. The decision is usually between Max’s stuff, which is more suitable for children and Rockwells picks, which are either horribly complicated foreign movies, or documentaries. So unless Ruby holds a gun to my head, I’ll fight for my remote privilege in this house.
“James Bond, really?” she asks with a grin on her face. Blasphemy.
“Uncultured prick.” I shake my head, taking a big sip of whiskey from the bottle I brought back from my room. As if my subconsciousness already knew that I’d need it.
“What are you, some kind of James Bond fangirl?”
“I’m not a fangirl,” I defend myself before I realize that she just wants to provoke me. So much for giving her the benefit of the doubt and agreeing to come down here with her because she looked so sad. Where’s that goddamn sadness now?
“Another disrespectful word and I’ll leave.”
She holds her hands up again, just like two days ago, and this time I didn’t even have to point a gun at her.
Throughout the intro and then a bit; that’s how long Ruby sits still without annoying me, but then I feel her eyes on me again. She’s giving me a look, eyes trailing down towards the bottle in my hand over and over until I wordlessly hand it over to her. Fueling her mischievous attitude with booze is probably a bad idea, but arguing with her is also pointless.
“Didn’t expect you to share your booze with me.”
