Page 153 of Dark Little Game
One that never had any business belonging there.
Maybe Rayne’s missing, and not answering his phone, because something actually did come up.
And the moment that thought enters my head, a flash of something else fills my veins.
A desperate fear.
Fear like a smack to the face.
Something I truly never thought I’d feel this strongly again.
No.
I’ve left him alone.
In danger.
The way I’ve been trying to prevent.
Slipping up for the first time all semester, and forgetting the most important goddamned thing: I need to protect him.
I realize my mistake the moment the adrenaline hits my blood, and I take off up the steep hill that leads around the curve in the street.
My heart begins to pound.
My feet crunch on fallen leaves, and I watch as the last of the sunlight slants across the road, forming deep shadows until it disappears behind the horizon.
Ever since the notes appeared, targeting me and Weston, I’d made the mistake of getting comfortable, thinking that Rayne was in the clear, now.
But one thing is true about Rayne: he keeps good time.
He’s almost never late.
He keeps to his schedule, and when he can’t, he fuckingcalls.
“So fucking stupid,” I tell myself under my breath as I start to jog up the sidewalk, seeing the edge of the Double Daggers house first.
Maybe everything is fine.
But I should know better than to assume that, just because most people are gone from campus this week.
In London, the Thornwick crime family had a rule: their best business was always done either in a large crowd of people, or…
When nearly everyone was gone.
This week was the latter.
I start to smell campfire smoke in the air as I run past the Daggers house.
In my mind, I’m on my way to Onyx House.
But I never make it far enough.
I see a smear of blood in front of Luros House, along the sidewalk.
And then more little drips of blood, leading up the front walkway, inside.
Fresh blood.
