Page 36 of The Players

But his dark gaze didn’t waver. “I knew you wouldn’t die.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said, anger making my cheeks flush hot. “You took my oxygen away. You knew what you were doing. You don’t get to act like it was nothing. It was something. It washorrible.”

Hot tears burned at the backs of my eyes as my throat constricted. “You have no idea what it was like in that coffin.” I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You have no idea what it did to me. What it’s still doing to me.”

Each time I spoke I jab him harder and harder. His chest was a wall of stone, but still, it felt good to yell at him, to throw him off balance, no matter how little. My hand balled into a fist. I was about to bring it down when he caught my wrist in midair.

Cool fingers wrapped around my forearm. His grip was firm, and he held tight. Blinking through my tears, I stared up at him. His eyes were so blue, like twin sapphires that burned with an unearthly glow. That’s why the girls loved him. Those eyes. They saw into you. Through you.

Hot prickles radiated down my skin as he stared at me, keeping me pinned. I tried to pull free but his grip held as he pulled me closer to him.

“I’ll say this once,” he breathed, his breath minty and icy cool. “And then you’ll never hear me say it again. Got it?”

When I didn’t respond, he pulled me closer until we were inches apart. His minty breath made me shiver. “Got. It?”

I gave a hard nod, my body prickling.

His jaw flexed as if he were grinding his teeth. It only made him appear more haunted. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to my earlobe as I shivered.

“I’m… sorry.” He whispered it like a prayer.

Then he released me, turned on his heel, and was gone.

I didn’t see Easton when I scarfed down the food he left me and dressed in the clean clothes at the foot of my bed. I didn’t see him as I grabbed my purse, snuck out of the room, and scuttled down the hall to a back set of stairs that led to a servant’s entrance and out to a small patio near the garage. I didn’t see him as a cab pulled up outside the gate and idled.

Did he call me a cab?

He must’ve. There was no other explanation.

Who was this person and what had he done with Easton Hill?

I ran over to the cab, glancing behind myself to make sure no one was watching. A flicker in a window made me glance that way, but the figure in the window was gone before I could discern who it might be. Was he watching me leave? Making sure I got out okay?Or was it something more sinister?

But he’d done nothing but help me lately. He’d saved me in the aquarium, stopped Savannah from making me drink myself to death, and even bandaged me up after she smashed a bottle over my head. Yet, another thought came to mind after those. He’d let her put me in those situations. He’d stood by while she orchestrated the drinking game and dunked the boys in freezing cold water with the threat of real drowning.

And no matter what he said or how many times he might apologize, he’d been the one to put me in that coffin. He’d been the one to pull out the hose.

A single ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t negate that.

Sure, his family seemed awful if Savannah was any indication, and his father sounded vile, but that didn’t excuse you from your actions, especially ones as devious as those Easton Hill had been a part of.

He was no tortured angel. He was a devil in disguise.

I exited the open gate and walked to the cab. When I leaned my head down, he rolled down the passenger window. He was in his mid-fifties, balding, with a kind, fatherly face.

“Can you take me home?”

“That’s what I’m here for, miss.”

I climbed into the back and let him whisk me away from Hill Manor. Even with the house in the rearview, I felt it looming behind me. Was it a missed opportunity to once again be that close, yet learn nothing about my parents and who might have killed them? That mission seemed to have been put on hold due to the clear and present danger of the grocery store. However, I felt, deep down in my bones, that Easton knew something about what had happened. He’d hinted as much. Yet, every time I got near him, we seemed to talk about anything but that.

Was that his ploy, to keep me too busy and confused to ask the right questions about my parents?

No. He didn’t seem concerned with that at all anymore. Not once Savannah got rolling. Once she started her games, the only goal was to contain her.

Then I knew what I had to do. She had to be stopped.

But how?

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