Page 113 of Player Problems

He holds my arms pinned at my sides, useless even with the broken hockey stick back in my grip. I’m unable to move, to buck him off, or get another shot at swinging it at him. His grin as he stares down at me screams his victory.

No.

I close my eyes, trying to block out the sight of the twisted glee I can see in his gaze. The ghosts of memories drifting across my mind whispering it’ll be over quick, to just close my eyes and go to a corner of my mind I had forgotten even existed.

Don’t give up, Torryn. Dammit, don’t give up.

“You should have remembered the consequences, Torryn.” He lifts me by my arms only to slam me back into the ground, making black spots dance in my vision. Fuck. I’m stronger than this.

With little options, I wiggle under him, trying to get my knee up to hit his balls, but he just shifts his weight, pinning my legs down as well. His laughter at my weak attempt is acid on my nerves. I scream again only for it to be abruptly cut off when he slaps me across the face.

“I let you have your fun, but your defiance ends here,” he yells in my face, his cheeks turning red in his anger. “You will listen. You will comply and you will endure your punishments.”

Each new demand comes with a more and more violent shake, making my thoughts swim, but I refuse to give in.

“I’m not your fucking good girl,” I spit, rearing my head up and forward with as much momentum as I can build in the small space. His nose cracks as my head connects with it. Blood gushes and he releases me to grip his face and finally, fucking finally, I’m able to shuffle out from under him. I kick out, hitting his face again, screaming as loud as I can as I try to put distance between us.

Stumbling to my feet, I race to the door that I hope leads back towards the hallway, but a hand wraps around my throat, cutting off my air supply just as I reach it.

“I was wrong,” he hisses in my ear, closing his fist tighter. “You’re not my good girl anymore.” My nails dig into his hand as I try and stomp on his feet, but his anger is a visceral beast behind me, making him numb to the pain as he continues to choke me. “You take after your whore of a mother too much.” My chest aches as my vision begins to blur, my lungs screaming for air. “You should have died in that car accident with her.”

Car accident? Even desperate for air, his words stick out. Making no sense to me as I cling to the stubbornness everyone always laments about. I can’t let him fucking win.

A bang sounds somewhere behind me, but it’s almost too much to even comprehend. My thoughts are moving slower with every passing second. Fear and panic consuming them as his words repeat in my mind. I should have died with my mother.

I should have died with my mother.

My vision begins to turn black, my grip on his hand loosening as my strength drains out of me.

I should have died with my mother.

But she didn't die in a car accident?

thirty-seven

CHASING CARS

She’s okay.

She has to be okay.

I ignore the others as they sort out who’s coming with me and who is going to grab security. All I heard was that she was last seen coming through these doors so she could pee.

Mother fucker.

It’s all my fault. If we hadn’t taken so fucking long in the locker room, she never would have come in here in the first place.

No. Maybe she just got turned around. Maybe she went into the wrong door and got lost. This area can be like a maze with rooms that have more than one exit and lead into other rooms off of the hallway. It makes certain things more efficient, but can be confusing if you’ve never been back here.

I can hear the guys splitting up behind me, but I’m locked in on my phone, trying to pinpoint how close she is to the restroom she was supposed to be in, but it’s nearly impossible to figure out exactly where she could have ended up other than she’s in this part of the building.

If she came out of the restroom, the doors to exit are right in front of her. Would she have thought to come into the lockerroom to find us? Knowing her, yeah she would. She’d come to tell us to hurry the fuck up. But she never made it that far. We would have heard her.

Then I spot it. Please, fuck no. I rush over to the door by the laundry room and see a familiar phone on the ground partially behind the trash can. Picking it up, my heart drops into my stomach as I see the cracked screen and turn it over to see the polaroid of the kittens.

I shout for the guys, but don’t wait as I push through the doors, just as a scream pierces through the air and hits me right in the chest before it abruptly cuts off. Torryn.

The sound of the washers and dryers already going at full speed almost drowns out the sound of a scuffle, but I follow the sounds, exiting through the back of the laundry and into one of the equipment rooms. There’s no sign of her and the sounds all but disappear. I backtrack through the laundry room just and Xander and Tate burst into the room. I point them towards the door that leads to our locker room and I head through the other one that leads to another storage room.

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