When my brain comes back online, Clara’s draped across my chest, my mask resting over my face, like she’s worried about us being identified and getting into trouble. I’d laugh if I had the energy for it. Instead, I breathe in everything about her—my perfect match, my world, my everything.
“I love you,” I say into her hair.
“I love you, too.”
We stay like that longer than we probably should, but really, this is all either of us wants. This closeness, this trust. Us, together. And when she’s deemed me past the point of risking sub-drop, she presses a kiss to my forehead before carefully tying my mask to my face.
As I push myself to sit against the wall, Clara looks past me to where RJ stands, his eyes dark with desire. But he doesn’tgive chase, instead pulling out his phone and walking back the way he came from.
Suddenly, his texts saying ‘warmer’ and ‘colder’ make a lot more sense. We might be playing one game, but he’s playing his own.
Happy Birthday, RJ. Clara got you one hell of a gift.
Chapter 77
Trips
RJ’s texts are pissing me off. I hate these tunnels. I hated them before we got stuck in them like rats in a run, and I’m not any fonder of them now, even if we’re playing a game that has every nerve in my body lighting up like a fucking trade board. But finding myself at the end of a very long wrong path with no Clara in sight was a blow to my ego. Retracing my steps at an even slower jog was another bruise, and then when I add the teasing ‘colder,’ ‘icicle,’ messages after another wrong turn, I might as well be bleeding out in this game.
And it’smyfucking game.
Chasing Clara, fighting her, taking her, it’s so goddamn primal, such a perfect reflection of everything we’ve been to each other, and everything we will be, that it’s like a drumbeat calling to my whole damn soul. And here I am, losing the game because tunnels are freaky and confusing.
So, by the time I jog toward a casual RJ, scrolling on his phone like a damn prince while I’m a sweaty mess, my mask long since pushed down, dangling around my neck, I flip him off before I can second guess myself. And the hint of a smile twitches at his lips. A tiny hint that maybe, someday, we might be friends again.
“Took you long enough,” he mutters.
“Not all of us are runners.”
“But most of us have a better sense of direction.”
“Fuck off,” I answer, even though I saw Walker on my way through the tunnels, spinning his keys around his finger and strutting like the lucky bastard he is, off to warm up the car for the short drive home. He can’t have his princess getting cold.
It is brutal out tonight, so I can’t really blame him.
I pause, suddenly worried that I'm not as much a part of this game as I thought I was. “Do you trust me?” I ask Clara's staunchest protector.
“She seems to trust you,” he says.
“But do you?”
He knocks his head against the wall, intense gaze taking me in. “Let's see how tonight goes.”
Good enough. I dip my chin and continue down the hall. And a few steps past RJ, a slightly-dazed Jansen sits sprawled against the wall. I can’t help but laugh as his head rolls toward me like he’s a broken puppet. “That good?”
“Better.”
I pick up my pace as I pass him, knowing she can’t be far ahead now. And the tunnel only goes one way from here on out. I double-checked the map three times, just in case.
I’m not losing again.
Sure enough, I hear the steady clack of her heels on the concrete ahead, and I force myself into a sprint, intent on her curls bouncing in the distance. She looks back, her eyes flashing in surprise before she picks up the pace as well. But she’s wearing heels. A handicap I’m glad she has as I gain on her, snaking my arm around her waist while we’re still moving. She uses my momentum to roll me over her back, leaving me sprawled on the ground as she spins and tries to sprint back in the direction we were coming from. But I’m used to functioning with the breath knocked out of me, and I grab her ankle, glad we taught her how to fall as she pinwheels toward the ground beside me. I let go so she can roll, then pounce, yanking my loose necktie from around my neck and quickly tying her wrists together. She kicks back, and I whip off my belt, locking her ankles together too.
“Caught you,” I say as I force her to her knees.
“Took you long enough,” she says, still squirming despite all her limbs being locked. I tug her arms up behind her until she stops wiggling, the strain keeping her still as anger flares in those dark eyes.
“Careful there, Crash. I’ve got control this time. Don’t push me. I’ll push back.”
