Page 53 of Tangled in His Game

“A nice police officer told me he’d like to speak with you,” my mom says. “But you need to recover first.”

I nod. “My memory is a little hazy.”

“That’s completely normal. You don’t have to worry. It’ll all come back to you.” She gives me an encouraging smile.

“When can I go home?” I don’t know what I’m going to do, but Victor can just come here any time he wants and I don’t think anyone will stop him.

Sure, he broke into my home before too, but I was alone then. I doubt my mom and dad will leave me on my own now.

“We still have to talk to the doctor,” my dad says. “I think they’ll keep you under observation for a while.”

Great. I guess I’ll have to hope Victor doesn’t come to finish me off. But then again, he could’ve just let me burn, so maybe he doesn’t want me dead.

Maybe I should reconsider my decision not to transfer to another college. I could’ve died. Yeah, my bully will get away with everything and get exactly what he wants, but I’ll be alive and free. Things have gone way too far this time.

Chapter 25

ISCROLL THROUGH ALLof social media, and my frown deepens. It’s been a few days since I returned home, and Emberwell has allowed me to take as much time as I need to recover. I’m feeling perfectly fine physically, but psychologically... It’s a completely different matter.

But there’s something that surprises me more than anything else. It’s Victor. No one has named him as the hero who saved me from the burning library. Everyone thinks it was just some random student. And it would make sense if Victor didn’t want anyone to know he was there, but it’s not like that.

The cops have been investigating him too, because he’s the one who had the keys to the library. And what’s even weirder, there’s actual footage of Victor at a bar not too far away, taken around the time the fire started, which kind of makes it impossible for him to have set it too.

Or maybe not impossible, just really hard. He would’ve had to set the fire, run back to the bar without anyone noticing he was gone, and then rush back again to save me. Victor and his teammates had some kind of pre-game meeting or whatever there.

An important part of the season is coming up for them, so it was some sort of team building with cheerleaders and fans, like a mini party. People had their phones and cameras out all the time, and Victor got there an hour after he left me in the library.

The party ended about fifteen minutes before Victor got me out of the library, which gave him exactly enough time to get to me. I don’t think he’s the one who set the fire, but then what happened?

Did the fire start on its own? Or did Victor give someone else the keys and they passed right next to me while I was sleeping and started the fire? I can still see the image of the worried look on Victor’s face in my mind.

Was it real? Or was my brain too messed up because of all the smoke I inhaled, so I hallucinated the whole thing? But I know he saved me, and I know he was at the hospital until my parents showed up. It wasn’t his intention for me to die, or at least I don’t think so.

Unless he was worried about what I’d say to the cops. But wouldn’t he have tried to talk to me and threaten me then? Or did he think his presence was enough to remind me what he was capable of?

“Honey,” my mom says as she knocks on my door, which is cracked open.

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