Page 13 of Wicked Games

Fragmented memories of what went down in our room earlier prickle at my consciousness, invading my thoughts and pulling me further away from my happy place.

Tonight isn’t the first time I’ve seen Killian get angry and lose control. It isn’t even the first time he’s directed that unbridled anger at me or put hands on me.

But it is the first time his anger has excited me, and that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.

I’ve known Killian for almost a decade, and he’s always been volatile and easy to set off. I’ve gotten damn good at pushing his buttons over the years, and making him angry enough that he resorts to childish insults and vague threats is one of the few things in this world that gives me real pleasure.

But that was nothing compared to what I felt when he slammed me into the wall and used his bigger body to pin me against it, and I have no idea what the fuck to do with that.

The intensity of his glare, the tightness in his muscles, even the way he ground his body against mine, excited me. So does knowing he was as confused as me when he finally backed off.

It’s fucked up, but seeing him lose control like that made me want to give in to my own rage. To let go and allow myself to feel all the things I’ve spent so many years repressing.

That’s almost as dangerous as the excitement I saw in Killian. The way he’d leaned into the moment and how he’d enjoyed it just as much as me. It makes me want more.

Pushing those thoughts from my head, I notice the side of the pool rapidly approaching and focus on timing my flip turn. This is what I needed. To lose myself in the water and break the world down into tiny moments that make sense. One, two, three, four. Kick, slice, drag, breathe.

A blissful calm falls over me as I complete my second lap and start my third. My goal is one hundred and twenty laps in an hour, the same goal I have every night I come for a swim to exhaust my body enough that I fall into a coma-like sleep.

My thoughts are starting to stray again, and I drag them back into the present, adding as much power as I can to each kick of my legs and slice of my arms. I’m not going to make even twenty laps at this speed, but the ache in my muscles and the burn in my chest are exactly what I need to get back in the zone and stop thinking about all the things I’m trying to escape.

I’m just coming up on the far end of the pool when something on the deck catches my eye. Is that a person?

Confused, I lift my head. A dark figure is crouching at the edge of the deck directly in front of me. I’m so startled it takes a moment to realize the figure isn’t one of my dormmates here for a midnight swim. If it was, he wouldn’t be dressed head to toe in black with a hood pulled up, obscuring his face.

Those few precious seconds of hesitation are enough to throw off my rhythm, and I miss my next stroke. It takes a fewmore seconds to get my body back in sync, and that closes the window of time I have to do my flip turn. In a panic, I try to stop my momentum so I don’t crash into the wall.

My flailing doesn’t work, and I don’t even have enough time to fully get my arms in front of my face before I hit the wall at nearly full speed.

Falling back on my training, I force myself to go limp, so I sort of accordion into the side like a fly smashing into a windshield.

Everything goes dark and quiet, and for a few beats, I’m trapped in that moment between getting knocked out and being stunned as I sink deeper in the water. The darkness around me fades, and I try to shake off the last vestiges of the daze and start moving.

It feels like I’m swimming through molasses as I grab desperately at the side of the pool. I catch the edge and haul my head out of the water, but before I can pull in a breath, I’m shoved back under.

Pain explodes in my head as the person on the deck grabs fistfuls of my hair and uses his grip to hold me down.

I’m still stunned from the impact, and before I can fully register that someone is trying to drown me, my survival instincts kick in, and I thrash and tear at his hands and arms in a desperate attempt to free myself.

My lungs are burning, and my body is getting heavy, but I manage to close one hand around his wrist. It takes a bit of fumbling to get my thumb under his sleeve, but the second I feel flesh, I dig my digit into his wrist and grind my thumb to make sure I hit the pressure point I’m looking for.

His hand opens like a set of automatic doors, and he releases my hair. Instead of trying to do the same to his other hand, I slice my arms up through the water, using an old swimming trickto force myself deeper in the water so he has to choose between letting go or falling into the pool.

He lets go.

Fighting the urge to surface so I can finally breathe, I use what feels like the last of my strength to push off the wall as I put some distance between me and whoever the fuck is trying to drown me as I finally break the surface about six feet from the edge.

I’m in survival mode as I tread water, fighting to keep my head up and coughing so hard my stomach roils and my throat spasms painfully around each choked sound. I’m still trying to get my breathing under control when the lights go out, plunging the room into darkness.

The loss of light is disorienting, and it’s like I suddenly forget how to swim now that I can’t see the water around me. I flail, still hacking and spluttering as I struggle to get my bearings back so I don’t drown myself in my panic.

It takes me way longer than it should to get myself composed enough to swim to the edge, and I’m completely blind as I haul myself out of the water. I collapse on the deck, my chest heaving as I cough up what feels like half the pool.

What the fuck just happened? Did someone really just try to drown me?

I finally stop coughing and lay on the deck in an exhausted heap. My head is pounding, my stomach burns, my throat aches, and my lungs and chest throb every time I breathe.

It feels like I went two rounds with a wrecking ball instead of almost drowning.

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