Page 217 of Scoring the Player
I don’t stop moving until the door slams shut behind me. I make it a few steps before my knees buckle, and I crumple to the ground against Carter’s car.
Pressure seizes my chest, throat, and back, and my knees sink into the downpour.
Mom’s tear-stricken face flashes in my mind.
Get up,I will myself, but I can’t move.
I don’t know how long I’m stuck there before an arm wraps around my back.
“It’s okay.”
“No.” I push Carter away. “Don’t touch me!”
“Okay,” his voice cracks.
I stare at his tire as my chest heaves and pain drowns my lungs, ribs, throat…
I fight to choke it down.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks.
…but it’s scraping, tearing, mangling my sternum.
His arm tightens around me again.
“Get off me.” I push away until my back hits the other end of his car. The wet, cold pavement seeps into my bones.
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he says, collapsing to sit a safe distance away. “I don’t deserve this family.”
A car pulls out across the street, its headlights lighting up the driveway. I expect him to climb to a stand or shift toward the shadow to avoid a blemish to his perfect image.
He doesn’t move.
“For the longest time, when I looked in the mirror, I saw you”—I wipe my eyes and nose on my drenched hoodie—“not as a demon over my shoulder, but your eyes where my eyes should be. And I hate it when people look into my eyes and tell me I look just like you. I can’t even leave the house without covering them.” I scrub my thumb across the ink on my knuckle. “Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt small. It took me a long time to realize it was you I was seeing, not me. You always tried to prove that I was insignificant. I’m not.”
I force myself to stand, legs unconvinced of their strength, breath arrested by the sobs squeezing my chest, and push. Every step feels like it’ll be the last before I drop again, but I don’t stop until I can no longer feel him watching, until I can no longer see the house.
Pulling out my phone to order a car, I click on Anaïs’s text.
Anaïs
I love you
And there’s an address.
CHAPTER 54
SALEM
“It’s still only thunder, Sim.” I reach down and scratch under his chin after he starts trembling again. “I’m sure,” I answer as his gaze pings between me and the window.
His head twists toward the fireplace as the wood makes a crackling-pop sound. “It’s just fire.”
His forelegs start to slide forward on the rug when a rumbling reverberates off the walls, and he shoots up and barks at the window.
“Thunder, Sim.” I sigh as I rub my eyes. It’s gonna be a long night.
I reach for my phone and connect to my speaker’s Bluetooth. I play the video in my browser.
