24. Cole

Blaise is at the party.

There are photos already on social media. He’s in the background in a few, drinking a beer, and one of them has him talking to Mia. She’s close, sitting beside him on the sofa, her thigh pressed to his.

At least he’s keeping his hands off her.

I swipe to the next photo, and my blood runs cold when I see Jackson leaning over the back of the sofa, saying something to Blaise. He’s not looking at him, though, his eyes on the beer bottle in his hand as he peels the label.

The next swipe, Samson and Keith are taking a selfie with Allie, and Blaise is no longer on the sofa, and there’s no sign of Jackson.

He’s with my fucking friends, our ex-girlfriends, and Jackson, and I’ve not had a single message from him. My nerves have been acting up all night. A bad batch of butterflies in my gut when I think of all the ways he might be fucking around. He’s probably drunk and forgetting I exist.

I should trust him, but why? He fucked Mia only a few days ago, went to Jackson’s place, and then got chased by me without knowing it was me. And then earlier, we…

Every insecurity I have is valid.

I grind my teeth together as I cut off my phone screen and toss it aside, anxiety bubbling in my chest, heart pounding. Maybe I should go. Maybe I should get dressed and go lay claim on him, once and for all.

The shrill of my phone has me grabbing it and bringing it to my ear without looking. “Hello?”

“Son,” my dad says, hiccupping. “Don’t hang up on me again.”

With a sigh, I pinch the bridge of my nose, dropping my head back on the couch. “What do you want? Calling to threaten me again? Seeing if no one is home so you can wreck the place again? Oh, wait, you want to scare my mom into leaving town and kidnap me?”

He sniggers, tsking. “You know me so well.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. There’s silence, and my heart races at the possibility of him crashing into my life and making it hell.

“She’s mine,” he says, snarling the two possessive words.

“Who?”

“Rachel,” he replies, hiccupping again. “He has no claim on her, she belongs to me. I married her first. I loved her first. She’s been mine since we were fifteen years old.”

“You beat her and abused your title as a parent,” I say, laughing bitterly. “The only reason you’re not in prison is because of your badge. I hope loneliness feels good and worth all the shit you put us through.”

“You little asshole⁠—”

Hanging up, I let out the heaviest, most audible breath ever. I lean forward, head dropped between my knees, needing this anxiety to fuck off already. Between my dad and Blaise, and Jackson being an asshole, I feel like the world is closing in on me and I don’t know how to stop it.

My phone rings again, but I ignore it, rocking back and forth on the seat. I’m dizzy, and my eyes burn. I stay like this through five missed calls and message pings. The sound of the vibrations nearly drowns out my deep, rushed breaths.

I eventually sit up, just as the next call ends, and I catch the number I still haven’t saved, but I recognize it. Grabbing my phone, I see I have ten missed calls from Mia and multiple messages begging me to call her back.

I swipe away from each notification with a groan. She’s probably drunk and thinking we’re in love – or maybe she wants round two without the third person involved. How the fuck do I get her to leave me the hell alone? Tell her I’m into her ex and that I’d rather fuck him?

Then another message pops up.

It’s about Blaise, it reads. I think Jackson and your friends are up to something.

Quickly getting to my feet, I throw on my hoodie and shove my feet in my sneakers, grabbing my keys on the way out of the front door. I call her back, but of course, the idiot doesn’t pick up.

It starts ringing ten minutes into me driving to the house. “What’s going on?” I skip the introductions and manners. “Where’s Blaise?”

Music blares in the background, then it grows faint. She must be trying to get somewhere to hear me. A door closes. “Cole?”

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re about to play that chasing game again, but something doesn’t feel right. Allie was making out with Jackson in the bathroom, and I walked in. I overheard them ask if the plan was set and if Blaise was taking part. They’re putting him in the runners and they’re the chasers.”

I frown. “I don’t understand.” It doesn’t help that she’s drunk and falling over her words. “Where is Blaise now?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “Are you coming here? Can you pick me up?”

“I’m coming for Blaise,” I tell her. “I’ll drop you off at the dorm.”

“Can I come to your place? Allie will go there with her professor again.”

I blink a few times, trying to think of a response.

It’s the least I can do. She obviously isn’t comfortable where she is, and I’m not a complete and total asshole. But then again, she’ll be expecting something, especially after what happened between the three of us.

“Go grab Blaise. Tell him I’m coming for you both.”

“Okay,” she says quietly. “I know, by the way. I won’t say anything.”

I pause my breathing, staring at the road as I turn a corner, five minutes from the house. “What do you mean?”

“I love him too.”

She hangs up on me, and my Bluetooth reconnects and music starts playing, filling the silence.

Fuck.

How the hell does she know?

The rest of the drive is a blur, until I reach the house. Parking, I narrow my eyes on all the people standing outside.

Keith walks out the house and closes the front door, locking it, and I go straight to him. “What’s going on?”

He grins and shows me the iPad screen, red and green lights dotted around what looks like the digital blueprints of his house. “I have trackers in all the masks now. Was part of a project I was doing for school, but thought it would be a great idea to use them for this game. Neat, right?”

My eyes flicker around the screen. “The initials are their names?”

“Yeah. Here, there’s your little bro.” He points at a red dot on the screen. It’s moving quickly through the kitchen area and into the dining room. Four green dots are gaining on him.

I spot the initials on one of them. “Allie is playing?”

“Yeah, man. Is that alright? She’s been all over J all night. He said you were good with them.”

I don’t give a fuck about them. I’m not surprised either.

But then I see another two green dots join them, and they follow Blaise.

“J said he wants payback for Blaise taking his spot on the team. You ready to see your baby bro get fucked up?”

I’m shouldering past him before he can finish his shitty question. “Unlock the door.”

“What?”

“Unlock the fucking door!”

Keith laughs. “You’re kidding? You hate the prick as much as we all do. He deserves this.”

I grab his collar and yank him to me, so my forehead slams into his. “Unlock. The fucking. Door.”

“Blaise Rowle stole our friend’s spot on the team because he spiraled. You’re going to stand there and watch him get beaten to a pulp, because you hate him too.”

I grit my teeth and shove him. Backing away, I shake my head at my supposed friend, and turn, looking at the windows and how thick they are. Music pounds from inside the house. Blaise probably can’t hear himself think, never mind the fact the entire opposite team is hunting for him.

Mia grabs my arm. “I found a way in. Follow me.”

She runs in her heels and short dress around the side of the house, and I stay on her tail. No one comes with us. Keith is too busy drinking his beer and cheering when another red dot gets eliminated.

She slides on a flowerbed, and I grab her hips to keep her up. Snatching my wrist, she pulls me along. “Right over here. One of the windows on the first floor is open.”

We reach a drainpipe, and she looks up. I follow her gaze and see the partially cracked open window. “Can you climb up there?”

I nod. “Yeah. Go back to my car and wait for us.” I hand her my keys, and she takes them, hesitating. I glance down at her when she doesn’t move. “What happened the other day…” She chews her lip. “You only let it happen because it was with Blaise, right?”

I stay silent.

She nods a few times. “Does he feel the same way?”

“I don’t know.”

Her eyes glaze over, and she wipes under them. “I hope it works out.”

Me too. Me fucking too.

She gives me a flat smile and vanishes back to the front of the house.

By the time I climb up and manage to slip through the window into the pitch-black house, I wince with how loud the music is. It’s intentional. I remember Keith saying he wanted to set up some amusement park for this type of stuff. To have music so loud, you can’t hear your pulse throbbing in your ears, and the fear mixes with the adrenaline as the heavy beats of the songs play.

I faintly see from the moon and streetlights shining into the house. I listen for the running feet, but I can’t hear anything but Sleep Token nearly blowing my eardrums.

Making my way through Keith’s bedroom, I check the other rooms on this floor, swearing to myself when I realize it’s been twenty minutes since the game started, and they could’ve easily have caught Blaise by now. I know he can hold himself in a fight. He’s solid, and it fucking hurts when he hits me, but when there’s multiple people after him?

I run up the stairway before I’m thrown to the side by someone tackling into my ribs, knocking me onto the ground. They get to their feet, and I grab their ankle so they fall. I crawl over them, groaning when I see long blonde hair. I tug off the black mask to see some chick nearly crying beneath me.

“They have bats, and one has a gun,” she cries. “Please help me.”

“Go hide,” I snarl and drag us both off the ground. “Stay out of sight.”

She nods erratically and runs down the hallway. I brush my hands through my hair, sweat clinging to my skin as I look left and right. One of them has a gun? What the fuck?

And bats.

Blaise.

I rush down the staircase, then down again to the ground floor, tripping over someone lying unconscious on the ground. They’re covered in blood, gasping for breath. I don’t breathe until I yank off the mask and see it’s not Blaise. One of the guys from college. He’s in Blaise’s business class. He’s just busted up, not dying.

Turning a corner, I stop in the dining area to see Jackson and Allie. He’s bending her over the table and fucking her from behind, grabbing her hair and holding the barrel of the gun to her temple. Three others are behind him. As if they’re waiting for their turn.

In another world, I’d get jealous and run at him. I’d rip him off my ex and beat the living shit out of him. But instead, I back away, let her get the railing she obviously wants.

Bypassing the downstairs bathroom, I see someone running, but they have brown hair down their back, so I know it isn’t Blaise.

Another runner, and I shake my head. Where the fuck is he?

I shove open a door and the fist that snaps into my face knocks me back on my ass, momentarily dazed as the person crouches through my blurry vision.

He slides off the mask, tousled hair falling on his forehead.

“Cole?” I think he says, going by the way his lips move. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He grabs my arm and drags me into the room, slamming the door shut. Crouching again, he slaps my face so I focus.

I blink away the haziness and scowl at him.

“You fucking hit me,” I grit.

I want to yell at him, but I pause at the blood on his face, the busted-up lip and swollen eye.

“Who the fuck did that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Why are you here? How did you get in?”

“Mia,” I say, breathless from running around the house for the last half an hour. “She called me. She knows I love you.”

Blaise goes to speak, and his lips slam shut. His brows furrow.

“I must’ve hit you pretty hard,” he laughs. “What’s the plan, then? One has a gun and the others have weapons, and I don’t think this is a case of runners and chasers. This is serious.”

But we’re out of time, because there’s a bang on the door, and we know we’ve been caught when Jackson’s voice faintly filters through the wood, even over the ear-bursting music.

“Keith says he’s in here.”

“The window,” I say, nodding to it. “We’re on the ground floor.”

Blaise doesn’t hesitate to grab the hardest object and launch it at the window, just as something hits against the door. Luckily, the door doesn’t crack the way the window blows out.

I tell Blaise to go out first, and he flinches when his palm cuts on the glass. He jumps down, and when I go to climb out, the door is kicked open, and someone snatches my hair and yanks me back in.

“Wait, no, that’s Cole!” Allie cries over the music, just as a bat swings into my gut and winds me. “Don’t hurt him!”

Blaise can’t get back in. Although we’re on the ground floor, there’s still a jump to the grass from the window, and I can’t hear him over the music if he’s saying shit.

Jackson goes to say something against my ear, but I slam the back of my head against his face, turning in his hold and punching him in the throat. He gags, and one of his little friends catches the gun he drops, but Allie stands in front of me.

“Don’t you dare hurt him. We didn’t agree to this. You said you’d beat up Blaise. No one mentioned Cole.”

“You’re still defending him?” Jackson spits. “He’s been screwing his brother behind your back. You saw the video of them on the first chase night.”

I frown and move Allie from standing in front of me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He grins. “Did you think no one would notice you hiding your identity so you can force him to blow you?”

I glance over my shoulder. The music is too loud for Blaise to hear, but still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And the second time in the classroom. You wanked him off, still hiding who you were.”

Allie crosses her arms. “You didn’t mention that time,” she says to him.

“That’s why he has no interest in you. He’s gay.”

The term doesn’t make me uncomfortable. Before, I was in denial, but now? Yeah, I am fucking gay, and I don’t wait around to hear another word from this asshole’s mouth. My knuckles burn as I punch him again, again, and a third time to throw him on his ass. I climb on him and grab his throat. No one stops me, They watch as I slam the back of Jackson’s head into the ground.

“Stay the fuck away from Blaise,” I snap, cutting off his oxygen. Squeezing, I pull him to me, so only he can hear my next words. “Or I’ll sneak into your room at night, tie you to your bed, and I’ll carve his name into your skin. I’ll cut you. I’ll snap your fucking bones one by one with pliers and make you drink your own piss. And when you’re still alive and begging me to stop, I’ll silence you by cutting off your cock and making you choke on it until your body is found weeks later, because no one cares about you enough to check in.”

Not that I would lower myself to getting into trouble with the law for this asshole, but with how pale he goes, I’ve driven my point home. I release his throat and stand, glancing over at Allie.

“Unlock the fucking door.”

She nods a few times and runs out of the room. I wait for someone to hit me, to feel a fist or a bat or even a bullet penetrate my skin, but they all stand back as I step over Jackson and leave them there.

“You’ll regret threatening me,” I hear Jackson call out.

Yeah, probably. But I’m not caring.

As soon as Allie unlocks the door and I step out, Blaise barges through the crowd and runs straight for me.