Fear Games

8. Safe and Sound / Love and Trust

EDEN

That morning, I kept Kael home from school. Part of it was to ensure that he was safe—we couldn't trust anyone around us anymore—but it was also because I knew he was embarrassed about what happened. The last thing I wanted was for him to go to school and face his bully Brett, who for sure should have been expelled for the child exposure incident some time back. However, he wasn't, so I had to do what was best for my son. I needed to make sure he was okay before proceeding with anything else.

He didn't talk to me much the night before after Arya and Harlin were caught by the police. Not that I could blame him. He had been handcuffed to the bed, fully prepared to lose his virginity to that crazy girl. It wasn't going to be easy to talk to him about what happened, but I knew it needed to be done—and I think he did, too.

I found him sitting at the kitchen table, his head in between his hands as if he had been crying. Not that I blamed him for that either. He was still in his pajamas, which was just a plain white t-shirt and basketball shorts. Next to him on the table was an open can of Pepsi, and I wanted to reprimand him about having soda first thing in the morning, but I decided to let it slide just this once.

I took a seat next to him and placed my hand on his arm. "Hey, buddy. How are you feeling?"

"Like a fucking moron," Kael replied without lifting his head. I wanted to catch him on his foul mouth, but I let that one go, too. There were so many other things to worry about than if my kid said the F-word.

"I'm so sorry you feel that way," I said gently. "It must be hard losing her. I know you two were close."

"We were," Kael replied as he stared at me with empty eyes. "You know what the worst part is? German was a complete misdirect. I confronted German about their Google search history, and they told me when they searched how to get away with murder, they were looking up the old damn TV show of that name. German's not a killer, Mom. My fucking girlfriend was. The girl that I trusted more than anyone else in this whole entire world. And to top it all off, she turns out to be in a real relationship with my murderous ex-friend Harlin. How am I supposed to be okay with any of this? How?" I could hear the agony in his voice. He was hurting so much, and all I wanted to do was take it away from him.

"Honey, I know it's hard," I said. "The Fear Games changes people. I can't say for sure where Arya went bad, but I'm sure she was a good girl at some point in her life. She just got sucked in because the Fear Games are addicting. It pulls you in and doesn't let you go. There's so much power when you realize that you can be a killer."

"But that's the thing," Kael said, "she didn't kill me. Why the hell did she spare me?"

That was a good question...one that I unfortunately did not have an answer to. It was something that kept me up most of the night personally. It was almost as if Arya and Harlin knew that the leader didn't want Kael dead at all. And if that was true, why? I had no idea at all, but it was something I had a feeling we'd be getting an answer on sooner rather than later.

"You can't make yourself go crazy with all these questions," I said. "The best thing you can do is work through your feelings by talking about it and being open. Over time, the pain will eventually go away."

"Or we'll all get murdered by the ringleader," Kael suggested.

I didn't even want to entertain that as a possibility. "No, Kael, we're not going to die. I promise you that. We're all going to make it out of this alive."

Kael slammed his fist down on the table. "How can you even say that? How can you be so sure? I was so sure that my girlfriend wasn't a psycho, but I was completely wrong. We can't be sure of anything anymore. Especially that we'll survive this horrible nightmare. Sometimes I wish I wasn't even your kid." As soon as he said it, he must've realized how much his words hit me like bullets, so he said, "I'm sorry, Mama. I didn't mean that."