The Game Until 18

Chapter 4- The Police Is Involved

Chapter 4- The Police Is Involved

            You know that moment when, let’s just say, you’ve written a 2000 character text, and you want to send it to your crush? Your mind keeps telling you, Send it! Send it! Show him how you’re feeling! But you can’t do it. You’re so nervous that he’ll take it the wrong way, and so you keep rereading and rewording it until it’s completely different, and yet, you still can’t send it. Your palms are sweating, your body is trembling, and you still can’t gather the courage to do it.

            Then multiply that feeling by ten. That’s exactly how I was feeling.

            Because the moment I saw him, I went through three stages of emotion: confusion, surprise, and fear. I felt confused at first because I wasn’t quite sure that it was him. There was no freaking way. What was he doing at Ryan’s house? Wasn’t he too rich and too high on the social ladder to be associating with Ryan? No offense to Ryan.

Then the confusion wore away after my brain adjusted to the sight of him. I was then sure that it was him. He might be dressed differently, in a huge black hoodie and baggy jeans, but it was definitely him.

Then came surprise. Well, considering how I reacted to being confused, I’m sure you know that I was surprised.

            And fear because I was scared that this was one of the last moments of freedom for me. It was him after all. He and my father were in the same bubble.

            Similar emotions ran through his face as he saw me, excluding the part about fear. Why would he be afraid of me?

            “L-Liliana?” he asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

            “Uh, Lily? Are you okay?” Rachel asked, concerned. My face was pale white, and I was slowly losing the feeling in my legs, making me stumble back in an effort to regain it. Finally, I managed to calm down enough to bite back with a reply.

            “I could ask the same of you, Mr. McKinnon,” I said, putting as much ice as I could in it, trying to appear confident enough so he wouldn’t try to approach me. That was how my dad had taught me when he still paid attention to me, when my mother hadn't left us yet. He had taught me to appear superior and confident even if you really weren’t, in order to make your opponent to feel intimidated enough to back off. However, all I wanted to do was to run away, but there was nowhere to go as of the moment. The street was still crowded with men looking for me.

            Mr. McKinnon was one of my dad’s top assistants. He took care of small things that my dad sometimes didn’t have time to do, such as several transactions and business deals. He often made sure that we got the best of everything, but for some reason, I had never really liked him. Maybe it was because of the fact that my dad paid more attention to him than his own daughter.

I also didn’t really like him because he was most likely the person to control the flow of the Game. I was pretty sure that he was the one who ordered them to make a move at Rachel’s house, even though I hadn’t seen him there personally. My dad generally wouldn’t trust anyone apart from him because most of his other personal assistants had tried to steal some of our money before. He was the most trustworthy. How he found out that I was at Rachel’s though, was a different matter. I had no idea.

            He cocked his head to the right, looking at me through his dark sunglasses. Before I could say another word, he burst off running.

            “What—hey!” I shouted in surprise. Just a few moments later though, he already at the gate leading out into the streets.