Page 152 of Lucky 14

Oakley hands me one, not making eye contact. His cheeks are pink.

“I, uh…”

I don’t want one, but he’s putting it in my hand anyway, the chill of it cooling my fingers.

“I have something to say, so, uh…wait until the ICEE has melted to kill me?” Oakley fidgets. “Or don’t, I also brought a rock.” He scrambles to get something from his pocket and nods at the room. “May I?”

Robotically, I step back toward the bathroom again. Oakley puts the rock on the bed between us.

Oakley takes a shaky breath, his body language closed off and nervous, crossing his legs and keeping his arm over his torso. He looks like the Oakley I originally met, and yet he doesn’t. He looks more confident and less…lost.

“I saw you talking to Riley.”

I purse my lips, stomach sinking. Oakley looks too nervous for what he has to say to be anything good.

“I met her at The Hunter’s Club back when…I was lost. My ex broke up with me, and I wasn’t handling it well.” Oakley takes a deep breath and glances at me quickly, then back down to his treat. “Poppy?”

I blink at him.

“Poppy is my ex. She was… She went to therapy with you.”

I think back, my brain feeling like it’s moving through mud to access that information that doesn’t seem relevant. Slowly, I remember. Right. Poppy was going through a healing journey to prioritize herself. She was with Oakley?

“I… It’s my fault you’re here.”

The silence that follows his words hits me in the gut.

Riley was right? My gut instinct from day one was right. Slowly, I feel something in me crack.

“I signed up for a game. I thought it was some club thing and that it would make me feel better. I had to put…” Oakley trails off, and he frowns. “I had to put something that got between me and true love.” He cocks his head.

My heart is racing. Oakley put me down. He signed me up for the game. And I trusted him.

“Riley told me I had to put what stands between me and true love.” Oakley’s voice grows in anger. “But now I see that it was all a ruse to get me in the game. Because she was bored.”

“You signed me up?” The ICEE is making my fingers numb as well as my emotions. I trusted someone whose mission was to hurt me.

Oakley’s fingers have turned white.

“I…” I need to get away from him. I hoped it wasn’t true. Made every excuse in my mind, even though I knew it was true.

For a second, I consider snatching up that rock. But as soon as I think about it, I know I can’t do it. I can’t hurt Oakley.

Instead, I storm out of the room, then realize I still have the ICEE in my hand. I jerk to a stop, unsure what to do with it and not wanting to make a mess, but not wanting to go back into the room. I’m paralyzed there for a second, but then I storm off, taking it with me. I storm to the stairs and take them down, cussing myself out.

How could I be so stupid? How could I trust him?

As I go down, I don’t notice the black shadow on the second step from the bottom, and I trip over something soft. The soft thing makes a squeak.

“Shit.” I catch myself with one hand, looking for whatever it was. I spot it arching its back and looking at me with flashing eyes.

It’s a cat. A black cat.

Fuck. I feel bad immediately and crouch down, holding my free hand out. “I’m so sorry, baby, I didn’t see you.”

The cat’s hair is fluffed up, and its back is still arched. Then, it pounces at me. I scramble back, but the cat is fast, batting at me with its paws. The sudden movement kicks my brain into fight or flight, and I scramble away, only to be chased by the animal as it bites at my ankles. My heart races like it did when the man chased me with the sword. Like when Oakley chased me after I got the supplies, and how Wyatt chased me over the edge of a creek bed.

I find myself scrambling into a kitchen where Cali is. She turns around with a surprised look on her face. I keep going, looking for an exit, but the kitchen opens up into a dining room with no door. Instead, I scramble behind the bar counter, looking to see that the cat has stopped. Now it’s curling around Cali’s feet.