Deadly Little Games (Book 3)

Chapter 1

When I close my eyes, I can picture his mouth. The way his top lip is slightly fuller that the bottom. The chapped skin on his lower lip. And how the corners of his mouth turn upward, even when he's trying to look serious.

My fingers completely saturated with clay, I continue to sculpt the image, remembering that night in front of my house, when I knew he wanted to kiss me.

It was one of our last dates, and we were sitting in his car during an awkward moment when you're not exactly sure what happens next. Reaching to take my hand, Adam leaned in. My blood stirred, and my heart started pounding. 

But I didn't kiss him. 

I looked away, and his kiss barely grazed my cheeks.

Is it possible that subconsciously I'm regretting that moment?

I open my eyes a couple of minutes later. My sculpture looks eerily real. I touch the chalky surface of the lips, almost able to feel his breath between my fingertips. 

"Ten more minutes," Ms, Mazur announces, alerting us to the ending of pottery class.

I clear my throat and sit back on my stool, wondering if the heat I feel is visible on my face. I glance around at the other students working away on their sculptures and suddenly feeling self-conscious. Because all I've sculptured is Adam's mouth.

Adam, who just happens to be my boyfriend Ben's biggest enemy. 

Adam, who I'm no longer interested in.

Adam, who despite the 300-plus other confusing reasons why I shouldn't be giving him a seconds thought, I've been thinking about all day. 

I closed my eyes again. The image of Afam's mouth is still alive in my mind---the way his lips were slightly parted that night, and the tiny scar that cuts across the bottom lip, maybe from when he fell as a kid. I try to imagine what he would say if he knew what  was doing.

Would he suspect that I'm interested in him?

Would he think it was weid that I remembered so much details about that moment?

Would he tell Ben what I was up to?

I take a deep breath and try my best to focus on the answers. But the only words that flash across my minds, the ones I can't seem to shake, don't address the questions at all. 

"You deserve to die," I whisper, suddenly realizing that I've said the words aloud.

"Excuse me?" my friend Kim asks. She's sitting right beside me.

"Nothing." I try to shrug it off, a dimple to Adam's chin. 

"Not nothing. You just told me that I deserve to be maggot feed."

"Not maggot feed, just---"

"Dead!" she snaps. Her pale blue eyes, outlined with thick black rings of eye pencil, widen in disbelief.

"Forget it," I say glancing up at Ms. Mazur, sitting at her desk at the front of the room. "I don't know why I said that. Just daydreaming, I guess."

"Daydreaming about my death?"

"Forget it," I repeat.

"Are you sure you aren't still mad that I wouldn't let you borrow my vintage fishnet leggings?"

"More like I didn't want to borrow them," I say, taking note of her getup du jour: A fringed, fitted Roaring Twenties dress, and a couple of extra-long beaded nacklaces that dangle onto the table.

"Even though they would've looked totally hot paired with that cable-knit sweater dress I made you buy. Still, it's no reason to say I deserve death."

"I'm sorry," I say, reluctant to get into it. Especially since the words remain pressed behind my eyes, like a flashing neon sign that makes my head ache. 

"P.S.," Kim continues, nodding toward my sculpture of Adam's lips, "the assignment was to sculpt something exotic, not erotic. Are you sure you weren't so busy wishing me dead that you just didn't hear right? Plus, if it was eroticism you were going for, how come there's no tongue wagging out of his mouth?"

"And what's so exotic about your piece?"

"Seriously, it doesn't get more exotic than leopard, particularly if htat leopard is in the form of a swanky pai of kitten heels... but I thought I'd start out small."

"Right," I say, looking at her oblong ball of clay with what appears to be four legs, and a golf-ball-sized head, and a long, skinny tail attached. 

"And, from the looks of your sculpture," she continues, adjusting the lace bandana in her pixie-cut dark hair, "I presume you're hankering for a Ban Burger right about now. The question is, will that burger come with a pickle on the side or between the buns?"

"You're so sick," I say, failing to mention that my sculpture isn't about of Ben's mouth at all.

"Seriously? You're the one who's wishing me dead whilst fantasizing about your boyfriend's mouth. Tell me that doesn't rank high up on the sick-o-meter."

"I have to go," I say throwing a plastic tarp over my work board. 

"Should I be worried?"

"About what?"

"Acting manic and chanting about death?"

"I didn't chant."

"Are you kidding me? For a seconds there I thought you were singing the jingle to a commercial for a roach killer: You deserve to die! You deserve to die! You deserve to die!"

"I have to go," I say again.

"Camelia, wait. You didn't answer my question."

But I don't turn back. Instead, I go up and tell Ms. Mazur I'm not feeling well and need to go to the nurse. Luckily, she didn't argue. Even luckier is that I know just where to find Ben.

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Hey guys. It's Alex here. This book does not belong to me. But I hope you like the book and you should go and check the book out for yourself if you don't want to wait for updates. It's in the library or the book stores. Bye