Games of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

sit up.
    He snorted, but wisely kept his mouth shut when she shot him a warning glower.
    “You should stay down,” a woman said, still clutching her cell phone to her ear. “The ambulance is on its way.”
    “No!” Sophie scrambled up, nearly crashing her forehead into Spencer’s face. He jerked back just in time to avoid a broken nose. “I’m fine! I’m okay!”
    A crowd had formed around them now. Some of them, she noted, were kids from the school, probably drawn by all the commotion. The rest were people from the surrounding houses coming out to see what was happening. She groaned, wanting to die when she spotted several cell phones aimed in her direction, cameras rolling, probably streaming her mortification live.
    “I’m fine! Really. I promise. Please don’t call —”
    “Sophia?” Then, because her day just couldn’t possibly get any worse, her mother pushed through the throng of people and clattered towards her in three inch pumps. “Oh my Lord, Sophia!”
    “Who … how—” Spencer was shoved aside and Sophie was engulfed before she could fully accept the horror unfolding before her.
    “My poor baby!” her mother wailed … loudly.
    “Mom!” Both patting comfortingly and pushing her mother away, Sophie tried to untangle herself from the suffocating headlock.
    “What happened?” Her mother finally drew back just enough to grab either side of Sophie’s face. “I heard the noise from the house. I came out to see …” She sniffled. “What happened?”
    “I’m fine!” Sophie pleaded even though that wasn’t the answer to her mother’s question. “I swear! Can we please just …?”
    A loud whoot-whoot silenced the crowd. People parted and an ambulance rolled into the clearing, a white shark advancing on a wounded seal. Sophie had never wanted so much to just melt into vapors. She should have just given in to that darkness whilst she’d had the chance. Then she would at least be unconscious for this.
    “Mom … Mom, please, please don’t let them take me. I’m fine!”
    But her mother was already on her feet, waving the paramedics over. “Over here! Over here!” she kept saying between choked sobs.
    Seeing no help there, Sophie turned pleading eyes to the only other person who may be able to end her humiliation. She caught Spencer’s gaze, begging him silently not to let them take her.
    The paramedics were on her, telling her to lie down and not move. Lights were flashed in her eyes. Fingers were thrust into her face and moved from side to side. She was pulled and prodded and lifted onto a stretcher. One asked what happened.
    And without ever missing a beat, Spencer answered ever so helpfully, “She hit her head.”
    Traitor! Evil, skeezy traitor!
    Over the medic’s shoulder, Spencer met her eyes again and smirked.
    Gorgeous or not, he was so freaking dead! She swore vehemently.
    She was strapped to the gurney and rolled into the ambulance. Her mother went with her, weeping softly while clutching Sophie’ s hand. No amount of assurance that everything was fine seemed to help ease the terror in her mother’s eyes. But she pulled it together a little better by the time they reached the hospital. Sophie was taken into a room and told the doctor would be right with her.
    “Mom, seriously, I am fine!” she said for the millionth time.
    “But you might not have been if Spencer hadn’t been there!” her mother scolded, as if nearly being hit by a car had been Sophie’s idea. “He saved your life!”
    Not really, she thought. If he hadn’t shown up, she would never have been so distracted. She would have remembered to look both ways. She wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to grab her umbrella and run. So technically, it was his fault. Just like her being admitted into the hospital was his fault and her humiliation was his fault. He was to blame for everything short of Hurricane Katrina. Hell, with some time she was sure she could find links to his involvement in that