Free Gamed (A Standalone Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Romance) by Claire Adams

drove around and plotted her perfect future. She
wanted to be surgeon at one of the exclusive private hospitals in Las Vegas
where she could treat rich people from all over the world without leaving her
hometown. My father had even taken on clients from those hospitals to make sure
Sienna would have the contacts she needed.
    My father stopped
and his watch arm dropped. He just stood in the corner of the kitchen and
stared at the floor. "Well, the pizza will be ready soon. We should leave
in about 15 minutes."
    He shuffled back
towards the front room as I leaned on the counter. I clung to Sienna's idea of
a daydream city. It was easy to picture Las Vegas. I always started with the
Paris Casino, the faux Eiffel Tower was something I often teased Sienna about. From
there, I pictured the Bellagio's dancing fountains and the Luxor's sleek black
lines. I also loved the roller coaster facade of New York, New York and the
white columns of Caesar's Palace.
    I focused in on
the arcade at the MGM Grand. Beyond the normal kid games, they had interactive
and full-sized gaming consoles where you could actually feel like you were
inside the game. I wanted to step inside one and let everything else fade away.
    Still, my daydream
was not holding. Sienna was right. Tonight, Las Vegas was not far enough away
and I had 15 minutes to escape. I put my head on my arms as I leaned on the
counter and tried again.
    This time my
daydream city was a foreign land. Dark plains that held pockets of fog, black
granite cliffs that jutted up before shadowy mountains, dim forest glens and
silent stands of towering pine trees.  
    I had enough time
to at least cue up Dark Flag and take
a look around. I headed downstairs to the basement. There, I brushed aside the
items Owen had returned and settled in on the worn leather sofa. Our wide
screen television buzzed to life on the home screen of the video game and I
quickly booted up my character.
    Dark
Flag was the perfect daydream city. Sienna would have scoffed at it, but it made
sense to me. She planned trips to Paris in her head, I was jumping into the
virtual rendering of the place I wanted to escape to. The game started with a
dark screen full of black thunderclouds. Lightning flashed across the screen
and the surrounded sound exploded. The game then dropped you through the
thunderstorm and deposited you on the starting grid, a rainy road outside the
walls of a looming city.
    I thought for a
moment about entering the city walls. It was easy to wander around there and
people watch. The multi-player online game attracted millions of people from
around the globe. Walking through the virtual city was what a lot of new
players did. It was a chance to see what other people had done with their
avatars. You could also purchase weapons, charms, and spells, instead of
earning them in the field. Or you could head to one of the many taverns and
interact with other avatars, as Owen had explained.
    I turned away from
the city. The whole point of my daydream was to escape from people, even
virtual people. I knew Owen had been playing the Black Fields with his clan, so
I turned in the opposite direction. I had never been inside the Pitch Forest
and I had just enough time to explore before my father expected me to join him
in the car.
    The Pitch Forest
was a massive landscape of huge pine trees and redwoods. My human avatar was
tiny in comparison. The animation was amazing and for a while, I was perfectly
content to look around and admire the quality of the game. Here and there the
trees had carvings on them – signs from other players about which way the
wayside inn was located and where the ogre caves could be found. The players
themselves had created an entire language of symbols that I had just begun to
unlock.
    "My next
victim," an underling player said.
    All new players to Dark Flag started off as underlings. The
lower evolved humans scuttled along on hands and feet like hairless dogs. Players
stayed in that form until