Free About the Dark by helenrena Page A

man’s bluff.”
    “What?” Demi inhaled sharply. “That’s not
true, not about the blind man’s bluff.”
    “It is,” I said. “You’ve never won against
me.”
    She glared. “That’s because you’re
blind.”
    “Am not. I’ve always been able to see through
your eyes. And I’ve always looked through them. And so when the
three of you put on blindfolds, I’m as blind as you and—”
    “Whatever,” Demi barked. “Let’s play the
stupid game, and we won’t stop until I win.”
    Fox put his arm around my shoulders and
looked straight into Demi’s eyes, for they were the same height.
“Only if Ever wants to.”
    “No, it’s fine. I’ll play,” I said.
    Fox hugged me tighter. “You don’t have
to.”
    “No, no, really, it’s okay.” Anything was
better than jumping in a corner. I mean, sure, in theory, it was a
useful trick. If learned, it would allow me to escape when
cornered, but in reality, it was all nonsense because our guards
were professionals. They were paid a lot of money and given a lot
of guns to keep us here.
    Demi was already stalking around the room,
looking for the blindfolds, three strips of white fabric that had
been ruffles on my dress. After she found them, she gave one to
Sinna not too gently, but not violently either—I guess she’d wanted
to show she’d forgiven him for sticking up for me. The other ruffle
she threw in Fox’s direction, and the third one she tied around her
own eyes.
    Fox kissed my forehead. “It’ll pain me not to
see you.”
    “Enough with the sop,” Demi groused.
    Fox gave me a long, loud kiss on the lips.
“Ev, you do know that if you don’t want to, you don’t have to learn
that jump. Or play this game. Demi’s not the boss here.” He didn’t
add who the boss was—we all knew it was him.
    “Yeah, sure,” I said.
    “Can we finally start the friggin’ game?”
Demi demanded.
    “Just a sec.” Fox pulled me to his chest.
Positioned me so I was facing the same direction he was, his chin
resting on top of my head. Then, like a slowly revolving periscope,
we turned around, he looking at everything in the room and me
following his gaze. It was a large, roughly rectangular space with
a kidney-shaped counter running parallel to one of the walls. There
were three doors, or rather one door and two doorways. The door, a
gigantic block of steel, led into the mall and was locked while the
doorways opened into a bathroom and a back room, both of which were
off limits in this game. The doorframes were splintery, and the
steel handle on our front door stuck rather far into the room, but
it was the books that were the main challenge. We had tons and tons
of them. We’d mostly stacked them neatly along the walls, but the
piles sometimes toppled, and the slick magazines dispersed at the
lightest touch. Besides, specifically this morning, I had built my
own rendition of the Empire State Building in the middle of the
store. I memorized the spot where it was.
    When Fox and I finished our rotation, we saw
Demi and Sinna already blindfolded, standing across the counter.
Fox winked. I couldn’t see this of course, but half of his field of
vision quickly blinked out, and that’s how I knew what he’d done. I
smiled at him just as he closed his eyes to put on the blindfold,
and instantly, the lights around me went out. I stood in absolute
dark.
    “Ready?” Demi pounded something on something,
most likely her fist on the counter. Without waiting for our
answer, she began to count, “One, two…” On the count of three, it
was game time, and Demi counted as quickly as she could, all in a
rush to catch me. Just as quickly I pulled off my polyester dress
because it was long and stiff and noisy. It had a zipper in the
back, but I didn’t have time to undo it—I simply yanked the gown
off. Sure, this left me in just my underwear, but since everyone
was blindfolded, what did it matter anyway?
    “Three!” Demi yelled, and I heard a dry
knock, which was