Read James Games for Free Online

balance to strike, and a girl needs to master it to be worthy of going on a date with James. I recommend black tights.”
    All around me, girls whip out their phones and write memos to themselves. Even Iris taps away discreetly on her silver iPhone. I’ll make a point of wearing my shortest skirt to that party. Impressing James Reid is right underneath ‘becoming Sigrid’s personal assistant’ on my list of priorities.
    “The only thing you really need to know is this.” Sigrid steps forward and transforms into a werewolf again. “If anyone touches James before the end of the Games, I will personally make their life hell for the rest of their time at this university.”
    I want to laugh, but everyone else seems to be taking her threat seriously. The hush speaks to that.
    “That’s it for tonight, girls!” Ellie claps again. I’m starting to worry that the clapping is a thing with her. “Congrats on becoming members of Phi Delta Chi. We’ll be happy to give you all rides back to your dorm buildings.
    “Let them walk,” says Sigrid bluntly. “It’s barely ten minutes.”
    In the end, five girls go with Ellie and only one girl, a blonde with a kiss-ass smile plastered to her face, goes with Sigrid. The rest of us walk. As it turns out, the freshman building is a straight shot past the main road beside Phi Delta Chi and across campus. The moonlight sprinkles us with light. Everyone else is whispering excitedly about James Reid, and I can’t stand it, so I fall back with Iris.
    “Can you believe this?” I say, psyched to finally bond via mutual disdainfulness. “I joined Phi Delta Chi to get in on all the good parties, not have a battle of the vaginas over some guy.”
    “Mmm,” says Iris.
    I eye her. “That’s all you have to say? Mmm?”
    “Uh, yeah. It’s stupid as hell. That’s for sure,” she mumbles. Is it just the moonlight, or is she blushing?
    “I think I’m going to dress extra slutty for the party this weekend, just to show I don’t give a fuck. You should do it with me.”
    “Well, I, uh…”
    I stare at her. “You’re not actually going to try and win the Games. You hate this kind of thing. Wait—tell me this isn’t why you joined Phi Delta Chi in the first place.”
    She flares up. “Of course not. I have my own personal reasons for joining and they’re none of your big-eyed, bushy-tailed business.”
    That’s the Iris I know.
    “But I don’t see any harm in doing my best in the mean time,” she says, mumbling again.
    Ice-cold Iris is participating in a boy contest. Soon the skies will fall and people will start caring about Lady Gaga again.
    A shadow approaches us. It’s Mags, abandoning the rest of the group to trail behind. I’ve only talked to her a few times and she seemed sweet enough, but apparently her favorite activity is to crush people’s fingers when they’re trying to harmlessly sass upperclassmen. “Hey,” I say cautiously. “You got in too, then.”
    “I did. I was so excited when they pulled me out of bed. Well, I cried because they scared me, but after that I was excited.”
    Mags always speaks at the lowest volume setting. You have to strain to hear her. She’s always in pastels, and there’s usually at least one bow on her person. If Iris is Victorian gothic, Mags is Japanese Lolita fashion. She definitely won’t have any trouble with the dressing modestly thing.
    “I’m sorry I grabbed you back there,” she says in her anxious cricket voice. “It’s just…I’ve heard things about Sigrid.”
    “Heard what? That she’s actually a vampire bitch alien from outer space? Knew it.” I press my hand to my heart. Nothing gets past me. I’m basically Sherlock Holmes.
    But Mags’s expression doesn’t lighten. “She hazes hard, Fiona. I heard that last year, a girl got sent to the hospital and nearly died because Sigrid and her cronies made her drink a gallon of spiked punch. Her dad is the school president, so she does whatever she wants.