Read James Games for Free Online Page B

whatever force field is surrounding her.
    “I was at that concert,” she says, dazed. “He was at that concert. We were at the same concert.”
    “Hey, uh. Are you sure you’re my roommate Iris? You know—my sarcastic, too-good-for-everything roommate? Because I think you might actually be an evil imposter from outer space.”
    I poke her square in the cheek and she doesn’t even react, except to whisper, “We were at the same concert,” in awe.
    That’s it. Normal Iris I can handle. Zombie Iris I cannot. And, as anyone who’s watched The Walking Dead knows, there’s only one way to deal with zombies.
    I stop in the middle of campus and slap her across the face.
    The sound rings out, but not one of the students hurrying to their morning classes around us pauses to stare. There’s more than one zombie in the vicinity, but at least Iris is no longer one of them—she blinks, rubs her face, and shoots me such a wicked glare that I know she’s back to her usual witch self.
    “Snap out of it,” I tell her. “You’re the one who rolls your eyes while I drool over boys. Not the other way around.”
    “I don’t know what you’re so calm about,” she growls, hiking her lacy black tote higher on her shoulder. “Sigrid is going to cut you up into little pieces and then scatter them all over campus once she finds out that you—” She gives a little spasm. “Banged James Reid.”
    “The campus landscapers are gonna be on her butt. Rotting bits of flesh everywhere aren’t the best way to attract new freshman.”
    “I mean it,” says Iris with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Watch your step.”
    “No one knows except you and Mags, right?” I wave my hand, kind of wishing I hadn’t blurted out the truth in front of Mags last night. I don’t know her that well. “You guys won’t tell anyone. And even if you did, I can take Sigrid. Like I said, she’s nothing compared to a cow’s vaginal cavity.”
    Iris shakes her head. “You have to lose the competition. At the very least, you have to stay far away from James.”
    “I’ve never lost a contest in my life. Except the pie-eating contest when I was eleven, and that’s because Amos Glick trained for five months beforehand and gained a hundred pounds—”
    “Fiona,” Iris barks. “This is more serious than your little competitive streak. If Sigrid and her cronies find out, they’ll fuck with you until you’re forced to transfer—at a minimum. I know that for a fact.”
    “How?” I laugh. “You’re as new to this school as I am.”
    Discomfort flits across her face, but I’m at my building. I kiss her cheek and she lets me, which is a testament to how distressed she is. But I don’t bother consoling her anymore before I turn and enter my building. She’ll learn soon enough that Fiona Arlett is not intimidated by bullies.
    I ought to win the Games and then turn down James’s date. That would show them.
    It’s not like I want anything more to do with James. Sigrid is free to keep him in her perfumed, manicured evil robot claws. Just the thought that I had sex with that clearly stuck-up slimeball is enough to make me wish I’d never gone into that coat closet.
    Even if it was mind-blowing, wall-smashing sex.
    Even if I am curious to know why a guy who could have his pick of any undergrad would bother going to an off-campus concert and donning a mask to get laid.
    But I’ll never ask him, because I’m never going to speak to him. Even if he walked into my dorm room naked with a tub of whipped cream under his arm, I definitely wouldn’t let him lick it off my—
    Oops. Bad train of thought.
    When I walk into room 302, a shiver runs over me. The atmosphere is way too charged for this early in the morning. Girls are clustered together, whispering in taut voices. You couldn’t puncture this tension bubble with a sewing needle. For a second I wonder if we just got some awful email that the professor died, but then I follow everyone’s furtive