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When the voices around me quieted, I realized just how loud I had been. My face heated, and I sent an embarrassed smile to the people surrounding me, though no one was looking at me. The person next to me was face down, attention solely focused on the game, fingers tapping rapidly on the worn-down buttons of the machine.
Get a hold of yourself, Blake.
It was dark in the arcade with only the overhead neon lights and the screens from the games lighting the space. Cheers broke out across the room causing me to jump. I leaned against my machine and let out a deep sigh.
The whole day had been a bust. First, I found out I was on duty with the senator,in public,after I had specifically requested not to be put in the spotlight. Then that disgusting stalker showed up at the restaurant for the third time in a four-month period.
Last I heard, he was thrown in jail for his dangerous stalking tendencies and threats, but apparently no one cared much about the man since he hadn’t actually hurt anyoneyet.
Yet being the key word. He grabbed at the senator’s wife, attempting to pull her into the back with him. An idiot to think the gaggle of secret service agents wouldn’t see what he was doing.
I didn’t know what had happened to me. I was off and chasing him down like any other good secret service agent would do, then a sort of haze covered my eyes, and I only snapped out of it by the time my fists were bloodied and I had a gun to his forehead.
So now I was here, letting off steam in the only way I knew how.
That’s a lie, actually. My favorite way to let out steam was to get railed, but I couldn’t really go to the club after someone fucking rejected me.
Like seriously?Sherejectedme?As if she hadn’t been coming onto me the entire time. Had been waiting until I was untied to get with me. Who the fuck went to every single one of my performances and then flirted with me like she had if shedidn’twant to fuck?
Maybe I was getting rusty.
I slipped a few coins into the machine while grumbling under my breath.
The soundtrack and series of gunfire fromZombie Revival 5blasted through the speakers.
I grabbed a hold of the familiar plastic gun with a frown and pointed it toward the screen.
It was lighter than the gun I had been assigned, but it reminded me too much of it. I was hit with not just images of the man I had chased but also of another man long ago who had been in the same position.
Red flashed across my vision, and my body moved on autopilot.
It had been three years since I discovered this dirty, run-down arcade. Two and a half since I found this game collecting dust. And two since I had reached the highest score.
I don’t know what it was about blowing zombie brains out, but every time I found myself having a hard day, my feet took me to this place. Maybe it wasn’t the zombies at all. Maybe it was the cheap plastic gun in my hands. Unlike going to the shooting range, I could lose myself in the game while not losing myself in the murderous rage that filled me every time I picked up the gun.
Most days the games were a way to funnel my anger, much like they had in my childhood. There wasn’t much in the small town that I grew up in, save for a pizza joint with the very same zombie game in it.
I would sneak out at night to go play, even when my parents grounded me for the stupidest things. It became my escape. My home away from home.
This felt much like it, except those in control of me knew very much what I was doing in this place.
The agents watching me made fun of me for the first few months when they found out I came here as often as I did, but that didn’t last very long. When I didn’t give into their goading, they simply shrugged it off and let me be.
After all, there wasn’t much that could happen here. Nor was I afraid of them coming in here to find me. They had made it all too obvious.
The club was an entirely different story, though.
The game was over in a matter of minutes. I readied a few more coins in my hand and was ready to start a new game, but my entire world stopped when I saw the scoreboard.
All the anger and frustration boiled under my skin. A stunned sort of offence filling my chest and causing my head to spin.
I wasn’t first anymore.
My screen name wasBlakeyyy394,but it now sat firmly at spot two while…Saphdem39was at number one.
Years.YearsI had spent at number one… who thefuckwas that person?
There were only a few things I looked forward to, this stupid fucking game being one of them, and someone had to go and take it from me.
