Page 178 of Game Misconduct

Fresh tears appeared and she fumbled with something under her jersey. “Fine! If you don’t want me, there’s no reason for me to be alive anymore!”

She was crying in earnest now, almost sobbing as she held something to her wrist.

Fear swamped Tanner as he realized it was a knife. Fuck, this lady wasmessed up.

The knife was weird though, like it was made of plastic or something, but the tip looked sharp enough to do some damage.

A cold feeling settled in the pit of Tanner’s stomach.

“Darla,” Krista said in a strangled tone. “Don’t do this. Please. Let’stalkabout this.”

But she shook her head, sobbing. “You don’t love me and I have nothing left!”

“Darla, listen to me,” Tom said urgently. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

She laughed and there was something about it that sent a chill down Tanner’s spine. “What Iwantis you. I want what we had before. But you left! You left me and you don’t love me anymore and now I’m all alone!”

Out of the corner of Tanner’s eye, he saw Catherine and his mom gathering the kids closer to them. Catherine held her finger to her lips and nodded at the other set of doors at the opposite end of the room from where Tanner stood.

They started moving slowly, edging that way. The kids looked scared and Tanner winced. Oh fuck, he didn’t want them to see what happened. Because it didn’t seem like it would be any kind of happily ever after here.

“You told me you loved me!” Darla screeched, pulling Tanner’s attention back to her. “That you wanted to be with me forever. And then youleft.”

“Darla,” Krista said slowly. “We asked you to give us some time, but you started showing up at mywork. At theeventsI did.”

“I just wanted to be with you,” she whispered, her shoulders shaking now.

“You visited our kids’school,” Krista said tightly. “You scared them.”

“Yeah. Your precious fucking kids,” Darla spat. She turned to glare at Brie, the knife still held to her wrist. “Have they introduced you to their kids? To their parents?”

Brie opened her mouth and out of the corner of his eye Tanner saw Tom shake his head at her. Darla had her head turned, so hopefully she couldn’t see.

“No,” Brie blurted out. “No, I haven’t met them either.”

That was a big fat lie, because Brie had been hanging out with the SAPs tonight. Thankfully, Tom and Krista’s kids were still with them now. Tanner prayed none of them would walk in on this.

Darla let out an ugly laugh. “They won’t. They’ll tell you they’ll introduce you, but they’ll keep making excuses about why they can’t yet. It’s never therighttime, you know?”

She dug the knife into her wrist a little and a small trickle of blood appeared.

Shit, shit.Catherine and his mom were still trying to get the kids out but what if Darla hurt herself before they could make it through the door? Tanner didn’t want it to happen at all but fuck, hereallydidn’t want to see a bunch of kids get traumatized.

Or, honestly, himself.

“Hey,” Tanner said softly, so he didn’t startle her. “Your name is Darla, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She whirled around, glaring at him. “What do you want?”

“Just to talk,” Tanner said with his most charming smile. “That’s all.”

Brie was slowly edging away, her gaze darting to Harper, who was in Tanner’s mom’s arms now. Catherine gave Brie a reassuring smile and tilted her head toward the door.

“What if I don’t want to talk to you?” Darla asked, her gaze darting around like it might be a trap. But she wasn’t crying anymore, so that was kind of a win.

Tanner shrugged. “I mean, that’s never really stopped me before. My mom always said I could talk a de—uh, dog’s ear off.”

She’d actually said a dead person but bringing up dead people to an unhinged lady with a knife seemed like asuperbad idea.