“Enough!” Oakley yelled. “Amanda is the ball. Our captain is out with strep throat. I’m running this show, okay? Let’s hurry up so we can go drink.” At Oakley’s declaration, everyone started cheering. Idiots. I was surrounded by idiots.

“One last thing,” Oakley said while stepping up to me. I held my breath and clenched my fist to stop myself from nailing him in the jaw. “It’s tradition for the captain to give the ball a kiss.”

His words were smoky and dark. He lifted up his hand and ran it down my arm. I simply smirked. “Well, then I guess you’ll have to catch me,” I replied, walking over to my team.

Game on, motherfucker.

15

I turned and started walking in the opposite direction of the van. That was literally the only thing I had to orient myself. I sure as hell wasn’t about to ask Oakley which way to go. I didn’t hear the thudding of heavy feet behind me, so I turned and called out, “Are you assholes coming, or are you going to let the ball show you up?”

I guessed that did the trick, because I heard three sets of shoes crunching over rocks and leaves. It hadn’t struck me as funny until just now that the players were stripped down to their underwear but were still wearing shoes. I giggled to myself thinking about these big tough guys in their boxers and tennis shoes.

Then reality set in. I was still scared shitless. Nobody knew where I was, and I wasn’t sure that I could trust three fresh outta high school guys to keep me safe if shit went down.

I didn’t believe in ghosts or the paranormal, but they still scared the hell out of me. I could feel all the hairs on my arms standing up. Oakley’s little speech about this being the most haunted road got to me. All I wanted was to be back at home in a nice hot bath, making lists of the different ways I could kill Oakley and get away with it.

There was a worn path illuminated by the moonlight we vaguely followed. After aimlessly walking for fifteen minutes, I learned that the shorter dude was named Ryan, the tallest was a fuckboy named Heath, and the redhead was Kyle. They surrounded me as we walked, with fuckboy Heath at my back. I could feel his beady eyes on my ass as we traveled.

“This isn’t so bad,” I commented, mostly trying to reassure myself.

“That’s because defense hasn’t jumped out of the trees yet,” Kyle whispered to my left.

Oh.

So the other players were going to jump out of the trees at us? Cool. Cool coolcoolcoolcooooooool.

“About when should we expect creepy dudes jumping out at us?” I asked while looking up at the shadowy trees lining the path on both sides of us.