Page 12 of Stay Scared

My lane barrier begins to rise.

He raises one gloved hand toward someone crossing the ordinary entrance, and my knees lock. The barrier continues upward in front of me, but I stay where I am.

Nobody told me to stop. The employee beside me says nothing, and neither does he.

Heat climbs beneath my collar.

I obeyed him without being given a command.

Another participant passes beneath the arch before his hand lowers. I stay put, cold air catching the dampness at the back of my neck while the rest of me has gone painfully warm. My pulse beats against the harness strapped across my chest.

The white lines surrounding his eyes brighten once, barely enough to register, and my stomach tightens.

I read approval into it before I can stop myself. Satisfaction sparks through me so quickly that my thighs tense beneath my jeans.

He still hasn’t spoken to me. I am standing behind an open barrier, waiting for a masked stranger to decide whether I am allowed through it.

His hand settles against the side of his coat, and I watch it with my mouth dry. If he lifted one finger toward the gate, I already know what my body would do. The knowledge sends another hot pulse through me, part embarrassment and part something I refuse to name while he is looking directly at me.

I wait, and he lets me.

A staff member opens the ordinary entrance, and four guests leave the main queue for the gates. Their laughter fades when the skull-masked performer steps behind them and follows close enough that one woman keeps looking over her shoulder.

The glowing mask raises a hand, and the gate closes after the group passes through. My lane remains shut.

I glance toward the Ferris wheel beyond the midway. The loose passenger car still rocks in the wind, its metal support grinding against the frame. Movement passes beneath it, too far away to identify.

When I look back toward the ticket booth, the chain has stopped moving. The white mask has returned to the fence several feet from where he stood before, his body facing the queue while he keeps watching the staff route behind the booth.

I register his lack of interest in me before I can help it.

The employee who confirmed the lead count speaks into her radio. No answer comes back. She looks down at the screen and tries again.

The skull-masked man stops pacing. Across the entrance, the glowing lines on the black mask dim.

Something changes among the staff before anyone says a word.

Then the hidden speakers activate. The recorded message never returns. A different voice enters the queue, deeper and electronically altered.

“Final Girl Protocol is ready. Release the press lane.”

The sound reaches me before the glowing mask moves, and I know the voice belongs to him. The authority I felt beneath the arch now comes through every speaker along the fence.

The employee beside me looks at her tablet, and my lane barrier releases with a metallic click.

The skull turns away from the ordinary guests. Near the fence, the blank white face abandons the service gate. Beneath the entrance arch, the glowing mask lifts.

All three of them are looking at me.

My feet are already prepared to move when the intercom activates again.

“Salem Sterling, proceed into Crimson Night.”

Chapter 4

The gate slams shut before I reach the first turn.

Steel strikes steel behind me, hard enough that I feel it through the soles of my boots. The body camera knocks against my chest when I turn. There is no handle on this side.