Page 174 of Stay Scared

“He kept everything worth keeping.”

I move closer to the camera. “Except you.”

The lens jerks toward me, then corrects.

I leave it behind.

The next stretch of maze is darker. There are no embedded screens or public comments here, only mirrors catching pieces of my body where weak emergency markers reach through the glass.

My boots sound wrong. Too many echoes. One step returns from ahead. The next comes from my right.

I stop, but nothing answers until a footstep comes from somewhere deeper.

Rook is moving now.

I put Ash’s mask back on. The old leather catches against my damp skin. My breath fills the sealed shell.

Another step comes closer.

I keep walking.

Rook’s voice comes through a speaker near the floor. “You think the mask will draw me out.”

I touch the wall with one hand. Cold glass slides beneath my palm.

“You’re already following it.”

“I was always going to follow you.”

“That isn’t what you’ve done tonight.”

A mirror to my left turns black. His beaked face appears on it.

“You entered my home.”

“No. You entered mine.”

The black screen disappears. My reflection returns.

I continue.

“You borrowed Cade’s history because you had none with me.”

A faint impact sounds behind the glass.

“You used Owen’s archive because he had already done the watching.”

The next camera rotates too quickly and clicks against its stop.

“And you spent the whole night inside Ash’s attraction.”

Rook speaks from somewhere much closer. “You think that makes me secondary.”

“I think you hate that I noticed.”

The lights inside three cameras turn red at once.

The maze wakes around me. Mirrors begin changing. Cade. Owen. Ash. My apartment. The red room. The memory house.