Page 222 of Stay Scared

“No, I don’t.”

His mouth tightens. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I like that one better.”

I grab the door handle, but Mark catches my sleeve before I get out.

“If you call me, I come in.”

“I remember.”

“I do not care which one of them is naked.”

I look at him. “That is an unnecessarily specific contingency.”

“I have met Cade.”

Fair enough.

I get out. The gate stands open, and nobody waits beneath it.

That should help.

My pulse disagrees.

Working lights illuminate the first section of midway, but most of Crimson Night beyond it remains dark. The property has been gutted in places. Walls are missing, camera housings hang empty, and the red-room entrance is nothing more than a raw steel frame surrounded by evidence markings.

I walk past it.

My skin remembers before the rest of me does: Cade smashing through the observation window, Ash bleeding beside the lock, Owen’s voice coming through dead systems because watching was the only way he knew to remain close.

I keep moving.

The founder key gets me through a mechanical door near the old mirror maze. Beyond it, the corridor is dark.

I stop when leather creaks somewhere ahead.

My pulse jumps.

I should turn on my phone light.

I leave the phone in my pocket.

“Cute.”

Cade’s voice comes from the dark, rougher than I remember and closer than I expect.

I take another step. “You lasted six weeks just to lurk in a hallway?”

His boot scrapes concrete. “I lasted six weeks because you told me not to come near you.”

The pressure in his voice removes any humor from the answer.

I can barely make him out at first. Broad shoulders. Black shirt. Skull mask.

My body reacts before I decide how I feel about that, heat going low and sharp.