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I quickened my steps. He quickened his.
Stopping abruptly, I searched the mirrors for him, straining to hear against the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I couldn’t hear anything. Not music. Not screaming. And not his light-as-air footsteps.
He appeared behind me, safely behind a pane of glass, popping up behind my shoulder much like he had while he was fucking me from behind. Once again, we looked like polar opposites, and yet, the same. His dark hair to my blond. Black jeans to my blue. Blood trails slung across our bare chests, like we’d been flinging fresh blood to and fro as we hacked our way through crowds of people together.
The coppery taste hit my tongue, a memory. Bitter, metallic, salty. Addicting.
It is real.
I clenched my hand into a fist. Like I’d clenched the machete. The feeling of the blade slicing through bone and sinew reverberated through my hand, up my arm. I remembered the way it slid into abdomens so easily, hardly any effort at all. Like butchering a pig at work. That’s all they were. Large, bipedal pigs who screamed and cowered before us.
My whole body trembled. Fear? Adrenaline? Exhaustion? Insanity?
I forced myself to meet Bane’s dark gaze in the mirror. He’d vanished. All I saw was my own reflection staring back at me, haunted. Lost.
Surging forward, I turned another tight corner, nearly crying out when I ran face-first into a black door.
I shoved through it and stumbled out into the purple twilight of a frosty October morning.
Sucking in fresh air, I relished the burn in my lungs and the cold prickling my skin because it meant I was still alive. I hadn’t been slaughtered at some creepy ass carnival by a guy in a mask.
I’d done the slaughtering,the little voice whispered.
I shook my head, refusing to listen. That’s when it hit me—I was all alone.
Spinning in a circle, I realized I was standing in an empty field. In the distance, I could barely make out the shape of the old gas station, its windows boarded up again and the lot empty.
The tents were gone. The people were gone. The carnival was just… gone.
“Malcolm?” I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled. “Taylor!”
Staggering toward the gas station, something soft and squishy crunched under my boot. I danced back and stared at the ground, my breath coming in quick little bursts of crystal clouds.
A gray rabbit lay dead in the dirt. A real rabbit, not a stuffed animal. One of its eyes had been gouged out, revealing a gaping black hole. Blood seeped from the center of its chest, the matted gray fur punctured by a broken rib from a careless step.
I backed away from the dead rabbit, from the memory of a knife-throwing game and a stuffed animal that lookedjustlike the one at my feet.
“What is happening?” I whispered to myself, scanning the area again, searching for any clues. My gaze landed on Bane, standing a few yards away from me. My heart spasmed painfully, like my ribs were crushing it. At any moment, they were surely going to pierce it, just like the poor rabbit.
Bane still wore the black skeleton mask over his nose and mouth, but the blood was gone and so was the machete. Had I imagined those too? Had I imaginedeverything?
“What is happening?” I repeated, a little louder so he’d know the question was directed at him.
As usual, he didn’t answer. He merely cocked his head and gave me a slow blink.
Anger surged within me. I closed the distance in long strides, shoving him in the chest as soon as he was within arm’s reach. “What did you do to me?!”
Glimmering with the last of the starlight, his dark eyes crinkled at the corners. His amusement infuriated me.
“I want fucking answers!” I stabbed my forefinger at the ground, as if that would make him more likely to comply. “And I want to see your face! I want to see what you really look like under there.”
He turned in a small circle and presented me with his bare back. For a moment I thought it was defiance, but then I spied the black straps holding the mask in place. Reaching for the straps, I paused, flexing my fingers, trying to figure out if it was some sort of a trap. His broad shoulders were relaxed and his hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching now and again, not clenched in preparation to strike.
Exhaling a slow breath, I untied the mask.
He didn’t bother trying to catch it. The black jaw fell to his feet and stayed there.
He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, probably appreciating the morning air as I had, especially since he’d beenin a mask all night. After a moment, he turned to face me, truly, in all senses of the word.
