Page 4 of Chill
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I don’t knowwhy it’s his name I think of when I see him. Maybe it’s the mask, or the knife in his hand, but it’s truly the first thing that comes to mind.
“Wait,” I breathe, hands tight on my steering wheel as if some instinctual part of me is considering running him over. Which, admittedly, he might deserve.
“Wait,” I say again, scrambling out of the car with my phone. The night air is chilly, and I shiver through the thick, soft fabric of my hoodie almost reflexively, mouth already open to say…something.
But Val doesn’t wait. He gives a soft, almost regretful sigh, reaching a hand out to me for a few seconds before holding his palm up, as ifhe’sthe one tellingmeto wait. Then he takes off, following the person who ran across the beam of my headlights only seconds ago.
For a second, not even, I hesitate. But then something in me clicks, and the hesitation fades away with my next small shiver in the cold air.
I’ve fuckingwaitedlong enough.
I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not giving him another chance to leave me behind then just not show back up. Not this time.
Refusing to consider the knife, the reason he’s wearing a mask, or the person quite literally running from him, I follow him with a few thoughts of where Kieran might be.
Somehow, I realize that calling out to him wouldn’t be the right choice. Instead, I’m reduced to following the sound of crashing footsteps and the occasional sight of him through the trees in the moonlight. I work to keep myself at a run; at least, as fast as I’m comfortable running through the sparse trees of the old, abandoned campground. An occasional root or downed branch threatens to trip me up, but thankfully Val isn’t exactly quiet.
Especially when he’s terrorizing someone.
But I don’t think about that part of this—that if he’s chasing someone with a knife, it’s probably not just for show. I doubt he’s doing this as a demonstration. At least, not a demonstration his victim is likely to walk away from.
I should be more afraid of that reality. Ofhim. I shouldn’t be running toward a man with a hunting knife clasped in one hand. Though I distantly think to myself, there are probably some knife safety lessons to be had when he’s running in the dark over uneven terrain.
Seems to me like this could end with him falling and stabbing himself if he’s not careful. Not that Val really seems to know whatcarefulmeans.
In minutes, my breathing is coming in sharp, pained pants. My lungs protest the cold air, just as my thighs protest the cursed act of running. Especially when I’m not the one being chased. But finally, just when I’m pretty sure my legs are going to rebel and spontaneously break or I’m finally going to succumb to a patch of gravel on the ground and bite it, I can see Val slowing down.
When his laugh cracks through the air, high and jubilant, I can’t help but give a small shiver at the sound. I’ve heard itbefore, directed at me, and the flash of the memory makes me stumble to a stop with my phone clenched in my hand. Carefully, I double check that its light isn’t on, and while I’m not sure if Val knows I’m here, I’d prefer if he didn’t know I managed to follow him all this way.
Distantly, the sound of water lapping at the shore draws my attention, and part of me wishes I could see more of this place than just the trees and old campsites with their broken down camp grills covered in about forty years’ worth of rust. If I breathe in hard enough, I think I can smell the old, long forgotten campfires contained by the holy metal rings on the gravel, but I’m sure that’s just my imagination.
This place hasn’t seen campers in a decade, I’m sure.
Still following his striding movements, I shift from the open path Val followed to the thicker trees separating the campsites. I duck behind a larger oak tree, hands on the rough bark as my fingers dig into it, leaning some of my weight against it as I try to breathe evenly and quiet my heart rate so I can hear his words instead of just the murmur of them.
“Poor thing. Pooryou.” It’s amazing how condescending Val sounds when he’s like this. Part of me wonders if when he puts the mask on, he really is someone else.
If he really isRavageinstead ofValentin.
In the same vein, I wonder if Kieran is similar. If there’s a completely different persona—theHarrowside of him—when he wears the ram mask with its upside down cross painted in red.
As if summoned by my thoughts, footsteps crunching on the gravel across the campsite herald the other masked killer, though he’s not holding a blade like Val. Still, his mask seems eerie, almost otherworldly, in the glow from the moonlight as he circles the man crumpled to the ground like an exhausted rabbit.
Unlike the man they made me kill, this one isn’t here because he’s tied down. He’s too exhausted to run, and I swear I can see the tremble of his muscles from here.
Run, the small, smart part of my brain whispers.Run away. You know what they’re going to do.The thought has my thighs tensing, and my fingers clenching the bark harder as if I’m a rabbit preparing to spring away from the threat of a predator’s teeth.
But I don’t run.
If I run now, I can’t face them.
If I run now, then there’s no point for me to be here. They’ll never change, I remind myself. Not for me, not for anyone.
If I can’t handle what they do in the dark, then I can’t face them in the light of day.
As Harrow prowls the perimeter of gravel in the old campsite, I crouch and lean against the tree, not wanting to be so visible that they can easily catch sight of me.
