Page 57 of Ghosted

My pulse kicks hard, but I let her get ahead because she’s choosing this, and that matters even if I don’t want to admit why. She doesn’t run toward the student center. Doesn’t head for the security booth. Doesn’t cut across the main courtyard where people might still be smoking under awnings and pretending to study.

She runs deeper into the trees.

Toward the back road behind Saint Agnes Hall.

Toward somewhere darker.

That says enough.

My boots hit puddles behind her. Rain gets under the mask, cold against my jaw. Alice moves fast, but the camera bag slows her down, and the wet pavement makes every turn messy. Her boots slip once on a patch of leaves, and my hand twitches before I can stop it.

I almost call her name, but I don’t.

This only works if she keeps choosing.

She reaches the narrow part of the path where the trees crowd close and the cemetery fence turns into a low stone wall half-covered in moss. Beyond it, an old maintenance road curves behind campus, cracked and unused except by groundskeepers and idiots who want a place to drink where security won’t bother them.

Alice cuts that way and I laugh under my breath.

Because there it is. Exactly what I was waiting for.

She wants fear and right now, she hates that I know exactly how to give it to her. She gets halfway down the maintenance road before I catch her.

One second, she’s running through rain and dead leaves, and boots slipping in the mud. The next, my hand closes around her waist and turns her into me, backing her against the trunk of an old tree with enough force to steal the breath out of both of us.

Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make a point.

The mask is still on when her hands hit my chest.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” she snaps, breathless and furious, but her fingers don’t shove me away as hard as they should. They curl once in the wet fabric of my hoodie before she catches herself and flattens her palms again.

My mouth curves behind the mask. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

“I’m saying it like you followed me through the woods wearing nightmare decor from a Halloween clearance bin.”

A laugh slips out of me, low and rough, the sound trapped behind the plastic between us. “And yet you picked the darkest path on campus.”

“Because it’s the fastest way home.”

“Bullshit.” I lean in just enough that the jagged mouth of the mask almost brushes her cheek. She goes still, but not scared-still. Interested-still. The kind she’ll deny until her pretty mouth bleeds from the effort. “You knew I was behind you.”

Her eyes flash up at the blank face between us. “I knew some asshole was behind me.”

“And you still didn’t run toward help.”

“Maybe I was considering murder.”

“Aw that’s sweet.” My hand tightens at her waist, holding her against the tree while rain slides down the white mask and drips between us. “How’d that work out for you?”

Her jaw flexes, and fuck, I like her like this. Soaked. Pissed. Breathing too fast. Acting like every part of her isn’t paying attention to every part of me.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” she says.

“How could I not?”

“At least lie.”

“No.”