Page 171 of Stay Scared

Somewhere behind the wall, the analog camera hums. Farther back, Cade waits beside a lever he wants to pull too early. Ash is already moving under the stage.

Owen has disappeared completely into the maze’s silence. Metal scrapes somewhere ahead. I stop, my breathing filling the mask while nothing else moves.

Then a tiny red light appears at the end of the corridor. A camera. Rook’s camera. The lens turns slowly until it finds me.

I keep walking. The red indicator brightens, and a speaker hidden somewhere inside the wall clicks. Rook leaves it silent. He only watches Ash’s old face move deeper into his maze.

I trail my fingertips along the mirror. The glass is damp near the bottom, and dust sticks to my palm as the passage turns. My reflection multiplies until I can no longer tell which face is mine without moving first. The mask feels heavier with every breath, the leather strap biting against the back of my head.

I leave it on.

Another camera wakes, followed by another. Rook is following.

I stop in front of the nearest lens. The red light holds steady as I lift one hand and drag my fingers slowly across the sealed mouth of Ash’s mask. The camera shifts closer on its mount.

There it is. He wants the face. He wants whatever taking it from Ash was supposed to mean.

I turn away before he gets enough.

Metal moves deeper inside the maze. A door opens, a footstep follows, and something heavy brushes glass.

Rook is coming.

I keep walking. Behind me, Cade stays behind the barrier. Owen stays with his camera. Ash is somewhere under the stage with my key against his chest. Every one of them hates where I am, and none of them comes after me.

Their restraint is louder than footsteps.

The corridor bends again, and the observation gallery disappears behind layers of black glass. Even the faint mechanical hum of Owen’s camera is gone.

I am alone with Rook’s lenses now.

A mirror catches me from the side: Ash’s old mask over my body, with a thin streak of grime along one shoulder. Nothing about it is clean or symbolic. The thing smells like a man who wore it too long, and my breath keeps sticking hot against the sealed mouth.

A shadow moves in the reflection behind me.

I stop.

The shadow stops with me, and my fingers close slowly at my side.

Rook’s beak appears between two fractured reflections. He is far enough away to make me wait and close enough to matter. He tilts his head.

I turn to face him, the mask pressing harder into my skin when I lift my chin.

Rook takes one step. Glass throws him around the chamber until the single beak becomes five, ten, more, but his real body stays near the center.

Exactly where I need him moving.

I take one step backward. He follows. I take another, and his hand rises toward Ash’s mask.

I let him think about touching it, then move away.

Rook follows me deeper.

The central chamber waits ahead. So does the rope beyond it.

I keep walking.

Chapter 21