Page 74 of Stay Scared

Owen heads for a side door marked PROJECTION ACCESS. Ash grabs the radio. Cade starts pulling me toward the main corridor.

For half a second, the room fractures around them. I know what happens if they split. Rook gets exactly what he wants.

“Take off the masks.”

Everything stops.

Cade releases my arm before the last word leaves my mouth. Owen drops his hand from the projection door. Ash lowers the radio.

Mark keeps struggling on the monitor while the building continues running around us.

Cade pulls the skull away first. Blood streaks his forearm beneath his bare face. Owen unclips the white mask from his belt and places it on the console. Ash reaches behind the black shell, releases the clasps, and removes it without hesitation.

Anger has stripped most of the composure from his face.

The difference is immediate. Three men. One room. One problem at a time.

Ash crosses to the control-room door and unlocks it manually. The corridor beyond is empty. He looks at Mark, then at me, then at the map.

“We get Mark first. Open every mechanical exit we pass. Staff are counted in person. Nobody trusts a screen.”

Cade stays several feet away from me. “You can stop us. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop.”

The monitor shifts.

The beaked man walks toward the camera until the theater curtain disappears behind him and the damaged mask fills the screen.

“Look at the three of you.”

No one answers.

“You gave her four words and decided that proved your house was different.”

Ash steps toward the microphone. Rook raises one hand, and Ash leaves the control untouched.

“You built a place where stopping depends on reaching the person with enough authority to permit it. She says four words, and all three of you put down whatever you’re holding.”

Cade’s bare hand closes at his side. Owen keeps watching the screen.

The beaked mask tilts.

“Your staff were taught procedures. Your actors were given protocols. The people who walk through your doors get whatever mercy survives the paperwork.”

A second screen flashes through performers behind locked doors, empty control stations, and Mark bound to the chair.

For the first time, the pieces line up. The empty hallways. The false evacuation. The looped cameras. The locked doors. Someone has turned Crimson Night’s own rules against everyone inside it.

The distortion deepens around Rook’s next words.

“But she gets something better.”

The mask turns slightly, as though he can see all three men standing around me.

“She gets mercy because you want her.”

The three men remain bare-faced around me while the building continues obeying someone else.

The beaked figure comes closer until only the scarred black surface fills the monitors.