Page 51 of Don't Scare Me, My Love

Alex stopped in mid-motion.

Nicholas peered through the window and watched with his mouth agape. Alex walked in a small circle as if all the tension of playing a killer had to leave his body somehow. Dany stood up as if nothing had happened.

“What?” Nicholas stared at them in disbelief.

“Can I come out?” A third voice shouted through the forest.

Dany turned around. “I think so.”

On the other side of the parking lot, a bush shook as Jack climbed out of it.

Nicholas wrapped his fingers around the windowsill. “You have to be kidding me.” He closed his eyes for a moment before a big smile broke out on his face and turned into the loudest laugh I had ever heard. “That was such a sick move, Jason! I didn’t see that coming!”

He jumped up and wrapped his arms around my shoulder like we were at a football game, and I had scored the winning point. “I knew it. You’re just a bloody weirdo like me.”

“Happy Halloween,” I sobbed, but my words were muffled by his lips pressing against mine.

TEN

FAKE ENDINGS

NICHOLAS

“I promiseI’ll never make you cry again.” Jason wiped the tears from my face just as his own eyes welled up.

“We went way too far, didn’t we?”

“We did,” he sobbed. His eyes met mine, pleading not to be mad at him.

"This is so us.” Even though my legs were shaking, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was on them, standing somehow, but it felt like they could give way at any moment. I wrapped my arms around Jason. Having his chest pressed against me, his lips on mine, was what I needed. It was the only thing I knew that could help us both find peace.

After a minute of wet kisses and reassuring hugs, we finally calmed down enough to look at each other again.

“How did you find out?” I asked. There was no way he had just had a hunch, or someone had accidentally blabbed today. This had to have been planned long in advance.

“Jack told me. Please don’t be angry with him. He thought you were crazy and I would hate it. He was just trying to warn me.”

“Poor Jack,” I laughed. “Little did he know.”

“I have a surprise for you.” He carefully spun me around and pointed to the corners of the ceiling.

I squinted my eyes and then noticed small electrical devices.

“There were cameras everywhere. I thought you might like the footage for your channel.” Jason pointed to another corner and the shelf behind the desk by the entrance, revealing even more. “We also had some in the woods and your car.”

“I have so many questions.”

“Your car is safe if this is one of them.”

“It… is, but that’s not the most important one.”

The room was still lit by the alternating blue and red lights of the police car. He had gone to so much trouble. Much more than I had. The second killer, the fake knife in Jack’s back, getting rid of my van, a police car with an officer, the cabin,andthe cameras? How could I not see that as the declaration of love that it was? I had to get an answer to my question.

I turned to him. “I hope it’s okay that I’m doing this without the ring. It’s still out there somewhere in the forest.”

“I’m to blame for that?—”

“It doesn’t matter.” I dropped to my right knee again and took his hands. “Jason Jonathan Taft, you crazy son of a gun, do you want to scare me for the rest of my life? Do you want me to scareyoufor the rest of yours? And do you want to spend eternity with me, haunting everyone else together?”

---