Page 25 of The Games We Play

He strikes out with the knife, slicing through my torn shirt and across my chest. I jerk back and cover the cut with my hand.

Blood soaks into what is left of my shirt, and the slices in my skin burn like acid. My hand wants to shake, and my flight response tries to take over, but I’m not the same girl who stepped foot into this place tonight.

His giggles grow louder, bouncing off the spinning walls.

He thinks he’s won.

He thinks I’m the same one who tried running in the beginning.

He’s wrong.

I grab the knife, twisting it from his hands. The blade cuts into my skin, but I don’t feel it. I’m focused on what is going to happen next.

“My turn,” I say with a wicked grin. I plunge the knife into his stomach, and he falls back, eyes widening with pain and shock.

“What the fuck!” he whimpers as he pulls his hand away from the stab wound, blood dripping between his fingers. “Chappy!” He shouts as I walk over to him. “She’s got a knife!”

He’s done laughing. Suddenly he’s the prey, and I’m the fucking predator.

“Walking through the clown house, leaving a trail of blood,” I rhyme to ‘Ring Around the Rosie’. “X, our game is far from done.”

I laugh as I step off the bridge and leave the spinning tunnel behind. The floor slants upward at a steep angle, and I’m forced to lean forward to reach the other side. I keep the blade ready in my hand. No clown jumps out at me in this room or the next. I run my hand along the broken toys and dolls scattered around the room.

It’s silent. I grab the door at the end, but it won’t open.

“You’re getting colder, Puppet,” a voice with a slight accent cuts through the silence.

X.

I know it’s him. I look around the room for another exit. There’s a prop door that the actors use to hide in, and on the other side looks like storage, and I step inside.

“You scared off the rest of the toys,” X says, panting from somewhere deeper into the room.

I step cautiously, not wanting to trip but also not convinced this game ofhisis over.

“Are you not going to talk?” His words come out as a moan, and white, fiery rage surges under my skin. I step around shelf after shelf of miscellaneous items, getting closer to my stranger. Pushing through a thick, heavy curtain, the scene before me causes me to see red.

X lies on his back, his pants unbuttoned but still around his hips. The woman from the asylum who tried to shove me out the window straddles his waist and kisses his neck as he turns his masked face to find me. Whenher hands dive to reach for his cock, I sprint across the room, holding my knife high above me.

Before I realize what I’ve done, the hilt protrudes from the cunt’s back.

Fourteen - Tess

I glare at X.

In one night, my masked stalker confirmed what I always knew about myself. He’s pulled the monster out of me I’ve kept stuffed down. I jerk the blade out and stab again…again…again until the whore’s body is still, and she’s silent.

I’m panting, her blood coating my hand and the hilt of the knife. I look up to find X hasn’t moved. Her blood glistens on his skin and soaks into his jeans and shirt.

The bitch’s lifeless body lies on the floor, and I climb on top of him, sliding my hand up to grab his throat and squeeze around his windpipe. “There’smyPuppet,” he says. His voice is full of adoration, and his hands lay still at his side like he’s not the one in charge here. “What will you do if someone touches what is yours?” he asks.

I glance at the dead person on the ground. My soul feels sated. The adrenaline that coursed through me all night intensified and morphedinto something euphoric with each stab through her fragile skin that cut like paper.

I look back at the mask that mirrors my own and lean closer, slipping mine off and letting it fall to the floor. My blood hums with satisfaction but also a want for him. “Kill them,” I purr, and his cock presses against his jeans as it jerks up. Grabbing his wrist, I slide his hands over his head, pressing my chest to his. “I’ll always find you.” I flick the blade at the hem of his neckline and slide it down his body, cutting away the material. The muscles in his arms flex and tense, but he doesn’t move.

Tracing a circle around the left side of his chest with the tip of the blade, his body shudders under me, and his chest stops moving. My breaths are shallow as I fixate on his soft flesh. It would be so easy. Just an ounce of pressure and a slight flick of my hand. He moves his free hand down and lays it over mine around the hilt of the blade.

“Do it,” he rasps. “But know that I’m the monster who will haunt your every movement. I’ll be there for every orgasm, and you will be the person I bury my cock in whenever I want. I’m not a prince or a knight sent to slay your demons. I will be your demon. A killer who will do whatever to protect what is mine.”

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