Page 13 of Haunt

“I can’t decide if I’m more irritated at being kicked in the stomach or turned on by how fucking feral you are, princess,” Ravage snorts, moving to prowl around me but not coming any closer.

“I’d be way too irritated by the kick to think about anything else,” I snap, never lowering the knife as I turn to keep him in front of me. “But that’s just me.”

“We can fix that. Just takes practice to learn to get through the pain.” He lifts his shirt with his gloved hand, revealing a very toned abdomen and muscles that clearly have a very intimate relationship with the gym. Or rather, some form of workout. He presses his bare fingers just over his right hip as I watch, pressing down slightly with a groan. “You sure did get me good.” He laughs ruefully. “But now I have to worry about you hurting me with that knife again.”

“You’re only worried I’ll end your fun early,” I snap, sneering at him in frustration and panic. “You’re going to kill me anyway, so don’t act so magnanimous and full of concern.”

“Such a big word for a terrified little girl.” Ravage drops his shirt and holds his hands up, as if in surrender. But I don’t believe him for a second. “And yeah, you caught me. I’ll probably kill you when I’m done. I would prefer not to spend the rest of my life in jail, thanks very much.”

Rolling my eyes, I shift my grip on the knife to hold it more firmly in my clammy fingers. “Pretty sure I said I’d keep my mouth shut if you let me go. Remember?”

His snort nearly cuts me off, and I can almostfeelhis disbelief. “Oh, please. Don’t lie to me or yourself. You were never going to stay quiet. Not without either a little help, a lot of convincing, or…” He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Like I said. I wouldn’t look cute in prison-chic orange.”

He lunges forward suddenly, giving me almost no warning as his hands reach for me. But I’ve been expecting something, I drop to one knee, ignoring the pain from hitting the concrete floor as I duck under his reach. This time I shove him in the back, using his momentum so he keeps going straight into a pile of wood and metal on the floor. He lands with a crash that I’m sure my long dead grandmother can hear from beyond the grave, but I don’t stick around to see if I somehow, luckily, killed him.

I doubt any part of my night is going to go that smoothly.

He groans in the heap, proving me right, and I take off at a run across the room, finding another door and hitting it hard to shove it open. He’d said the only way out was through the lobby, but nothing in me believes him. Why wouldn’t he lie to me, after all, just so I don’t try for another escape from the warehouse?

Distantly I worry about running into one of the others, but that’s a problem for future me. Right now I focus on the new hallway I’m in, wondering why the hell there are so many fuckinghallwaysin a warehouse.

Voices from the end of the hall send a bolt of panic through me, and I look around the space, finding a door close to me and praying it’s open. The knob turns in my grip, revealing a small storage closet that definitely isn’t my first choice, but I’ll take what I can get.

I step inside and close the door, backing up to the shelves on the wall. I feel objects shift behind me, and I move to get more comfortable with a quick, silent prayer that I don’t knock anything to the floor.

A door opens and closes, and a girl’s voice echoes along the walls of the hallway. Two people pass in front of my door, judging by their shadows that block out the light under the door for a second or two each. But they don’t stop. They don’t even slow down at my door.

It feels like they aren’t even looking for me.

“It gets easier,” a girl murmurs. “You’ll be okay. Next year you’ll be able to focus on…” Another door opens and closes, cutting off their conversation before I even know what it’s about.

But I wait until I’m sure there’s no one in the hallway, or as reasonably sure as I can be. Finally I reach out, moving toward the door, only to feel a tug on my hoodie that makes me choke on the breath I’d taken. I can barely turn to see, and when I do, I find I’m caught on a hook hanging from the shelf I’d backed up into. More than one, judging by just how tightly I’m stuck. I tug,saying a prayer for my soon to be ripped hoodie, and promise myself to find another one just like it after tonight. It’s not like I’ll ever be able to get the blood out of this one, anyway.

But it doesn’t rip. It doesn’t come free, either, no matter how hard I tug or how I move it. “What the fuck?” I hiss, yanking on it until I hear the slight tearing of fabric. Still, I don’t feel any slack. Not yet. I tug again, but I can’t get the fabric to tear, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to have to leave it here.

God, I really,reallydon’t want to try to escape this place in just my skull-patterned bra and leggings. That feels like a snuff film waiting to happen. On the other hand, twisting around isn’t doing it, and finally I decide I’ll have to wiggle out of it and unhook it when it’s off.

Or rip it, depending on how bad it is.

I’m just about to pull my arm free of my sleeve when a door creaks open again, making me freeze in place. I’m too afraid to make any noise, and I hold my breath to wait for whoever it is to leave the hallway so I can get myself free. Their footsteps get closer, and a shadow passes under the door, but they stop for a moment, blocking the light from the door.

Seconds tick by until finally their shadow disappears and their steps retreat again, quickly becoming inaudible.

“Thank God,” I mutter, sucking in a breath to calm my pulse. Once again, I reach for my sleeve, my fingers curled around the hem of it just as the door opens wide, light spilling into the dark closet.

Harrowstands there, studying me from behind the animal mask while I just stare back. His head tilts to the side, and he turns to glance down the hallway while my brain reboots from the shock of him justknowingI was here. Before I can even begin to come up with a plan, he steps into the room, snatches the knife off of the shelf I’d set it on, and closes the door behind him to plunge us into darkness once again.

7

The first thoughtto go through my mind is that he has the knife.

The second is that I’m absolutely screwed and still stuck to the shelf behind me. I stand in place, frozen, the closet barely big enough for both of us. Even with me pressed back against the shelves as hard as I can be, I can still feel the heat radiating from his body only centimeters in front of me.

But I can’t say anything. I can’t seem to find the words, and I worry that if I’m the first to break the silence in this small, dark place, somehow this will be real. Somehow, it’ll beworse.

A touch on my cheek makes me flinch, and a low whine bubbles from my lips as leather-gloved fingers stroke my along my jaw. When I start moving, trying to writhe against him, I hear a soft murmur from behind the mask, though it’s barely there and almost inaudible.

“W-what?” I gasp, head jerking up to search the darkness for his mask. But it really is so dark in here, and all I can see from the light under the door is a vague silhouette.

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