Page 72 of Pick Me Up On Tuesdays

Another shot splattered against my vest.

I hate this game.

Ethan passed by, smirking like he knew I was struggling. He didn’t shoot me—he just gave me this look. Like he found my suffering endearing.

That was somehow worse.

I clenched my jaw. Oh, he’s going down.

I picked up my gun. Took aim.

Missed.

Got shot in the back.

By Joy.

“For fun,” she cackled before sprinting away.

Shun sighed, shaking her head. “You are so bad at this.”

I groaned. “I know.”

The game went on fine. Well, as fine as it could go when I was running through a glowing maze with a team that was half-decent and an enemy side filled with overenthusiastic jocks.

I was bad at this game—miserable at it—but I was still breathing, still dodging glowing projectiles, still pretending I wasn’t low-key using Shun as a human shield.

Until I wasn’t.

Somehow, somewhere in the mess of it all, I ended up alone.

The fog curled around my ankles like something alive, swallowing the neon-lit pathways in every direction. The sounds of the game—the distant echoes of laughter, running footsteps, the occasional yelp of someone getting shot—faded into a dull hum.

I took a breath, adjusting my grip on my glowing weapon, peering through the maze for any sign of movement.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw him.

A silhouette. A figure in the shadows, half-lit by the eerie glow of the game’s neon lights.

Holding a gun.

Pointed at me.

I turned—and everything inside me froze.

Because it wasn’t a jock. It wasn’t Ethan, or Max, or even some random stranger.

It was him.

My stepfather. My assumed-dead nightmare.

He stood there like a phantom dredged up from my worst memories, his presence warping the already surreal neon glow of the maze. His face—Gods—his face hadn’t changed much. Still sharp. Still cruel. His skin was sickly pale under the black lights, the gaunt lines of his face drawn too tight, like something stretched over a skull.

But it was his eyes that sent every nerve in my body into panic.

They glowed.

A deep, unnatural, demonic light—a color that shouldn’t exist, like burning void and molten gold, flickering in the darkness like something wrong.

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