Page 4 of No Way Back
But Camila’s excitement is gone, her focus now solely on the overprivileged, generational wealth asshole next to her best friend, and I’ll be damned if I let him ruin our night.
Her enemies are my enemies too, and the way she’s staring daggers at him makes me regret willing to spend the next eighthours locked up with him. At least my fists are heavy, and we have all night to make it worthwhile.
I roll my shoulders back and look forward, but it's a tiny squeeze of my hand that forces my eyes down. Camila gives me that knowing smirk, those eyes narrowed like she can read my thoughts. “Are you cooking something up?” She bites her bottom lip, her cheek piercings sinking into her dimples.
“Never.”
3
This is Halloween
Camila
We start in the prison’s dungeon, which has been mostly converted into a boiler room, but it seems they left the old crematorium intact, along with some shackles and torture equipment likely brought in for this very event.
There are a few throwaway Halloween decoration-grade lanterns hung on the walls, an electric chair that probably doesn’t work anymore, and some medical tables. Knives of everyshape and size sit on the table in a neat line for show, but they don’t walk us close enough to touch.
The tour guide is going on about how over three hundred inmates have been brutally murdered in this prison in the last century when he stops in front of an empty cell. “And those were the ones whoweren’tin line for the electric chair,” he clarifies.
“Your boyfriend looks pale,” Demetri states the obvious to Naya.
“I may or may not have brushed over a few of the details in the waiver.” She gives an awkward smile, shrugging with one shoulder before taking a few rushed steps to catch up with Kyle and the rest of the group.
“Tonight isn’t going to end well.” Demetri doesn’t bother lowering his voice; it doesn’t matter who hears us.
“It’s Halloween.” I shrug.
He grabs me by the waist in one fell swoop and shoves me against a cell, the metal bars rattling behind me. I look up at him through my eyelashes, batting them for the full effect. It’s going to be a long night, and I already know it'll be impossible to keep my hands off him.
“Do not,” he threatens quietly in my ear, “make me fuck you in front ofinmateson our anniversary.”
I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat, amusement slowly creeping into my expression. “But what if that’s whatIwant?” Pressing away from him, I let out a maniacal laugh before running off to join the crowd.
He may have a PhD in plant biology, but I’m a doctor in brat with a focus on pushing his buttons.
Harkins lingers behind us, and I prefer it that way. It’s a quiet comfort he provides when I know he’s got my back. Naya slows back a few steps from Kyle and hooks her arm into mine. The look on her face makes it glaringly obvious that he’s well on his way to ruining her night, too.
She drops her head to my shoulder, so I give her a comforting squeeze.
There’s a guilt-ridden sadness to watching your best friend finally get her dream guy when the dream guy ends up just being another asshole.
“While the inmates were terrifying andstillhaunt these cells,” the tour guide boasts loudly, “the old warden was the worst of them all. Nicknamed The Death Warden, he was personally responsible for over four hundred executions, only a few of them actually state-sanctioned.”
“Wait, he was just killing people?” Kyle’s dumbass voice interrupts the rehearsed speech.
“The Death Warden himself was known to dabble in curious interests, including the limits of the human body. He employed many scientists and doctors who shared the same…appetite for knowledge as he did. Under his employment, various torture techniques and cruel methods of research were used on inmates with charges as minimal as petty theft.” The guide points us down a narrow hall, the gloom hanging thickest there, swallowing all the light like a hungry monster. “Intake is just this way…criminals.”
There’s a cacophony of creepy laughter playing on the loudspeakers. It’s unsettling, but in these sort of haunt attractions, it's predictable.
“What happens if we want to…tap out?” a young girl’s voice asks near the front of the group.
“Please review your waivers; there are no tap-outs. Anyone who wishes to be excluded from participation at any point in the night will be escorted into solitary confinement. With nearly one thousand ghost sightings to date, we cannot guarantee howsolitaryit truly will be.” The guide adopts a spooky tone, bringing the flashlight to his face.
A few Chads near the front laugh, and another girl whispers to the one who voiced her concern.
And I can’t feel Harkins behind me anymore.
I don’t bother looking to check; I don’t need to. Even his cologne has faded. My lip curls up on its own, my heart thrumming in anticipation for what he may be planning. I walk arm in arm with Naya, fighting the need to search for him, to keep him at my side.
