Page 34 of Scaredy Cat
“Not on your life,” he growls in reply, moving back toward me.
Without even thinking about it, my hand comes up, frustration hot and sour in my throat. I don’t even consider the ramifications of what I’m doing, or the stupidity of it, as I make a grab for the skeletal, canine mask that covers him from the nose up, leaving his mouth bare for me to see his twisted, crooked smirk.
Quick as a snake, my stalker catches my wrist, shoving me back against the car again with a laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he sneers, and grabs my other wrist before I can try again. “No, you don’t get to see my face. Not after you threw a flashlight at me, pretty thing.”
“Let go of me!” I snap, writhing in his too-strong grip. “What do youwant?! This isn’t a haunted house, this isn’t—I’m not?—”
“I want to play,” he interrupts smoothly, his grin widening into something dangerous. “And yeah, you’re right. This isn’t a haunt full of people that might do something stupid like help you.” Smoothly he grabs both of my wrists in one hand, pinning them behind me before he grabs my hair, yanking my head back to look up at his mask.
“You’re all alone with me, Persephone Gallows. There’s no one here to help you, or to hear you scream. You’re all mine.”
“No—” My words are cut off by my gasp as he suddenly pulls me forward by my hair, his grip not quite tight enough to hurt, but firm enough to sting. “No!” But he doesn’t listen, or care. My stalker walks, dragging me toward the barn and the darkness that looks like a mouth just waiting to swallow me up, to devour me, to make me into someone who disappeared here, never to be seen again.
15
My feet scrabblein the dirt of the barn, and when he lets me go, it’s such a shock that I fall to my knees with a gasp. My instincts scream at me to get up before he can take advantage of my position, but when I do manage to stumble to my feet, I find him just…looking at me. Just staring at me from behind the eyes of the wolf-skull mask, his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. It’s hard to see much of anything in the barn, and I nervously fumble for my phone, flicking on the light to flare between us.
He still doesn’t move.
“Satisfied?” my stalker asks, finally prowling a little closer. “I’m not a ghost, Persy. I’m just as real as you andstarving.”
“Then go eat a sandwich,” I snap, voice higher than I intended it to be. Taking a step back, I try to keep space between us, but he lunges forward again, surprising me with his speed, and once more grabs me by my hair. This time he twines my long, auburn ponytail around his hand, drawing me in and forcing me to my knees in front of him.
“You’re adorable,” he tells me, his other hand coming up to stroke through my bangs. “Absolutely adorable, you know that? You talk so much shit when I’m not touching you, or when youthink you’re safe. But we both know you aren’t safe, and you aren’t as brave as you’re pretending to be. Not with me.”
“How did you even know I was here?” I snap as my fingers grip his gloves, looking for any place that I can dig in to make him let go. His grip is like iron, and he’s strong enough that I can’t force him to lift his arm so I can get up. I’m stuck on my knees until he decides otherwise, or until I can shock him into letting go. “I didn’t post about this. I didn’t?—”
“You never plug things in, you know?” he cuts me off smoothly, and the words don’t make a lot of sense as they ring in my ears. “Your phone, your headphones. Your power bank. You’re a little bit scatterbrained, I’ve come to realize. Not that I mind.”
“Scatterbrained?” I hiss. “What are you—” But my words die as the meaning of his sink in like I’ve swallowed an anchor that’s just now made its way to my stomach.
My power bank in the kitchen.
My headphones that mysteriously ended up on their charger, when I was sure I accidentally left them hooked over my chair.
And my phone on the nightstand, plugged in, when I was sure it would’ve been lost in my sheets or on the floor, instead. A cold shiver goes through me that has nothing to do with the temperature outside. This kind of cold can’t be mitigated by the soft, cozy hoodie I’m wearing, and my muscles tense as every instinct in me says I need torun.
“You’ve been in my house,” I finally whisper, once I’ve swallowed down the terror clawing up my throat. “You…you’ve moved stuff. You?—”
“You keep such detailed notes,” he interrupts smoothly. With the light of my phone still shining from my tight-fingered grip, I can just see his face tilt down towards me. “It’s so easy to know where to go when you keep everything so organized for me.”
“But how did you…?”
“I like reading up on your schedule while I watch you sleep.”
Everything seems to just…stop.
Distantly, I can hear the crickets outside, and the creaking from the sagging wood that could honestly fall in on us at any minute.
“You what?” I murmur, sure I’ve heard him wrong.
“Watch. You. Sleep.” He tsks lightly, and shakes my head ever so gently by his grip in my hair. “Come on. Don’t freak out on me now. This is too easy, pretty girl. You have to make this a little more fun. I shouldn’t be able to make you freeze just withthat.I haven’t hurt you, have I?”
When I don’t answer, he shakes me again, until I stammer out, “N-no. You haven’t.”
“But I could. I could have hurt you anytime I wanted to. Outside The Waffle Wagon after you eat your waffles drenched in butter and chocolate. At your home, while you sleep curled up under your blankets with that sweet, vulnerable look that no one else gets to see.” His other hand cups my jaw, glove rough against my skin.
“I could’ve hurt you at any of the haunts you’ve been to this year, but instead, all I want to do is play. So play with me, Scaredy Cat. Let me give you what you want. What youneed.”
