Page 4 of Wicked Temptations
We still had three more scheduled fight sequences, and I was determined not to let him get the drop on me again.
***
By the time the park’s closing announcement echoed through the speakers at two a.m., my entire body was strung tight. I needed to get out of my costume, wash off the makeup, and go home before I did something stupid.
I wanted to smash Ash in his smug mouth.
During the midnight show, he pinned me against the chain-link fence that separated the scare zone from the employee pathways, and his hand slipped lower than it should have. He’d grabbed my ass cheek so hard I’d squeaked. With anyone else, I would have written it off as a heat-of-the-moment slip of the hand. These things happened when you were grappling and trying to make the show look good.
But Ash had flashed that shirt-stirring grin that told me everything I needed to know. He’d done it on purpose.
So during the one a.m. reset, I returned the favor by tackling him into the decorative hay bales and staying on top of him for a full ten seconds longer than choreography required. I pinned him down until his breathing changed and his hips shifted up in a way that definitely wasn’t rehearsed.
It should have been my win, but I’d scrambled off him so fast that he chuckled.
He was becoming a professional problem.
I headed for the employee changing rooms through the back tunnels, peeling off my tactical vest as I walked. My radio crackled with other performers signing off, the usual end-of-night chatter about who was hitting the diner and who had to open tomorrow.
“Solid show tonight, man.” Jonas’s voice came from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing him step down off his stilts. He was lanky and impossibly tall even without them, and the high crown of his scarecrow hat almost brushed the ceiling. “That scaffolding sequence was insane.”
“Yeah, well.” I didn’t finish the thought. I didn’t know how to explain that the improvisation was becoming a problem.
“You two have crazy chemistry,” Riley chimed in. She was the longest-serving member of the crew and my favorite. She may have dressed like a manic doll and skated around with a baseball bat, but she was smart. Real, academically smart; not just streetwise and cocky. Half the reason she wore so much face paint and crazy wigs was so she wouldn’t be recognized.
“The guests are eating it up,” she said.
They were. I’d seen the posts earlier during my break, scrolling through Instagram while I tried to pretend my hands weren’t still shaking from the first fight sequence.
@screamqueen87OMG the tension between the Hunters tonight was UNREAL. Are they acting or is this thing???
@nightmarefuel99I ship them so hard. #TheHunters #JudexAsh #Halloween2024
@darkromancereaderexcuse me that pin against the fence was NOT in the script last week. I need them to fight like that every night for the rest of my life. For science, obs
The comments went on like that. Hundreds of them. It wasn’t unusual for my tag to trend around this time of year. The park’s social media team was amazing, and there were always professional photographers and videographers floating through the scare zones, looking for the next viral video. Consumers loved the dark, damaged but dangerous boy look, and after two years of this, we Hunters had gotten our vibe down to a fine art.
But with Ash involved, people were seeing something that didn’t exist. Or at least it was something I didn’t want them to see because I barely wanted to acknowledge it myself.
I ignored all the comments and put my phone away.
The changing room was blessedly empty when I arrived. Most performers cleared out fast after the park closed, eager to get home or hit the bars. I preferred the quiet aftermath, the comedown period where I could strip off the persona piece by piece until I remembered how to be a person who didn’t spend eight hours a night pretending to hunt someone through artificial fog.
I dumped my vest and holsters in my locker, then started on the buckled straps I’d spent hours customizing. My hands were still shaking slightly. Adrenaline, caffeine withdrawal, or probably a mixture of both. Or something else I refused to examine.
The door banged open behind me.
I didn’t turn around. I knew who it was by the way the boots hit the tile, by the specific rhythm of movement I’d learned to track across a crowded scare zone.
I kept working on my buckles, jaw tight.
“We need to talk about tonight.” Ash’s voice cut through the silence. No preamble, no greeting. Not that I wanted any of that from him, anyway.
“Do we?” I still didn’t turn around, even though every muscle in my body was aware of his location, of the distance between us, of how easy it would be to close that gap.
“That thing you did. When you had me pinned.” His voice was rougher than usual. “Your hand on my throat.”
My hands stilled on a buckle. “What about it?”
