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“Together.” I took his hand in mine, sweat dripping down my cheeks from the sweltering flames. He cursed once again and turned imploring eyes towards the warded off exit, almost as if he could convince me to go, to leave him. Before he could even open his mouth to beseech me, I hurried in the opposite direction of the exit, towards the darkness.

The flames were growing in height, reminiscent of a tsunami of fire towering over our heads. Fear strangled my heart, but I didn’t allow it to stop me.

I’m going to get us out of here. I’m going to get us out of here. I’m going to get us out of here.

I repeated that in my head as we raced towards the darkness.

Just before we could step foot into it, one of the clowns moved in front of us. He was nothing but charred, smoky plastic, his distorted face dripping like ice cream on a hot summer day. His hair had been reduced to clumps of crispy red strands, and his body was covered in patches of black.

“Tanner.” The clown’s face twisted to stare at the stricken man beside me. “You need to come with us.” It didn’t appear to be just one voice leaving the clown’s mouth. It sounded like hundreds, if nothing thousands of voices superimposed over each other. Young, old. Male, female. They all reverberated through my head like a pinball. “Come with me.”

“No!” I moved to stand protectively in front of Tanner. “You can’t have him!”

“B…” Tanner’s voice shook with fear.

“No!” I screamed again, tugging on Tanner’s hand. “He’s coming back with me.”

The clown lurched forward, as if he was going to grab him, and I did the only thing I could think of—I pushed Tanner into the darkness and then dived on the clown before it could follow him.

A few things happened very quickly. First, the clown began to buck underneath me, his red-painted lips stretching into a macabre, half burnt smile. I rolled off of him before his plastic fist could make contact with my cheek, lying sprawled on my back. Above me, the fire blazed, a canvas of vibrant colors. The heat licked at my skin, skittering across my arms and legs like a kingdom of angry ants.

I’m going to die.

The thought slipped into my head unbidden, but I couldn’t ignore the truth of such a statement. It settled in my stomach like a heavy, weighted rock. My skin skittered and sparked.

I’m going to die here.

I thought of my mother just then. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why. The woman hated me. At least, she hated me enough to allow me to get raped and abused repeatedly under her watch. Somehow, though, my mind flashed back to the good moments we’d shared before she began dating Steve the Asshole. Images of her dancing around the kitchen, brownie batter on her cheeks. Her vibrant smile and twinkling eyes. The way she kissed my cheek and told me she loved me.

And then I thought of Beau, my best friend since I was a child. The man I’d secretly loved with no hope that he would ever reciprocate my feelings. When I told him I loved him, a part of me thought he would never say those words back. How could he love someone as broken as me? My heart had been forged into glass and shattered repeatedly, thousands of tiny pieces stabbing at my insides.

I thought of Kace, Tanner, and Aiden, all three so very different from each other, but each conjuring up different emotions I couldn’t quite name. Tanner brought to the surface my passion, my lust for life, while Kace was comfort and security. And Aiden… Aiden was fire. He burned me every damn time we came into contact, tinder and a match, yet I couldn’t stay away. Then there was Heath, an enigma I couldn’t quite understand. He was as cold as ice and as expressive as ice too, but there was something about him…

Above me, one of the wooden beams began to tilt downwards precariously. My eyes widened in alarm as I stared upwards at the flaming wood rapidly descending. It was going to crush me if I didn’t move.

A dark figure materialized in front of me, grabbing my ankle and yanking me out of the incoming object’s pathway.

“What the…?” I blinked groggily as the figure gripped my wrist and dragged me out of the burning amusement park and into the darkness.

Pure, unrelenting darkness.

“I think the words you are looking for are ‘thank you,’” a familiar voice cooed. A flashlight switched on, and I twisted my head to escape the blinding light. Still, I didn’t need to see his face to know who was speaking to me. I would know that voice anywhere. That cantankerous, combative voice that pried apart a piece of my soul.

“No…” I blinked again.

Dylan’s smile was sharp and cutting, slicing me to ribbons. “Hello, little sister. Fancy running into you here.”