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“Didn’t get laid tonight?” Jay croons through the phone, his voice laced with mocking amusement.

I crack my neck again, growling when my muscles don’t pop and give me any relief.

“Jay,” I growl.

I refuse to touch my dick while on the phone with him. As much as I need to lessen the pressure, Jay’s voice would make me feel sick.

“Satan’s Affair is coming to town,” he starts. I open my mouth—gearing up to ask him why the fuck that would matter to me.

“And I got confirmation there’re tickets with four little birdy’s names on them,” he continues. I snap my mouth shut.

“Why would they go there?” I ask, completely confused why four grown-ass men would go to a haunted fair.

“Prime girls for the pickin’, my friend. And now there’s a ticket with your name on it.”

I sigh. “When?”

“Three weeks from now. Plenty of time to go to the clubs a few times and start showing that pretty face of yours.”

Sighing again, I pluck the pack of cigarettes from the console, bring it to my mouth, and slide out a cigarette with my teeth.

I grab my lighter and flick the flame, inhaling deeply as the cherry blares red.

“You’re smoking, aren’t you?” Jay says. I offer a noncommittal confirmation as I roll down my window and blow out smoke.

The raging hard-on is gone, but my dick still hurts.

“You said you were going to quit,” he whines. “

Do you know how many chemicals are in that? According to the—”

“Jay,” I snap, cutting off his tangent. If I let it go on, he’d list off the ingredients in a cigarette like he’s listing off all the components in the periodic table.

Nobody. Fucking. Cares.

He sighs like an angry teenager on their period. “Whatever,” he mumbles.

“Update me if anything else comes up,” I say before clicking off the phone.

I drag in another inhale of smoke and turn my attention to my laptop.

The inside of my Mustang is decked out in gadgets. A laptop sits on a platform, a mechanical arm attached to the dash so I can push and pull it towards me for convenience. Dash cams, an alert system for law enforcement, and other illegal shit decorate the interior of my car.

I pull the laptop towards me and fire it on. The bright screen stabs at my sensitive eyes. Squinting against the light, I pull up my programs and get to work.

In pure curiosity, I want to know who is attending this haunted fair.

It comes to town every single year, and I’ve never bothered to go. Haunted houses don’t scare me. Not when I see true horror every day.

There’s nothing a couple of made-up monsters can do to horrify me more than the actual monsters polluting this world.

Humans don’t need to decorate themselves in gory make-up and fake blood to be scary. It’s the insides of us—the darkness that lurks beneath the surface—that’s what’s truly fucking terrifying.

That’s what leads people to commit heinous crimes every single day. That’s what leads innocent little kids to die horrific deaths for no fucking reason at all.

The insides of us—that’s what keeps me alive. It’s the only purpose I have in life, and without it, I’d be nothing.

I scroll through the list of names and stop short when I see one in particular that has my heart pounding.