Page 87 of Horror and Chill

I stare at the message. My instinct screams to argue. But I don’t. I let it sit there, glowing on the screen, and decide to leave it alone. Chad always pulls something off.

The rhinestone Ghostface mask catches my eye, glittering under the light. I tug my outfit from the closet and drape it over the chair. Tomorrow, I’ll wear it. Tomorrow, I’ll slip back into the skin of someone who pretends control is always hers.

God, what I wouldn’t give for Skeet to actually fuck me.

A chime snaps me back to reality. My inbox. Lorna. I open it, pulse skipping.

Holy shit, Agatha. Best one yet. You killed it. I’m speechless. I might actually need to go home early to my men tonight and let them take care of me after watching this. Consider it… inspirational.

A lagh bubbles out of me before I can stop it, sharp and real. My thumb taps out nothing more than a single thumbs-up emoji.

36

Evander

The house feelswrong without her in it. Not quiet, not loud, just wrong. She’s never been here, so it’s not really the house, I guess. It’s us. We’re wrong without her.

Corwin paces as if he’s going to wear the floor thin, muttering curses, picking fights with us left and right. “She’s not coming back,” he says for the fifth time tonight. “You think she’s just gonna wander back in like nothing happened? You’re insane.”

Garron sits at the table, elbows on his knees, silent, staring at the floor. He hasn’t touched his food, hasn’t moved much at all. That’s his tell. He only goes quiet when it matters.

Me? I keep my calm because one of us has to. I know her fire. I know the way she looked at us, the way she screamed for us and still didn’t beg to leave. She’s not finished. Not with us. Not with me.

“She’ll be back,” I murmur, leaning against the counter, watching Corwin pace. “You’ll see.”

He snorts, running a hand through his hair, frustration written all over him. “You’ve lost it, brother. She’s free now. Shegot her thrills, saw our faces. What she’s got is every reason to never look at us again.”

That makes Corwin freeze, just for a second, like he hadn’t thought of it that way. Garron lifts his gaze finally, slow, steady. “If she doesn’t come back?” he asks. The question’s heavy. He doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already know the answer to.

“Then we bring her back,” I say simply. “But she will. Because she’s ours, and deep down she knows it.”

The silence afterward is sharp. Corwin glares but doesn’t argue. Garron leans back, jaw tight, and lets out one slow breath.

I can feel it in my chest. She’ll be back. She has to.

She’s thinking right now. Running every moment over in her head. Editing us into something she can live with. She’ll fight herself harder than she ever fought us. And when she’s done, when the hunger wins over the fear, she’ll walk back through that door.

Corwin swears under his breath. “She’s not coming back, Van. You’re stupid if you think she will.” He slams the fridge door so hard the bottles rattle inside. “You took her home? After all that, we just let her leave us?”

“She was never going to stay if we forced her,” I say, calmly. “Prey comes back to the trap when it knows it’s the only place it belongs. That’s how this works.”

“Fuck your trap metaphors,” he spits, yanking bacon from the package and tossing it into a skillet. Grease pops loud. He stabs at it with the spatula like it’s personal.

Across the room, Garron drops to his knees at the kitchen table, fixing the leg that’s been wobbly for years. His big hands work the wood, slow and steady. He doesn’t say much, doesn’t have to.

I sit in the chair and watch them both. This is what it looks like when the trap is already baited. Corwin makes enough food for four without thinking. Garron repairs furniture she’s nevertouched. They’re preparing for her return even while they curse me for letting her go.

My mind replays last night, but not the sex. Not her mouth, not the way she trembled when Garron’s teeth grazed her. I think about the game. About how she ran, where she hid. The way she turned her head to the camera, eyes blazing, lips parted, like she knew every viewer would want her to fail.

She’s already marked herself as ours.

Corwin flips the bacon and turns on me again. “I should drive out to her house. Bring her back before she thinks she can ghost us.”

“That’ll push her away,” Garron says, not looking up from the screw.

“She’ll come back,” I cut in. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to take that fire. She knows it.”

The house quiets, save for the pop of grease and the slow turn of the screwdriver Garron picks up from where he left it on the table earlier and starts to fix the leg of a chair. His hands find work even when his head doesn’t.