Page 37 of Terror Tuesday

She’s spread out across the cold stone altar, her limbs at odd angles, her throat bared. Her dress is torn, her wrists and ankles bound with black silk. And across her stomach, carved in sharp, angry lines, is a single word:

HUSH

My knees nearly buckle. “No,” I whisper brokenly. I take a shaking step forward while my hand grasps my throat. “Naomi?” My voice cracks. She doesn’t move.

I reach out and shove her lightly with my index finger, her body stiff.

“Naomi!” I sob, louder now, leaning over her face, searching her eyes.

They’re open.

Cloudy. Vacant.

Tears pour down my cheeks as I stumble back, hand clutching my neck. My breath hitches into a wail, terror closing tight around my ribs.

This isn’t agame.

This is a fucking nightmare!

The door behind me crashes open.

Spinning just in time, I avoid a hulking man as he lumbers inside. There’s no hurry in his movements. No lunging forme.He just walks.Slow. Intentional. Like he knows he doesn’t have to rush.

The corner of the concrete catches my toe until I nearly tripping over Naomi’s altar.

I don’t look at his face.I can’t, but he keeps coming for me. My vision blurs.

Every muscle I have tenses—to throw myself at the exit, the window, the wall—anywhere.

The emergency door behind the altar slams open with a metallic clang.

A new person steps in wearing a hoodie and a full black mask, featureless and smooth. Gloves.

He strolls into the room as if he owns it…a demented savior.

His voice cuts through the space like a blade, but with grit and gnashing teeth.

“Run, Chrysalis.”

eleven

She runs.

Like prey. Full-bodied. Frantic. Unthinking.

Andfuck,if it isn’t beautiful.

The rain started minutes ago, thin needles against my skin at first—now heavier, relentless. Mud slicks the forest floor, soaking through my hoodie, but I don’t care. Not when she’s ahead of me, her pink dress stained crimson, legs pumping beneath the hem like she’s trying to escape gravity itself.

She won’t.

I’m not chasing her to catch her.

I’m chasing her tofreeher.

As she approaches the slope of a hill, she stumbles, catching herself on a tree with a gasping sob. But like a phoenix rising from the ruins, she pushes off again. She flounders without direction, aiming in one direction, then another. There’s no end to this forest. Just roots and darkness, and the sound of me.

Behind her. Beneath her skin.Inside her.