Chapter 14 Mads
Mads
The campus is quiet, which is expected on a weekend.
The kind of overcast chill that settles into your bones even if you’re dressed for it, with damp leaves stuck to the pavement and steam rising from vents in sharp, ghostlike bursts.
A few students cut across the quad with their hoods up, earbuds in, coffee cups clutched in their hands.
Blake walks beside me, sleeves half-pulled over her hands, her rust-colored jumper hanging loose over the waistband of her jeans. The hem of her shirt’s uneven where it’s caught at her hip, and somehow that—out of everything—is what’s frying my brain today.
She looks perfect. Frustratingly so.
“Do you really think Dead Channel means anything?” she asks, stepping over a cracked bit of pavement, tone edged with doubt.
I shrug, shifting my backpack higher. “Could.”
I wish I had a better answer for her.
She exhales, shaking her head. “I honestly didn’t think we’d get this far.”
I glance at her. “That’s what you get for dating someone who organizes their hacking tools by level of federal offense.”
Her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close enough to make my stomach flutter a little.
“Dating, Keller?” she asks, slightly staggered, not looking at me.
I shrug. “What would you call it?”
She snorts. “Stress-bonded investigative partnership with occasional kissing.”
“Sexy,” I say. “We should get that on a cake. Or your first tattoo. Wait, are you gonna kiss me again?”
She bumps her shoulder into mine. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
My mouth curves, unwilling to hide how much I’m enjoying this. “Watching you try not to pass out from a needle? Yeah. I’d frame the stencil.”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t let go of the smile. And her hand brushes mine just long enough to make me want things I shouldn’t in public. “Bold of you to assume I’d make it to the chair.”
Something tells me she would. Blake is not the type to back down from anything, but I love that she plays along with me.
“Besides,” I add. “If we’re dating, that means I don’t have to prank you anymore, according to the rules of the Rites.” I shrug, half joking.
“Hmm,” she considers. “That could be worth it. For the season, anyway.”
I know she’s kidding, but there is a small section of my brain that’s screaming omg omg omg, and it sounds exactly like an excited teenage girl.
We’re heading toward the library. Unfortunately, being knee-deep in such a shitshow doesn’t cancel the whole 'student' part of our lives. There’s still studying to do.
As we cut through the breezeway past the philosophy building, I spot it and freeze.
Half-covered by a tutoring sign and a blood drive flyer. White paper. Thick black font. A blurry still of a figure in a mask holding a fake knife, staged under shitty blue lighting.
CASTING CALL – EXTRAS NEEDED
DEAD CHANNEL FILMS — NIGHT SHOOT — NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Blake takes two more steps before realizing I’m not beside her anymore. She turns, brows raised, and follows my gaze.
“Oh, come on,” she says. “That’s too convenient.”
The mask on the flyer is an exact match to the ones in the video.
“Suspiciously so,” I admit, tugging the corner of the poster free from the tack to get a better look. There’s an email at the bottom. A name. And today’s date.
The library’s nearly empty.
We find a table in the back, out of range of the group study whiteboard cult. Blake drops her bag into the seat across from mine, pulls out a laptop she never charges past 23%, and immediately opens a blank document she’s never going to fill.
At least not today.
“So what’s the plan?” she asks, dragging her chair in with a screech loud enough to disrupt the few people who are here working on things.
I flip open my own laptop. “We pretend we’re going to study. Then immediately give up and stalk indie horror people on the internet.”
“You say that like it’s different from your usual workflow.”
I smile without looking up. “You love my workflow, don’t you?”
“No,” she says, leaning forward to plug her phone into the outlet between us.
“How about you try being the distraction?” I give her a lascivious once-over. As if she’d actually have to try. Consider me thoroughly distracted.
That earns me a snort and an eye roll.
I type Dead Channel Films into the search bar. The site is exactly what I expected: black background, red font, looks like it was designed in 2007 by someone who listens to too much Rob Zombie.
Blake leans over the screen, her fuzzy sleeve rubbing up against my arm. “This site screams ‘we make snuff films in our garage’.”
“Technically,” I murmur, “they do make films in a garage. The address listed is an industrial storage unit behind a vape shop.”
“Charming.”
I click into the About page. There are three names listed. One of them matches the contact info from the flyer.
“Kai Brenner,” I say. “Director-slash-editor-slash-location scout-slash-guy-who-definitely-drinks white Monster energy drinks.”
Blake taps a finger against the desk.
I scroll down. There’s a section labeled Past Projects. The thumbnails are aggressively gory, and half of them are just people screaming in hallways.
I click the most recent one. A trailer loads, and I swear I’ve seen that exact hallway before.
Blake squints at the screen. “That’s the psych building.”
“Oh, good,” I say, clicking pause. “Nothing says ‘we’re mentally stable’ like filming fake murders in front of real therapy offices.”
She snorts. “Let’s email him.”
I raise a brow. “And say what, exactly? ‘Alright mate, we’re looking into a murder and you’re sort of top of the suspect list. Fancy a quick chat about it?’”
She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “We don’t have to say that. We say we’re film students working on a project and want to shadow their shoot. Boom—academic curiosity, plausible motive, zero murder accusations.”
And I hear her, I do—but my brain’s currently running a background process dedicated entirely to the way she moves.
The shift of her weight, the roll of that sentence off her tongue, the fact that she’s sitting across from me in a jumper that’s slowly sliding off one shoulder like this isn’t a tactical assault on my very being.
I don’t know when exactly I lost the plot, but if she asked me to help bury a body right now, I’d already be checking the soil conditions.
I type out the message while she reads over my shoulder. She corrects a spelling error by reaching across the keyboard, then leaves her hand on my forearm like she forgot it was there.
“If we get an invite,” she says, “I’ll flirt with him. Get him talking.”
I pause, offended on a cellular level. “Why you?”
She arches her brow. “Because I’m hot and have resting I’m-just-curious energy. It works.”
“I have excellent bone structure and decades of finely honed emotional unavailability. That’s irresistible on a bad day.”
She grins, completely unbothered. “Sure, but I can play spacey and charming.”
“I am charming,” I reply. “And debatably spacey, but also in a hot way.”
She tilts her head. “Shockingly self-aware for someone who uses three different moisturizers and would date himself if he could.”
I grin. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She hits send before I can overthink it. Then she sits back, stretching her arms behind her head. The movement pulls her shirt up, revealing a sliver of her abdomen, and I cannot control the fact that my eyes immediately dart to the spot.
“I swear,” I mutter. “If I get murdered by someone in a knockoff Michael Myers mask, I’m haunting your fine ass.”
“If we get chased,” she says. “I’m tripping you.”
My laptop dings.
We both freeze.
I glance at the screen, then back at her.
“That can’t be—”
Well, that was bloody quick.
“Open it,” she says, already leaning in.
Her scent winds around me—citrus from her shampoo, clean laundry, the sweet smell of her skin. Her hair brushes my jaw; her breath warms my cheek. I want my mouth on her throat. I lock one hand on the table to will myself to behave, steady the other on the trackpad, and click.
New Message: Dead Channel Films Inquiry
From: kai.brenner@
yo. we’re actually shooting a pickup scene tonight. need warm bodies in the background. if you’re down to come hang, call time’s 9PM. location attached. dress in black. masks provided.
“Warm bodies,” Blake reads aloud. “Well. That’s not ominous at all.”
I scroll down. The address is a few miles off campus. When I search it, what pops up is just a warehouse-style building that looks like it should be condemned.
She’s already reaching for her phone to type in the address.
“We’re going, aren’t we?” I ask.
She stands, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Obviously. I love the idea of dying for the plot.”
I shut the laptop and follow her out, equal parts thrilled and vaguely dreadful.
Because either we’re about to get the answers we need, or I’m going to die on some crusty horror set without ever getting laid by the girl who keeps climbing into my space like it’s not ruining my entire life.