Chapter 15 Blake
Blake
I’ve never walked into a place and immediately thought this is where I die, but this semester has been full of firsts.
The warehouse is massive—concrete floors, exposed beams, one sad ceiling fan spinning slowly and uselessly overhead—and somehow colder than outside. It smells like industrial cleaner, syrupy-sweet fake blood, and the kind of fog machine fluid that probably causes long-term lung damage.
Someone screams in the distance, high-pitched and too realistic for comfort.
Mads slips his arm around my waist, nonchalant. Dizzying. “This feels less like a film set and more like a haunted meth lab.”
I hum in agreement.
There’s chaos everywhere. Extension cords snaking across the floor like tripwires.
A pile of dismembered mannequins in one corner, half-dressed in thrift store prom wear.
A guy in full corpse makeup stands at the craft services table eating a banana.
Another dude—shirtless, bloody, and very committed to the bit—is trying to light a cigarette with hands that are definitely prosthetics.
A prop chainsaw shrieks to life two feet from my head—loud enough to rattle my teeth—then sputters out with a pathetic cough.
I flinch, but Mads’s arm is already locked around me.
He just pulls me in tighter, laughing quietly against my temple, having the time of his life while I try not to throw a punch.
And the worst part? My body has never known the difference between fear and arousal. My skin prickles, my stomach flips, and some fucked up part of me likes the way my heart won’t slow down with Mads holding me like this as we walk through the shitshow surrounding us.
It’s infuriating.
It’s addictive.
I duck under a boom mic, sidestepping a blood-slick mannequin that’s missing an eye. “I feel like just being here voids my health insurance.”
Mads barely glances up. “Probably does.”
“You’re disturbingly calm about that.”
He grins. “You’re here. If we die, at least it’s together.”
“Romantic,” I deadpan. “Should I go ahead and pick the headshot photo for my obituary?”
We make it halfway across the warehouse before realizing there’s no obvious chain of command. No director’s chair. No clipboard-wielding production assistant barking orders. Just blood and body parts and a bunch of reckless twenty-somethings.
“Do we even know what Kai looks like?” I ask, hoping that maybe there was a picture of him on the website that I missed, but he didn’t.
Mads shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Great. We’re looking for a guy named Kai. On a horror set. Where everyone looks like they’ve either committed a murder or are about to.”
He shrugs. “At least we fit in. You’re always three seconds away from ending my life, I fear.”
“Three seconds? That’s generous,” I reply dryly.
We finally find the door marked Production Office by a half-taped and crooked-hanging sheet of paper.
It’s tucked in the back of the warehouse behind a stack of prop coffins and a suspiciously stained mattress labeled FX STAGING — DO NOT REMOVE.
I don’t know what I expected—maybe some janky little desk with call sheets and stale pizza scattered about—but not this.
The place has been torn apart.
Papers litter the floor in a loose sprawl, the filing cabinet drawers are yanked open and half hanging out, and one of the rolling chairs is flipped on its side in the middle of the room.
Someone’s coffee has spilled down the side of the mini fridge and pooled under a mess of crushed energy drink cans and tangled extension cords.
The walls are plastered with schedules, storyboards, lighting cues—some of them torn, others hanging by a single pushpin.
It looks utterly ransacked. Very similar to how the apartment looked the other day—like someone was on a mission to find something.
A man—who I assume is Kai—stands in the far corner, arms crossed, expression blank, like he’s still processing whatever just happened.
His eyes track the two uniformed officers as they step past us: one with a stack of paperwork clutched to his chest, the other murmuring into a radio before trailing out behind.
Neither of them spares us a second glance.
The moment the door swings shut behind them, Kai blinks like he’s coming back online, and his gaze finally lands on us.
He straightens and clears his throat. “Sorry—long day. I’m Kai. You must be the film students?”
Mads nods, sliding a hand into his pocket. “That’s us. Thanks for responding so fast.”
Kai huffs something close to a laugh. “No problem. We’re always short on hands and long on chaos, so… welcome to the circus.”
My gaze flicks around the room. It’s not huge, but it looks like a set from an apocalyptic cop drama.
Mads raises a brow. “Is this normal for a Saturday, or…?”
Kai exhales, rubbing the back of his neck.
“We only shoot weekends, so no one’s been in here since Sunday night.
I came in to prep today and found the place trashed.
Nothing’s missing, far as I can tell—gear’s still here—but someone went through drawers, knocked stuff over.
I’ve got cameras, but I only check them when the alarm goes off.
And it didn’t.” He pauses, thoughtfully.
“Though, they don’t seem to be working currently. ”
Mads tilts his head, casual. “So whoever broke in knew the security code.”
“Bingo.”
I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Guess that’s the risk when you’ve got so many people cycling through. Extras, crew, whoever wants credit on a project.”
Kai nods, sighing. “Exactly. Can’t keep track of everyone. Half the time, people are here for a day and then gone. That’s why we do contracts and sign-in sheets. Liability stuff, you know?”
Mads hums, adjusting his backpack strap, as if the thought just occurred to him. “You keep all that on file?”
“Yeah,” Kai says, gesturing toward his desk like it’s no big deal. “I can pull them up if you want to see how we organize it. Might be useful for your class or whatever.”
“Could be,” I say, forcing my tone light, nonchalant.
Kai scrubs a hand down his face, world-weary and exhausted. “Anyway.” His voice lifts, pushing past whatever haunted look just passed through him. “Let me give you the grand tour before anything else decides to spontaneously combust.”
He steps out of the office, and we follow him into the main floor of the warehouse, where the chaos is somehow both choreographed and teetering on collapse.
A crew member jogs past us, holding what looks like a severed arm.
There’s fake blood pooled under a folding table.
A prop body bag slouches in the corner beside a pizza box.
Kai gestures lazily as he walks. “We rotate sets week to week. Right now, we’ve got two main scenes in progress—ritual murder basement over there, and upstairs is rooftop finale-slash-chase. Don’t ask how they connect. We’re working on it.”
“Ritual murder basement” gives me pause, and I glance at Mads. He’s already looking back at me, his expression a perfect mirror of mine.
He slows his pace a little, curiosity slipping through. “That murder basement you mentioned—how’d you pull that off? It looked way too real on the videos on your website.”
Kai grins. “Foam walls, fake mildew, the works. We built the whole thing on the lower level. It’s not pretty when the lights are on, but through the lens it’s perfect.”
I hum, tilting my head like I’m impressed. “So it’s all just a set? No actual creepy basement involved?”
“Exactly,” Kai says. “Our art team handled most of it. We rig up the lighting, scatter some props, cheat the angles.”
Mads slips his hands into his pockets. “You guys build it yourselves?”
“Mostly, yeah,” Kai says. “We’ve had a few extra hands from Briarwood’s soccer team, too—big guys, good at hauling lumber and gear.
They help when they’ve got downtime. Jonah’s been around today, actually—he’s a film student too.
You’d probably get a kick out of his vintage camera collection.
” He waves it off. “If you’re curious, I can show you when I have more time. It’s one of our best setups.”
Mads and I trade another glance.
Well. That’s something.
Kai points toward a wall of black curtains. “Costumes and makeup through there. Bathrooms are… hopefully functional.”
Kai turns back to us, walking backward now with his hands in his hoodie pockets.
“We wrap most nights by two. Filming’s on the back burner for tonight with my office in such disarray, but there’s still plenty to keep everyone busy.
You can hang out, shadow wherever you want.
Ask questions, take notes, whatever you need. ”
He glances down at his phone, sighs. “Alright, you two are free to poke around, just don’t touch the lighting stuff or the sacrificial altar.” He turns on his heel. “I’ve got to go argue with my sound guy about why we can’t dub an entire scene using TikTok audio clips. Back in a bit.”
We watch him disappear through a side door.
“I like him,” Mads says.
I glare up at him, incredulous.
We meander through the space, dodging a severed foam head and a tangle of stage cables.
I check one of the open laptops on a folding table. Just a budget spreadsheet and a half-written group email titled “Who took the goat skull again???” Nothing criminal. Nothing enlightening.
Mads peers into a crate labeled “Misc. Torture.” He closes it again quickly. “Unless you want a fake jawbone or a bloody severed toe, I think we’re tapped out.”
I sigh. “So much for leads, unless the entirety of Briarwood’s soccer team decides to pop in tonight.”
I guess it wasn’t a total bust, but still, somehow it feels like we’re no closer to figuring any of this out.
He turns toward me, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun while we’re here.”
Then he picks something up off the table.
A mask. White, stretched, with hollow black eyes and a long, open mouth frozen mid-scream. Iconic. Cheap plastic, but eerie as hell in the low light.
I know the movie was meant to be kind of campy, but I watched it in third grade, and it traumatized me.
I didn’t sleep for a week, refused to answer the door for a month, and cried during a Halloween aisle walkthrough at the department store because my friend’s older brother thought it’d be funny to sneak up behind me wearing the mask.
He slips it on and tilts his head just slightly to the side.
Something flips in my stomach the second he pulls the mask over his face.
Heat curls low in my stomach, thighs pressing together before I can stop myself. It’s twisted, but I can’t look away.
The mask hides him, turns him into something darker, and the fact that it’s still Mads underneath only makes it worse.
He can’t possibly know what this does to me, yet I can’t shake the feeling he’s reading every thought.
“You good?” he says, voice muffled but playful. The damn thing even distorts the sound of it a little. Enough to make my brain spark in unhelpful ways.
I swallow, then squeak out, “Yeah. Fine. Great.”
He cocks his head again, stepping closer. My mouth goes dry. My knees attempt a negotiation with gravity. He takes one more step, and I have to physically stop myself from reaching for him.
It must be obvious—the way my breath stutters, the way my eyes keep darting between the mask and his broad chest—because he stills like he’s just caught me in the act.
I point at the mask. “Take that off.”
He pauses. “Why?”
“B-because.”
He tilts his head, watching me with far too much amusement through the eyeholes, like he’s just confirmed something I didn’t mean to give away. “You’re into the mask.”
He’s so matter-of-fact.
I turn away so he doesn’t see how flushed I am. “Let’s get out of here before I do something irreversible,” I mutter.
His fingers curl around my wrist, halting me mid-step. He tugs me back until I’m flush against him, then leans down to murmur in my ear, “We can’t leave just yet. Might look a little suspicious.”