Chapter 6 Chet
CHET
Idowned the rest of my beer and stacked it with Mark’s empty cup.
The foam was bitter on my tongue as I watched Mark disappear into the crowd.
Kyle had shit timing, but at least Mark seemed more relaxed than he had all evening.
I never knew what the hell to expect when we hung out with his parents, kinda like Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates.
Never a dull moment. Fortunately, it’d been a long time since I’d given a shit what anyone besides Mark and my best friends thought of me.
So when his dad looked at me like I was a wadded-up piece of gum stuck to the underside of a table, it was no skin off my back.
Honestly, I’d gotten so used to it that his handshake tonight was more disconcerting than anything else.
The party churned around me, a mishmash of dancing and people standing in clumps conversing.
There were costumes galore but also plenty of folks in street clothes just here for the booze and social clout.
I said hello to a few I recognized from various classes, spotted Ansel and upnodded him.
He was in a corner and seemed deeply involved with his phone, though, so I decided not to bother him.
The fog machine near the stairs worked overtime, making it hard to see more than ten feet in any direction.
I was debating grabbing another beer versus heading straight for the maze to fuck with Mark when I spotted a flash of red a few feet away.
“Amanda!” I called out, pushing through a cluster of dudes dressed as Marvel superheroes.
She turned, her face lighting up when she saw me. “Holy shit, there you are!” She threw her arms around me, nearly spilling her drink, and then pulled back to look at me. “You look hot.”
“Uh, no, you do.” She was dressed as Poison Ivy, and she’d nailed it.
A fitted corset of shimmering green leaves clung to every curve, her legs encased in glittery emerald tights.
Fake vines curled up her arms and tangled through the waves of her hair, which somehow looked like it was glowing from within.
“Psht. But do go on,” she said, and we both laughed.
“Where’s your better half? Or maybe he’s the worse half.
” She pretended to consider, and I bumped her shoulder.
It’d taken her a while to come around to me and Mark being together, but she’d also been one of the few who knew the full measure of our history.
“Scare duty in the maze.” I adjusted my toga strap for the millionth time. I should’ve just accepted the fucking duct tape solution. I’d never tell Mark that, though. “Kyle pulled him early.”
“Oh, bummer.” She waved at someone over my shoulder. “How’d it go with the parentals? Did Mr. Farrow try to stab you with a butter knife?”
I chuckled. “He’d probably go for a letter opener. No, poison. Definitely poison.” I shrugged. “It was okay. He shook my hand. That was different. Baby steps, I suppose.”
What I didn’t say was that watching Mark afterward had shifted something inside me—the way he’d melted against the steering wheel, then leaned into my touch without thinking about it, trusting me to ground him.
Trust was hard for me. I felt like life had betrayed me over and over, that nothing was ever as it seemed. But tonight had made me want to trust Mark with some of my family shit the same way he trusted me with his. Maybe it was time for him to go with me to see my dad.
It was a terrifying thought. He’d come with me to the facility before, but had always stayed outside in the car at my request. Some part of me felt I was shielding him, I guess, but I wasn’t sure what I was shielding him from.
Maybe me. Maybe I was still scared that if Mark saw my dad in person, it’d be all too easy for him to think I was destined to become the same kind of person my dad was.
Yet, Mark had let me into his messy, imperfect world, and I was still here.
Shouldn’t he have the same opportunity to ground me during the tough times, too?
“You okay?” Amanda scrutinized me with the sharp look she got when she sensed drama.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I shook myself out of my thoughts. “I’m gonna go check out that maze and find Mark.”
She was still studying me, but she nodded along, even gave me a scandalous waggle of her green brows. “Alright. Go get your man. Maybe I’ll go find one, too.”
She probably would. Amanda was a devoted bachelorette. She rarely did relationships, but she was stellar at one-night stands and claimed it was her calling. She probably had a roster that would make even me double-take.
I made my way down to the basement and toward the entrance, where a guy in a zombie costume stood. “Sure you want to go in alone?”
I glanced at him, impatient. “Yeah, I think I can manage some plastic sheeting stapled together by hungover freshmen.”
The guy threw his head back and cackled, waving me through. “Sure thing, boss. Go ahead. I’d tell you to scream if you lose your way, but…” He leaned ominously close. “No one will hear you.”
“Uh-huh.”
The moment I stepped into the haunted maze, the air thickened with fog, wrapping me in a chilly embrace.
It was at least ten degrees cooler down here, which I appreciated since the mass of bodies upstairs had me sweating earlier.
Flickering LED candles cast ominous shadows on what I guessed were Styrofoam walls painted to look like stone.
In the distance, I heard the buzz of chainsaws and startled screams.
Okay, maybe I’d spoken too soon about the plastic sheeting and drunk freshmen.
I’d never been into the frat scene, but I had to give the Sigmas credit: they knew how to throw a party.
As I moved deeper into the maze, instead of some slapped-together shit, I encountered a full-scale horror production almost worthy of Universal Studios.
The scent of sulfur made my eyes sting. There were gnarled branches I had to duck beneath, foam gravestones, thick ropes of cobwebs that brushed my hair and neck every few feet, and while I did spot plenty of black plastic sheeting, it wasn’t just tossed up haphazardly.
A strobe light pulsed erratically, and the thick fog was disorienting. Two mechanical skeletons bursting from coffins got me good. I jumped back, heart in my throat, then rolled my eyes at myself.
A couple of minutes later, a chainsaw revved and a handful of people sprinted past me, shrieking but clearly delighted.
I rounded a corner and another dude in zombie makeup lurched out from a blind corner, mouth smeared in blood.
Definitely not Mark, though. He got a couple of inches from my face, let out a guttural groan, then burst into a laugh when I just stared at him.
“Dude, you’re no fun,” he said, before shambling off to scare someone else.
I passed a backlit corridor lined with glowing, disembodied hands reaching through slits in the walls.
When one actually grabbed my elbow with a cold, gloved grip, I jumped, swearing under my breath.
I briefly considered whether it was Mark, but he wouldn’t have grabbed me somewhere so innocuous.
He’d have gone straight for my balls or ass.
“Alright, asshole,” I muttered to myself. “Where are you hiding?”
I pushed past another crew traversing the maze together and grew increasingly restless with adrenaline, anticipating the moment he’d appear.
Halfway past a door dripping with fake blood, a prickle raced up the back of my neck. The fog was heavier here, felt like it was shoving itself into my lungs and sticking to my skin. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
I whipped around, expecting Mark or some other Sigma goon in a mask, but there was nothing there but the flash of the strobe and emptiness.
The feeling of being watched persisted as I turned forward again and continued on, a moving target at this point.
I kept expecting a hand to shoot out, or more skeletons or ghosts or zombies to pop up, but nothing came.
I rubbed the back of my neck against the sensation of someone breathing down it, but whenever I tossed a glance over my shoulder, there was nothing there.
The corridor narrowed into a hall of mirrors that threw warped reflections of myself back at me.
Something tapped my shoulder, and I whirled around so fast I nearly face-planted into my reflection.
Not exactly my finest moment. I stared at my face, wide-eyed and a little wild.
Goddammit, I was actually scared. Just a little.
Not full-on terror, but it was eerie as fuck standing there all alone yet knowing I wasn’t.
Then, from behind me, came a chuckle that was all too familiar. I’d heard it in the bedroom before, sometimes accompanied by hands around my throat. My dick hardened, way too fucking attuned, as arousal surged through my veins.
“I know you’re in here, Farrow,” I said, straining to listen for the sound of footsteps, breathing, anything that would give his location away. There was nothing but another rumble of directionless laughter that made my balls tingle as it scraped down my spine like nails.
I was pretty sure I was walking in circles now, like an idiot with a tent pole beneath my toga. Mark had to be loving every second, too. Fuck you, Farrow. I bit my tongue before I said it, though, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.
This time when he laughed, it was close enough that I should’ve felt him. And then I did. A palm snaked around my wrist, sliding up my bare arm in a tease, and I froze.
“Don’t turn around,” Mark said, the heat of his body pressing against my back as his nails scraped along the ridge of my collarbone. It felt so damn good I was tempted to obey him, to just stand there and let him do whatever he wanted to me. That wasn’t my style, though.
But when I whirled to face him, he was gone.
My jaw clenched in frustration, and I pushed lightly on the mirrored panels, looking for some give, a secret doorway.