Chapter 11 - Sadie
SADIE
My heart hammers against my ribs as I sprint through the labyrinth, each breath burning in my lungs. The sound of my own footsteps echoes off the walls, too loud, too easily tracked. He can probably hear exactly where I am.
The corridor gives way to a darker passage, and I stumble forward with one hand against the cold wall to guide me. My fingers tremble uncontrollably. This isn’t a game anymore. The playful, erotic fantasy I’d constructed around the Hunt has evaporated, replaced by genuine terror.
Landon isn’t playing. The edge in his voice and the way he talked about how my fear makes him hard—it wasn’t simply dirty talk. He meant it. Another surge of adrenaline races through my system at the thought.
I duck into a narrow side passage, pressing my back against the wall. My breath comes in gasps. I clamp a hand over my mouth, trying to silence myself.
What was Lia trying to tell me?
The psychotic one.
Why didn’t I ask more questions? Why didn’t I research the Blackwood brothers more thoroughly before signing that NDA?
A distant sound freezes me in place—footsteps? My imagination? Impossible to tell.
I need to think. That’s what I’m good at.
The maze must have a structure. If I can understand it, maybe I can navigate to an exit, or at least to a more populated area where other participants might provide some buffer between Landon and me.
I now force myself to move more deliberately. Left, right, straight, right again. The corridors blend together, disorienting by design. The dim lighting creates more shadows than illumination.
Your fear is beautiful.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge his voice from my mind. This is what he wants—me panicked, irrational, making mistakes. I need to calm down.
But how can I be calm when he’s admitted to watching me? When he threatened to hurt me for the sole purpose of hearing me scream?
A soft noise behind me sends me lurching forward again, my careful approach forgotten in an instant.
Run. Just run.
I slam into a solid wall, my hands reflexively shooting out to stop my momentum. Pain radiates through my palms, then my wrists as they connect with the unforgiving surface.
“No, no, no,” I whisper, frantically feeling along the wall for a hidden passage, a door, anything.
My fingers trace cold concrete—nothing but a dead end.
The realization floods my senses like being dragged under icy water, I have to go back—toward him. Fuck.
I spin around, my back pressed against the wall, staring into the corridor I fled. The darkness seems to pulse with menace. Somewhere in that darkness, Landon is hunting me.
My breath comes in short gasps. Think, Sadie. Think. The rational part of my brain—the part that solves complex coding problems and finds patterns in chaos—tries to assert authority over my panic.
There might be another branching corridor I missed in my blind flight. If I move slowly, carefully, I may find an alternate route. But what if there isn’t one? What if the only way out leads straight to him?
I strain my ears, listening for footsteps, breathing, any sign of his presence. The labyrinth is eerily silent except for the sound of my own thundering heart.
“You can do this,” I whisper to myself. “Just calm down.”
I push away from the wall and take a tentative step back toward the corridor. Then another. My hand trails along the wall, searching for any junction I might have missed.
The darkness ahead seems to deepen with each step. Is he waiting there? Is he watching me, basking in my fear, savoring each painstakingly chosen step I take only to be led right into his trap?
I pause, frozen between the dead end behind me and the unknown ahead. Either way, I’m cornered. Either way, I’m playing into his hands.
The truth settles over me like a shroud: I have no choice but to go back.
I gather my courage and inch back down the corridor, my fingertips skimming the wall for guidance. Each step feels like walking through quicksand—my body resisting the direction my mind knows I have to go.
“Just keep moving,” I whisper to myself.
The corridor stretches before me, shadows pooling in corners and recesses. My eyes dart from one dark spot to another, expecting Landon to materialize at any moment. But nothing moves. No footsteps echo against the walls. No breathing besides my own disrupts the silence.
I pause at a junction, peering down the path where I last heard him. Empty. The corridor extends into darkness, but there’s no sign of him. My brow furrows.
This doesn’t make sense. He was right behind me. I heard him. I felt his presence so intensely that I knew at any moment he would reach out and touch me ending the chase.
I take one more cautious step, then another. Where did he go? The Hunt is about being caught—why would he just disappear?
“Landon?” The moment the word leaves my mouth, I immediately clamp my hand over my mouth.
What am I doing?
I should be grateful for this reprieve, not questioning it.
The adrenaline flooding my system feeds my fear now. Is this part of his game? Making me think I’ve escaped, only to pounce when I least expect it?
I turn in a full circle, scanning each shadowy corner. The maze feels impossibly empty.
My heart rate slows as minutes pass without incident. I press forward, taking a different path than before, listening intently for any sound that might signal his presence.
Still, there’s nothing.
A new worry forms—what if he’s found another woman to hunt? The thought brings relief tangled with a darker feeling I don’t want to confess, even to myself.
I continue through the maze, moving more confidently now but still vigilant. Every few steps, I pause to listen, expecting to hear his voice or footsteps. The silence feels wrong, almost more threatening than his pursuit.
The silence is a weapon. It takes me several long minutes to comprehend this new strategy—Landon hasn’t abandoned the Hunt. He’s elevating it.
I press my back against the wall, trying to steady my breathing.
This disappearing act isn’t mercy; it’s a mindfuck.
Damn it. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes.
He’s toying with me, letting uncertainty and my imagination do his bidding with zero active effort.
Every shadow becomes him. Every sound might be his footsteps.
The anticipation of being caught becomes almost more bone-chilling than the capture itself.
“Psychological warfare,” I whisper.
He gets off on this—the mental torture, the anticipation, the way fear floods my system and clouds my judgment.
It’s not merely about catching me; it’s about breaking me down.
Making me jump at shadows. Making me doubt my senses.
Cultivating an overwhelming level of terror every second possible before he has even laid a single hand on me.
Chills prick my skin at the callous way he manipulates my mind.
My fingers curl into fists against the wall, nails digging into my palms as if I could conjure from my mind something—anything to hold on to that could offer relief from the fear I feel like I am drowning in.
. The Hunt makes perfect sense for someone like Landon.
It’s not just a sexual game; it’s psychological domination.
The perfect playground for a man who hacks into women’s computers and watches them through their security cameras.
Is he watching me right now? Is he tracking me through cameras, enjoying my growing panic from a comfortable vantage point?
Or is he closer than I think, deliberately making no sound, waiting for the perfect moment when my guard drops?
My anxiety spikes so suddenly that I feel dizzy. The walls seem to pulse around me. My breath comes faster—too fast. I’m hyperventilating, the edges of my vision growing dark.
“Stop it,” I hiss at myself. “Don’t give him what he wants.”
The realization of what kind of man is hunting me—what kind of game he’s playing—has already done its damage. My fear isn’t just about being caught anymore.
It’s about being psychologically unraveled before he ever lays a hand on me.
“Saaa-dieee.”
My entire body turns to ice at the sound of Landon’s voice, sing-song and playful, echoing through the corridor. It makes bile rise in my throat at the mere thought of him finding me, never mind what he intends to do to me once he has me.
“Where are you, Saaa-dieee?”
It’s close. Too close. The mocking lilt in his tone sends a wave of revulsion crawling up my spine. My heart, which had begun to slow, now pounds so violently I can feel it in my throat, my fingertips, my temples.
I press myself flatter against the wall, as if I could somehow melt into it. Every muscle in my body tenses, ready to flee, but my legs won’t move. I’m paralyzed by the proximity of his voice.
“I know you’re here somewhere.” His voice bounces off the walls, making it impossible to pinpoint his location.
My breath catches painfully in my chest. A rush of adrenaline floods my system, my fight-or-flight response screaming at me to run, but where? Which direction? He could be anywhere.
“The thing about mazes,” his voice continues, that eerie playfulness still present, “is that there’s only so many places to hide.”
I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from making a sound. The metallic taste of blood blooms across my tongue. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to press them against the wall to steady them.
“Tick-tock, Sadie,” he calls, voice reverberating off the walls. “Hiding only makes this more fun for me.”
A whimper escapes before I can stop it. I clamp my hand over my mouth, but it’s too late. The sound, small as it was, seems to echo in the silence that follows.
“There you are,” he whispers, voice suddenly much closer, all playfulness gone.
The change in his tone—from taunting to satiated at finding me—sends a fresh surge of terror through me. My knees nearly buckle. Cold sweat breaks out across my forehead, down my back.
I have to move. Now.