Chapter 9
Valli
The text comes while I’m on my break.
I can’t stop thinking about it all day, and by the time I get home, I have decided I’ll go. And here I thought they only made me sign the NDA so Noa could talk to me freely, but whatever this is sounds a lot more interesting. I can’t wait to see what really goes on.
It’s still weird walking into my house and not hearing the sound coming from the fridge; it has been making the noise for so long that I have become used to it. I also love the new deadbolt. Now Rowan has no way inside, since he hasn’t been back to ask for a key.
I shower and spend way too much time figuring out what I should wear.
It will be cold outside, but I also want to look nice, then I overthink it all, wondering if I am supposed to dress up.
Finally, I decide to go casual because not dressing up isn’t as embarrassing as being the only one dressed up in a crowd.
By the time I arrive, my nerves have kicked in, but not in a bad way. Rather, I’m half anxious, half excited. The atmosphere feels different from the last two times I have been here, though admittedly the first time I was running for my life.
The gates are open, and Khodi nods when I give him my name. He secures a black band on my wrist, which flashes amber and then stays that color.
“Do not take it off until the end of the night, when you come back out these gates. If you remove it early, one of the security team will be alerted, and you will be escorted from the premises.”
I nod and he lets me past, and I wander forward to where maybe a dozen other people gather near the stage.
A woman walks out onto the platform dressed like a ringmaster.
“Welcome, you exquisite misfits and delightful miscreants, to Fear Island,” she says, then pauses for dramatic effect.
“My name is Nixie. The wristbands you’re wearing are trackers, and the color tells your hunter that you belong to them for the night.
Lose it and you leave. It’s that simple. ”
She paces the stage, her charisma capturing our attention.
“Here is how tonight works: you have no rules other than not removing your wristband. You can run, hide, fight back, and scream until your throat gives out, for all I care. Do whatever your body demands. The hunters have two rules: they cannot kill you, and they can only chase their assigned color. Except for the Scarecrow—he plays by his own rules. At night, the cornfield is the one place where I cannot guarantee your safety. If you go in there, you are on your own, so take my warning seriously.” She looks directly at me as she speaks the last part.
“Some of you will last five minutes, others might surprise yourselves. A very select few will walk out of here at the end and won’t ever be satisfied with ordinary again.” She spreads her arms wide with a grin. “I suggest you run now.” Then she jumps off the stage.
Music shatters the silence, broadcast from speakers somewhere, and the people scatter.
I’m about to move when a hand closes around my arm, and I turn to find Nixie.
“You’re Valli.”
“Yes,” I say.
She studies me for a second. “I want to ask you something, and I need you to be honest.”
I nod and wait for her question.
“Are you sure about this?”
I open my mouth, but she holds up a finger.
“Really think about it before answering.”
I close my mouth and consider her question for a moment. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be certain about. No one has told me what tonight is.”
Nixie stares at me for a moment, then laughs. “Oh, sweetheart.” She takes my arm and steers me away, then lowers her voice. “This is an adult-only chase night. People come here to be hunted, and when you are caught, you belong to whoever captured you. Within the limits of your contract, of course.”
“So the people here tonight . . .”
She chuckles. “They signed up for it, yes. You are wearing Cave’s color.”
Oh.
“I didn’t think he did chases.”
“He doesn’t. Not once in the time he’s been here has he done one. Cave is unstable at best when people go into his cornfield, so I cannot guarantee your safety. Again, I ask, are you sure?”
The logical answer is that I don’t know him well enough. But I’ve also slept in his cornfield with him on one of the worst nights of my life and felt the safest I have since my parents died. “I’m sure.”
Nixie nods slowly. “Okay, I’d still stay out of the cornfield if I were you. You’ll want him to come to you, and when he does, run.”
“What if I get caught?”
She smiles. “You’ll work it out.” She pats my arm and turns away, but stops to look over her shoulder. “You slept in the cornfield with him, right?”
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t scare you?”
“No.”
“Just know that him taking you in there, and you going in there by yourself, is vastly different. Be prepared for that.”
She walks away, and I turn, realizing I’m the only one left standing in this area.
Screaming echoes from my left, and I spin around to see Vero hurtling around the corner at a full sprint.
He’s clad in an orange jumpsuit, which is half open, as he looks over his shoulder, screaming, “I WILL TURN IT INTO POPCORN!”
Cave comes around the corner. He is fast for his size, his sword swinging in his hand as Vero keeps screaming his threats.
Cave glances at me and stops. Vero keeps running in circles until he realizes Cave is now stationary. “Oh,” Vero huffs out, breathing hard. “Thank god I’m not going to die tonight.”
Cave walks silently toward me, and as I open my mouth to say hello, he bends and pushes his shoulder into my midsection, then stands with me slung over him like a sack of potatoes.
“Hey,” I say, but he ignores me and starts walking.
“This is very rude,” I tell the back of his coat. “Cave!”
Nothing, zero response, he just keeps moving.
“You can’t just pick me up.” I watch the ground moving beneath us and consider my options. I push on his back, but he doesn’t notice or care. “This isn’t a chase. I thought that was the point?”
He finally stops walking and sets me down. As I glance up at him, Cave opens his mouth. “I carry what I won’t lose.” He pauses. “I don’t chase what can’t run. What am I?”
I blink up at him frantically in confusion. Just when I think I’m getting better at these riddles, he stumps me with this one.
“No idea,” I say, and he smirks.
I take one step back, pivot on my heel, and run.
Twisting left around the haunted maze, because it’s the direction I remember from the tour, I find the path between Sideshow Alley and the maze.
I push hard, knowing he will be right behind me, or at least I hope he is, because all I hear is my pulse thumping in my ears.
Cutting toward the cemetery, where the lanterns thin out, I slow just enough to see the path and hear footsteps beside me. I nearly stumble over my own feet as Noa falls into stride beside me. He has his zombie makeup on and his shovel slung over his shoulder.
“Are you also supposed to be chasing me?”
“Nixie didn’t want to trigger Cave. This is a trial run, basically to see if you survive the night.”
“Survive?! He isn’t that bad,” I retort, and Noa laughs. “He is behind us somewhere.”
“I know.”
“Aren’t you scared then, if he is so scary?”
He looks at me sideways and grins. “Terrified, but it’s fun running from Cave and talking to you. So how is it?”
“It’s been less than half an hour. Only been running for a few minutes.”
“Strong start then.”
I glance back and see nothing. “Where does this path go?”
“Cemetery on the left, then there’s a fork. One way goes to the back fence, the other toward Cipher’s shed. The shed path is safest—the other ends at a cliff. One wrong step and it’s hello sharks.”
“Shed it is, then.”
The trees get thicker, the lights from the island fading away as the path narrows and we have to run single file.
Noa keeps pace just behind me, talking about headstones, something about birds, and how funny it is to be running in the dark from an unhinged scarecrow.
One who is probably not running but stalking us.
“There,” Noa says, pointing ahead through the trees to where I can see a light above the shed door. We hit the clearing, and Noa reaches the door first, shoving it open.
I push through behind him, and we both stop with our hands on our knees to catch our breath.
“Ha!” Noa says triumphantly.
I peer around the shed at the tools carefully laid out on the workbench. “Where’s Cipher?”
Noa stands up straight and glances around just as we are both lifted into the air. Mesh closes around us as we are hauled up toward the ceiling. As we swing, Noa bursts into laughter. We are suspended about six feet off the shed floor, tangled together in a net, Noa’s shovel captured between us.
“Oh shit,” Noa says.
I look down to where Cipher is standing, the rope in his hand, and he is looking up at us with a smile.
“You’re helping him,” I say.
Cipher nods just as Cave stands silhouetted in the shed doorway with his corn sword by his side.
“This is not what I thought was going to happen tonight,” I tell them.
Cave glances up at us.
Inside the net, Noa shifts, causing the whole thing to swing. “To be fair,” Noa says from behind me, “I thought the shed was safe.”
“I told you about the net,” Cipher says, with a shake of his head.
“I didn’t know it was going to be for tonight. I thought it was to catch intruders.” Noa moves again, and the whole net swings like a rotisserie. “I would very much like to get down now.”
Cipher smirks. “In a minute.”
He fastens the rope around the hook on the wall and pulls out a stool to sit on, then folds his arms.
Cave hasn’t taken his eyes off me the entire time.
“You wanted to give her a taste. She ran and didn’t scream, so I think that still counts,” Noa says.
“A taste of what, exactly? Because I feel like there should have been a conversation before this.”
“There was going to be,” Cipher says. “But you ran before we could have it. Which is why we need to have you secured so you can’t escape this time.”
“Cave picked me up and carried me,” I protest.
The net shifts, and I manage to get turned around enough that I am facing forward rather than sideways. Cave has moved from the doorway and is leaning against the far wall. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a flower. Noa follows my eyeline and stills behind me.
“Fine, tell me what I was supposed to know before running then,” I say to the men.
Cipher unfolds his arms and rests his hands on his knees. “The chases are consensual.”
“Nixie told me that part.”
“She told you the version she tells everyone. What she didn’t tell you is that for some people, it doesn’t end with being caught. For some people, the night keeps going.”
I glance down at him and Cave, then it hits me. “Things go further.”
Cipher nods. It’s then that I remember the story Kayla told me about her guys, and my eyes widen. “All three of you?”
“Yes,” Noa whispers from behind me.
“All of you at the same time?”
My pulse races as panic soars. I just met them. That is a lot of dicks at once; I would be like a stuffed pig on a spit.
Noa laughs, and I realize maybe I spoke aloud. “It doesn’t have to be at the same time, Valli. That can be a logistics conversation for another time,” he reassures me.
“Noa,” Cipher warns.
“What? I’m being honest with her. If she wants to be a pig on a spit for us, I am more than happy to accommodate her wishes.”
“It doesn’t have to be any of that,” Cipher explains to me.
“Not the sex, not with all of us, or any of us. Tonight was supposed to be a trial run. We wanted to see how comfortable you are here, if the chase felt right for us and for you. We don’t normally do them, and honestly, we didn’t know how Cave would react.
This is all based on you and how you feel. ”
So I consider it all for a moment. I loved running and being chased—only by Cave. With the other guy it was too real, as he actually wanted to hurt me. And I’ve been in the cornfield at night and Cave was fine; so far he has done nothing to scare me.
“What if I don’t want the chases to be all this is?” I say.
Cipher nods. “Then we talk. You need to sign contracts, we need to know your limits, and we won’t touch you until we know what they are.”
“And what about Cave? Nixie tried to warn me about him.”
Cipher looks over at Cave, and once he nods, Cipher clears his throat. “He has a tendency to become territorial when he decides something is his. Over the cornfield, me, and even Noa.”
“What, me? Really? Oh, I feel so loved. I figured he just put up with me,” Noa pipes in.
Cipher shakes his head. “Cave doesn’t put up with anyone else. He likes the sound of your voice.”
“How territorial?” I ask, before Noa’s ego gets so big we’re stuck up here forever. Noa puts his chin on my shoulder.
“He followed Vero for three days after he took one of his coats without asking. He didn’t chase him or touch him, simply appeared wherever Vero was and stood there,” Cipher explained.
“Vero came to my shed on the third day and told me he was certain Cave was trying to absorb his soul. This was over a jacket—now imagine what he would do for something more important.”
“That’s a terrible example,” Noa interrupted.
“Someone thought it would be funny to put their hands on Cipher during a chase, though it was just a shove, nothing serious. Cave broke two of their fingers before anyone could intervene, and Clay had to use a Taser to take the big guy down. We don’t actually know how Cave was aware it happened.
Which, when you think about it, is either comforting to know he is watching or terrifying because he appears out of nowhere. ”
I gaze over at Cave, who is simply watching for my reaction. He is still holding the flower, which looks like something he made, but I can’t tell from up here.
“Can I see that?” I ask him.
He crosses the shed, and where I hang in the net puts me roughly at eye level with him. He holds the flower out, and I take it, pulling it through the mesh. “Thank you.”
Cipher finally stands and unknots the rope from the wall, lowering the net slowly until Noa and I are an inch off the floor and can step out. Noa stretches his back, and it clicks like someone twice his age. I step out and look down at the flower. Could I really want this with them?
What else do you have in your miserable life? I lecture myself. Work, and bailing your shitty brother out of hard situations. Why don’t you do something for yourself for a change?
My inner voice is a tad bitchy tonight; maybe I should have eaten before coming here.
“I’m in,” I announce before I can change my mind. I don’t know how I feel about having sex with three men just yet, but Cipher said there doesn’t have to be any, so I guess we’ll see how we go.