Chapter 5
Agatha
My breath catches as the final ripple of my orgasm shatters through me, scraping me raw from the inside out. My forehead is pressed against the tree and I just know I’m going to have bark burn on my face. My thighs shake. My body thrums like it’s just survived something sacred and savage.
Then he leans in, his breath hot against my ear.
“You’re even better in person.”
My blood freezes.
That’s not Jay’s voice.
This voice is lower. Rougher. Too calm. Too sure.
I whip around, heart slamming against my ribs, but he’s already gone. Just trees. Just shadows. Just the camera still held out to the side, catching the ragged rise and fall of my chest.
The livestream is still running. It’s kind of pathetic how good I am at never dropping my arm or phone, even when this freaky shit is going on.
The chat is unhinged; comment after comment screaming in all caps, praising the realism, the brutality, the rawness.
They think it’s part of the show. They think it was Jay.
Hell, I thought it was Jay. But Jay never fucks like that.
Jay doesn’t stay silent. Jay doesn’t vanish after whispering a line that makes my spine feel like a cracked icicle.
I end the stream with shaking fingers. The silence that follows is deafening.
Panic barrels into me, pure and sharp. I clutch my phone tighter, nearly trip as I spin around, then tear off into the forest. Branches claw at my dress, my hair, my fraying nerves. My Converse pound the dirt, heartbeat screaming in my throat.
“Jay!” I yell. “If this is some sick joke, I swear to God—”
He better have had an emergency. A flat tire. An arrest. A fucking dead parent. Because if he sent someone in his place without telling me, without asking, I’ll skin him alive.
Something blocks the path ahead. A dark shape, lumpy and low to the ground.
I slow down. My stomach drops.
“Jay?” I call out, voice too small. “Don’t mess with me.”
The shape doesn’t move.
I creep closer.
No. Please no.
It’s him. It’s Jay. He’s lying in a pool of black that only glints when moonlight catches it. His throat is slit wide open, eyes frozen, mouth parted in a final, confused breath. His pants are stained and wet. His skin is already losing color.
I take two steps back, then fall to my knees.
“No, no, no—” My fingers fumble with my phone. “Fuck, Jay. Wake up. This isn’t funny.”
I kick his foot. Hard. “Get up. I’m serious.”
He doesn’t move.
My hand flies to my mouth. I dial 911, thumb trembling so violently I nearly miss the buttons.
The dispatcher answers. I rattle off the name of the preserve, stumbling over the words like my mouth doesn’t quite work. I tell them I found my friend dead in the woods. Just like that. My friend. Dead.
I leave out the rest. I have to.
I don’t say I had sex with a stranger five minutes ago. That his cum is still warm between my thighs, soaked into the thin cotton of my thong.
I don’t say I thought it was Jay.
I don’t say I let him.
And I sure as hell don’t say I liked it.
The line clicks quiet after they assure me someone is on their way. I just stand there, in the dark, staring down at Jay’s body like the truth might rise from it if I wait long enough.
But it doesn’t.
By the time the police arrive, I’ve backed away from his body and found a spot on a moss-covered log.
My feet are planted on the ground, elbows braced on my knees, arms folded tight like they’re the only thing holding me in one piece.
My fingers are stained with dirt and bits of bark.
I can’t stop thinking about how warm Jay’s blood must have been when it left his body.
I never touched it, but I feel it on me, anyway.
They ask what happened. I open my mouth, and the lies fall out smoother than they should.
“I came to meet a friend. We were filming a spooky scene. For the internet,” I add, like it makes things more harmless. “We got separated. I heard something weird and when I came looking for him... he was like this.”
They jot it all down.
They don’t know I’m lying. Not yet.
I should tell them. I should tell them about the man in the mask. About the sex that didn’t feel like a violation until after it ended. About the voice that didn’t belong to Jay and the sick twist in my stomach that formed the second he spoke.
I should tell them everything.
But I don’t.
And I hate myself for that.
Because if they catch him, whoever he is, he could be charged with assault. With impersonation. With murder. Jay is dead, and I just let the man who might’ve done it walk away.
My throat closes up.
Am I protecting him? Or am I protecting myself?
If I say it out loud, the truth becomes real. Not just the part where Jay is gone, but the part where I wanted something that wasn’t even mine to want. That I gave myself to a stranger. That I let him go. That I liked it. Even if it was a trick. Even if it makes me the worst kind of friend.
God, what kind of friend am I?
I stare at the officer as he scribbles notes, and all I can think is: He’s going to ask why I didn’t scream. Why I didn’t run. Why I didn’t know.
The answers won’t save me. So I keep quiet.
I lie the way I’ve always lied, like it’s my only language. Like survival depends on it.
The officers thank me for my time, their voices tight with something I can’t place. They mark off the area with yellow tape. One of them asks if I need medical attention.
I shake my head. I don’t trust my voice. I feel like a ghost watching a girl who just survived something she doesn’t understand.
They say they’ll be in touch and for me not to leave town in case they have more questions.
Fuck! Am I a person of interest now? Of course I am. I just told them we were the only two people in the woods. I painted myself as a possible murderer. Fuck my life.
I nod, somehow, and stumble to my car like my limbs are borrowed. I shut the door behind me and the silence is so thick I nearly scream.
Then I remember what I have to do.
I call Lorna and she picks up on the second ring.
“Hey, girl. What’s up? You never call this late…or really at all,” she says.
I scream before I even know I’m doing it, “Jay’s dead!”
Silence.
Then. “What? What do you mean Jay’s dead? What happened?”
I grip the steering wheel with one hand, the other clutching my phone to my ear like it’s the only thing keeping my brain from shattering. My breath fogs up the windshield.
“I don’t know. I thought he was the one chasing me, like we planned. He was supposed to show up in costume, give me the signal, and scare the hell out of me on camera. We’d done it before. A little primal chase scene, ya know?”
I swallow hard, pressing my knuckles into my mouth, then shake my head. “He came out of the trees, masked, silent. I thought it was Jay. So I ran. I thought it was part of the show.”
My voice starts to shake.
“I hid. Waited behind a tree, waiting for him to catch me like always. Only… he didn’t. Not right away. When he did…”
Another breath. Another swallow.
“When he did, it felt different. Rougher. He didn’t say anything, not at first. I still thought it was Jay. He wore the same mask. Same build. I didn’t even question it. It was supposed to feel real.”
Lorna listens. No words. No judging. Just waiting.
“We went through with the scene. Everything streamed. I…I didn’t realize something was wrong until he said something after. Just a few words. And it wasn’t Jay’s voice. That’s when I knew.”
She still doesn’t interrupt.
“I ended the live. Ran to look for Jay. Found him on the path… already dead. There was blood everywhere.”
Lorna exhales like she’s been holding her breath too. “Jesus, Aggie…are you alright?”
“I didn’t know,” I say, more to myself than her. “I didn’t know it wasn’t him.”
“Are you somewhere safe now?” she asks. “Did the police come?”
I nod, even though she can’t see it. “Yeah. I’m in my car. I called them. They came. Took my statement.”
“What did you tell them?”
I stare out through the windshield. The parking lot is dark. My reflection looks like a ghost in the glass. “I told them I was meeting a friend for a video project. That we got separated. That I came back and found him like that.” My throat tightens. “I didn’t tell them about the man in the woods.”
A pause stretches between us.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I think I went on autopilot. I kept thinking…what would they do with that? I didn’t see his face. I don’t even know if he was the one who… who hurt Jay.”
“That’s alright,” she says. “If you didn’t get a look at him, that’s not something they could’ve acted on anyway.”
She’s trying to be kind. Trying to help me feel okay about it. But I didn’t just see him. I felt him. All of him. Because what kind of person admits they let a stranger inside them under false pretenses?
What kind of person confesses they moaned for someone they thought they knew, and liked it when they realized they didn’t?
The guilt feels like acid in my lungs. It eats at everything. My voice. My honesty. My memories. It makes me a liar. A coward. A traitor to someone who trusted me.
“I just didn’t think,” I whisper. “Didn’t realize until it was too late.”
Lorna’s voice softens again. “Aggie. Breathe. You’re safe now. You did what you had to do.”
But did I?
I close my eyes. “I think I’m okay.”
It’s a lie, but I say it anyway. Because I can’t stop thinking about him.
Not Jay. Him. The masked man. The stranger who pressed into me like he already owned me.
The one who vanished into the trees. I don’t know who he is.
I don’t know how he found me. I don’t know how he got Jay out of the picture. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me too.
And the worst part? The part I keep circling like a drain? I don’t even know if he did kill Jay. Because if he was capable of that kind of violence, why not do it to me? Why stop at one?
Why not both?
Unless he didn’t do it at all. Unless someone else did. And if that’s true… Then who the hell did?