Chapter 8
Vero
Kayla smashes her lips to mine, and I use the distraction to slip the handcuff around her wrist, so for the rest of the chase we are locked together.
Why? Because she is not the only one who needs a little excitement in her life, and Clay is a loose cannon.
This way, if he gets close to her, he has to get past me as well.
The logic made sense when I came up with it.
My other incentive is Brawley. He can’t get in here, but I know he will be watching—he always is.
When we take part in chases, he is with me when the fucking happens.
I planned to chase Kayla outside, but the second her lips touched mine, I knew I would not make it out of this room.
Brawley will come down here and beat down the door, then he will want to punish me.
That thought makes me wild. Poor Kayla is now collateral damage, but something tells me she is going to love every second. I just hope she can run.
I pull back from the kiss and move my lips down her jawline to her neck.
I really didn’t think through the handcuffing.
It limits being able to fuck her from behind, and I really, really want to see the globes of her ass bent over for me, and that teasing sliver of pussy.
But I’m a resourceful guy, so I move us toward the single chair in the room, and right now I’m grateful my last one broke.
Since I just have a piece of shit metal one with no arms, when we get close enough, I pull back and fall down onto the chair, and Kayla comes with me, her arm being attached to mine.
She wastes no time when I reach for the button on her jeans and pop it open, then pull her zipper down.
Kayla helps shimmy her way out of her pants and her lacy thong, and when it all drops to her ankles, she toes off her boots and steps out of the pooled fabric.
Who would have thought wide-leg jeans coming back into fashion would pay off?
I bite down on my lip as she straddles my waist, and I am thankful that the scrub pants I am wearing are elastic. She uses her free hand to release my cock, and when it springs free, she lifts and hovers herself over me, but she hesitates for a moment.
“I’m clean,” I tell her, hoping my word is enough.
Never have I wanted to fuck someone bare before, but I need to be inside her—she is all I have thought about for days.
I hate when my brain latches onto something; it goes around and around in circles.
But there is a high chance that once I fuck her, I will move on.
I can’t help it. When I see something new and shiny, I need it, but then once I have it, I lose interest.
She exhales and whispers “fuck it” and impales herself on my cock in one move.
My eyes roll back in my head and I see stars; it could also be from the lack of oxygen from holding my breath while I waited for her to decide what she wanted to do next.
She rocks forward and back a few times, then increases her pace right before the thumping on the door starts. Kayla pauses and looks over my shoulder toward the door.
“It’s just Brawley. I hope you are ready to run because I am a dead man if you can’t.”
“What did you do?” she asks, continuing to rock shallowly in my lap.
This position doesn’t give me the room to fuck her the way I want, but it allows me to piss Brawley off, and he had it coming.
Clay had a meltdown over Kayla putting his name on the form.
Clearly, she knew it would piss him off, and it did, but Brawley took his side.
What made it worse was that he did it in front of everyone.
Nixie gets the final say in who is paired, and I don’t know what Clay did to piss her off this week, but she told him he was in.
That maybe he could use it to get what he wanted, whatever that means.
Clay can do what he likes, but Brawley has always had my back, and his actions made me feel less than. I don’t like that feeling.
I explain it quickly to Kayla, ending with, “—so that’s what he did, now it’s time to get loud.”
I reach under her shirt and slip my hand beneath her bra, twisting her nipple between my fingers. She cries out, getting wetter instantly, so I twist again and this time I lean forward and swallow her cries.
The beating gets louder.
“Is this really how you want to play it? This just got dangerous for you, Vero. Tick tock, motherfucker. I will be here waiting—you can’t stay in that room forever.”
“Oh god,” Kayla moans as she increases her pace.
I don’t know how much longer I can hold off, and I’m grateful when she clamps down hard around my cock.
Removing my hand from up her shirt, I wrap it around her neck.
She made a joke about leaving bruises, and I want to be the first. I squeeze hard and buck up into her as her tight little pussy strangles my cock and her face turns red.
I fuck her harder, and when her lips part and her body starts to tremble, I squeeze a little tighter.
The edges of her lips take on a blueish tinge, and a gurgled sound spills from her as she comes.
I release her neck, and she gasps for air as I come right alongside her.
She leans forward, resting her forehead against mine, and I smirk when I see the white skin between her tattoos is bright red from my fingers. Knowing she will be bruised tomorrow has stroked my ego.
Something hard hits the door, and I chuckle. “That is our cue to leave.”
Kayla pulls back. “How are we getting out that door without him murdering you?”
“We’re not. There is a hidden exit over there—it’s how I get in and out.
While he is beating that door down, we have a few minutes until he changes tactics and comes for that one.
” I turn my head to the door. “Fuck, your pussy feels so good!” I yell, and whatever Brawley is using to beat on the door with gets louder.
Kayla slowly stands, and so do I. Then I tuck my cock away and help her put her jeans back on. She slips her feet into her boots, and I bend down and pick up her thong, balling it in my free hand.
I show her where the door is, and she pushes against it hard, causing it to pop open. We both move into the tunnel, and I hurriedly lead her out, not knowing how long it will take for Brawley to see that we are gone.
We get to the exit, and as we push through the doors, I hold my breath expecting him to be there already. When he isn’t, we run down the ramp, and I pull Kayla toward the cornfield. It’s my worst option, but my only option, and I get full-body goosebumps the second we reach the edge of it.
I hate this place.
Not the same way people hate the dentist or eating vegetables. I hate this place in a way that makes no sense. Yet there is something about it that sits wrong in my brain, no matter how many times I tell myself it’s fine.
Cave is in there; he’s always in there.
That’s the problem with Cave—he rarely leaves.
Everyone else goes home, but Cave stays.
You never hear him move, and you never see him coming.
I have been on this island for three years, and I have never once successfully rattled him—it bothers me more than I will ever say out loud to anyone, including Brawley.
I’m not scared of anything. I’m crazy and everyone knows it, but my aversion to Cave is something no one knows about.
“Why did you slow down?” Kayla says, pulling on the cuff—and by extension, my wrist.
“I didn’t,” I protest, even though I know I did.
“Um, you did.”
Behind us, somewhere back near the asylum, something crashes.
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath, reminding myself everything is fine. I zone in on the adrenaline and what happens when he catches us: Kayla will get to see Brawley in all his glory. “We’re going in.”
The corn closes around us as we step inside.
It’s tall enough that I can’t see over it and close enough on both sides that it brushes my arm and Kayla’s.
The sound it makes is like a whisper. While I know it isn’t actually whispering, my brain doesn’t care about that.
I keep moving, and Kayla keeps up without me having to pull her, which is a point in her favor right now.
The thing about Brawley is that he is loud when he’s angry.
He doesn’t even try to be quiet. He doesn’t need to be, you know he’s coming; that’s part of what we do, the push and pull of it.
I piss him off and he comes for me. That’s how it works, and I love it.
Yet in here I can’t hear him—I can’t hear anything except the corn, our feet, and Kayla’s breathing.
The silence means Cave is somewhere nearby, waiting.
“Vero,” Kayla whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Something moved to our left.”
“I know,” I say, because we are being hunted right now. Nixie can talk shit like the fact that we can’t touch someone unless we have matching colors on our wristbands, but Cave is insane—he simply doesn’t care. If you come into his territory, he is going to make sure you don’t stay long.
“Is it Brawley?”
“No,” I reply. “He is louder than that.”
She slows down, and I drag her along. I can’t tell her Cave is my bear in the hunt, because if anyone knew, it could be used against me. “Then who?”
“Keep moving,” I insist. “Don’t look at it. Don’t talk to it. And don’t acknowledge it.”
“What? Are you trying to scare me?” she asks, thinking this is all part of the game.
“I said, keep moving, Kayla,” I snap, and she must hear some of the fear in my voice because she moves faster.
My panic settles when Brawley shouts out that he is coming for me. He knows I’m in here and he won’t let Cave hurt us. Cave will hopefully change course and go after Brawley, buying us some time to hit the edge of the cemetery.
I tighten my hand around Kayla’s and move faster until we clear the cornfield. Then we stop at the old, rickety fence to catch our breath.
“Phew,” I say. “Do not let me go back in there again. When they say avoid the scarecrow at all costs, make sure you do. All of us go in and out of our island personas, but that guy, that’s him all the time.
He sleeps in there and scares so many children beyond what is expected when families come that I think he feeds on their tears.
Nixie hasn’t let him do a real chase yet because she doesn’t trust him. ”
“Then why did you drag me through there?”
I take her free hand and place it on my chest. “Because I like the thrill of it, and knowing we are out and Brawley is stuck in there buys us a few minutes.”
“Motherfucker!” Brawley yells, and I laugh.
“Time to hide. I hope you’re ready for him to hunt us.”
“I was born ready,” she replies, and we take off running hand in hand—I have never had so much fun.
We race into the sea of grave markers. “Left,” I tell her, and we cut down between two rows of headstones before suddenly the ground up ahead disappears.
Something hits us from the side so fast my brain doesn’t register what’s happening until we’re already going down, tangled together because of the cuffs.
The headstone to my right catches my shoulder on the way, and then I face-plant on the dirt with Kayla half on top of me and something very large smothering us both.
I turn my head to the side and spit dirt out of my mouth. Clay is looming over us, one knee in my back, one hand pressed flat on Kayla’s shoulder blades. It’s like he planned exactly where we would be, knew the moment we would get there, and waited. Which, knowing Clay, he did.
“Going somewhere?” he says.
I turn my head the other way to find Kayla’s face about six inches from mine, dirt on her cheek, and her lower half is still sprawled across me—but not in the fun way.
“Get off me,” she snarls, bucking around in a valiant attempt to dislodge the surly deadweight from on top of us.
Clay doesn’t move. Behind us, through the cemetery gate, I can hear Brawley approaching. Excitement bubbles in my gut—I guess my punishment is coming faster than I expected.