Chapter 8 - Lila
LILA
Ibreak into a run, shoes sinking into the soft ground with every step, the mud grabbing at my heels like fingers.
The corn blurs past on either side, tall and suffocating, the stalks reaching out like claws. Fog licks at my legs, thick and cold, making everything feel slower, heavier.
I don’t look back. I can’t look back.
I just run.
Left.
Right.
Another left.
I don’t know where I’m going.
There’s no plan anymore. Just blind, pulsing panic, flooding my chest and limbs like ice water. My legs burn. My lungs ache. My wings snag on something behind me, tearing with a sickening rip that makes me stumble. I choke on a sob.
I’m not fast enough.
I can still hear them… their footsteps right behind me. A steady, deliberate jog that matches my desperate sprint like a shadow.
They’re not chasing me. They’re following.
Playing.
The sound of it—three pairs of feet pacing me like wolves in the fog—makes the hair on my arms stand up. I know if I scream, no one will come.
No one but them.
A sob rips out of me before I can stop it, my breath hitching in my throat as I shove myself around another corner… and hit a wall.
Not brick. Not wood. Corn. Dense. Unmoving. A solid, endless wall of stalks that stretches to the sky.
A dead end.
Panic claws at my chest like it wants out.
No, no, no—I spin around, ready to double back, to fight, to do something—but it’s too late.
They’re already there.
All three of them.
Silent at first. No words. No noise but the sound of their boots crunching over gravel, drawing closer in perfect sync.
They fan out. Deliberate. Blocking the only way out.
White Mask is the first to move. He steps forward with that same infuriating, fluid grace, his head tilted just slightly. I can’t see his eyes behind the cracked porcelain, but I feel them.
Like a touch on my skin. Like cold breath against the back of my neck.
His stare crawls over me, my face, my chest, my shaking hands, and I feel every inch of it.
“Please,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage. The word comes out hoarse, like it had to claw its way up my throat.
Burlap Sack laughs, the sound low and rough. A sound that doesn’t belong in anything human. “Please, what, little fairy?” His voice scrapes over my skin like gravel and silk. “Please stop?” A beat. A grin I can’t see but can feel. “Or please… keep going?”
A shiver races down my spine.
I can’t speak. I don’t know how. My throat is closing in around the panic.
But my body… My body betrays me.
My legs are still tense like they want to run, but my feet don’t move. My arms are trembling, fists clenched at my sides, but I don’t lift them.
Because deep in the pit of my stomach, underneath the fear, something else is stirring.
A heat.
A pull.
It’s twisted. Wrong. But it’s real.
I’m still afraid—gods, I’m terrified—but the fear is changing.
It’s merging with something awful.
Something thrilling.
Like standing on the edge of a high place and wondering what the fall would feel like.
Black Mask moves last. He steps forward with precision, as quiet as ever. He stops just in front of me, close enough that I can smell the faint leather of his gloves, the coldness clinging to him like fog.
He raises a hand, and I flinch, but he doesn’t hurt me. He just brushes a single strand of hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear with a touch so gentle, so careful, that my breath catches. The leather is warm against my skin. “We don’t want your candy,” he says.“We want to hear you scream.”
A second step. Closer. “We want to watch you run.” His fingers trail down, almost to my chin, never quite touching again. “We want to feel you beg.”
My knees nearly buckle. My wings hang in tatters behind me, useless. I feel like I’m being peeled open without a blade. Every breath I take is shallow. Shaking.
“Why?” I whisper, the word barely audible. “Why me?”
White Mask leans in close enough for me to see the darkness through the crack in his mask. “You ran into it maze, Lila. You wanted a thrill, and how can we resist such a tempting little thing like you?”
Burlap Sack laughs again, darker this time. “And we were waiting.”
White Mask is behind me, suddenly, his body crowding me against Black Mask. His hands land on my hips, large and possessive, pulling me back against the hard ridge of his cock straining against his jeans. A gasp punches out of me.
“You like that, don’t you?” White Mask murmurs into my ear, his voice a dark promise. “You like being caught. You like being hunted. Your fucking heart is trying to beat its way out of your chest. I can feel it.”
Burlap Sack is in front of me now, his hand cupping my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “You wanna play a different game with us, Lila?”
The ‘no’ is on my lips, the sensible, sane response.
But it dies there. The heat between my legs is a throbbing ache now, a desperate, pulsing need that’s drowning out the fear.
I’m wet. Soaked. I can feel it on my thighs since I stupidly went sans panties.
These monsters have me cornered, and my body is betraying me completely, screaming yes.
I give one tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
“Use your words, Lila,” Black Mask says, his thumb stroking my cheek. “We need to hear you say it.”
I swallow hard. My voice is a ragged whisper. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” White Mask grinds his hips against my ass, and a moan escapes me.
“Yes,” I breathe out, the decision crystallizing, the fear dissolving into pure, unadulterated lust. “I want to play.”