Chapter 22 Serena #2
Whoever is chasing me is gaining distance faster than I’d like, and I really wish I weren’t wearing heeled boots for this adventure. But I can’t change that now.
An idea pops into my mind, and while I know it won’t be a long-term solution to escaping him, it will buy me a little time.
Catching my breath for a split second, I tuck myself into the cutout entrance that leads down to the seating of section 131.
The heavy steps grow nearer, and I shut my flashlight off on my phone, hoping I can lose him.
“Where’d you go, Serena? Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Bates is only going to grow more impatient.”
Questions and quips form on the tip of my tongue, but I keep them sealed behind my lips, not letting even a single breath sneak past.
Step. Step. Step.
Closer and closer they sound.
Suddenly, my phone vibrates, and I’ve never noticed the noise it makes, but it practically rings out loudly in the deafening silence.
“There you are,” he calls out, the steps turning and walking right toward me.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath, fumbling to turn the flashlight back on before taking off down the stairs to my right.
I have no idea if this is a smarter place to go, but right now, I know it’s in the opposite direction of the man chasing me.
Taking the stairs as fast as I can, I fly down them, racing toward the glass. I don’t know my next move, but I keep going, choosing to figure that out when I get there.
Glancing back as I reach the lowest step, catching myself on the glass, I look up and find a silhouette of a tall guy standing where I was hiding, his frame stretching across the opening.
But his size isn’t what throws me off my axis; it’s the outline of a knife in his hand.
“This floor’s now off-limits,” he announces before slipping back into the darkness.
My thoughts are fractured, the arena spinning around me as I realize something.
Everything thus far has been intentional, every single move since I entered the building. I didn’t stumble down here by accident; I was led, like a rat in a maze, responding to stimuli. Regardless of what section I’d chosen to run down, the outcome would have been the same.
The course is shrinking. They’re leading me somewhere.
Pressure builds in my chest, every hair on my body standing on end. This may have started as a silly game in my mind, but it feels incredibly real at the moment, especially after I saw the blade in his hand.
My phone vibrates again, and I aggressively flip it over, the screen illuminating.
Bates: Ooh, he was so close
Who was that?
Bates: I told you I had help.
He had a knife
Bates: So does my other helper. So do I
Will they hurt me?
Bates: Do you want them to?
No.
Bates: Then they won’t. But if you manage to outrun them all, I’ll reward you.
What happens if they catch me?
Bates: I wouldn’t worry about that. You should be worrying about what happens when I catch you
Something crashes across the rink, ripping my gaze up. I point my flashlight in the direction, but I don’t see anything odd, certainly not another man wielding a knife.
Take a breath.
The floor I came from is now off-limits—got it. Does that include the tunnels leading behind the bench? What about the glass seat lounge? It’s probably locked, and the tunnels to the hallways would probably end in me getting lost.
I can navigate this place pretty well—when the lights are on. But right now, I can barely see a few feet in front of me as my flashlight struggles to illuminate the massive space.
Part of me wishes I had a knife right now, too, to do a little scaring of my own. But I don’t think it’d end well. I’m the type of person who struggles differentiating between manufactured horror and real horror in haunted houses.
I might accidentally stab one of Bates’s friends if I had a blade in my hand, and that would definitely ruin everyone’s fun.
Where do I go from here?
Another text comes through.
Bates: You look so beautiful when you’re scared
“Hi, Serena,” a new, deep voice calls out behind me, and I whip around, shining my light.
This time, I finally see someone, and I don’t know if visual verification makes it worse or not. In the same row as me, around the curve of the rink, stands a man wearing a balaclava.
He’s frozen, thankfully, because so am I.
Who the hell is that?
It’s not Bates—I know that.
The man in front of me has black hair and piercing light-blue eyes that look gray, almost void of color
We’re in a standoff, neither of us moving, our gazes locked together.
He lifts his hand and taps on the glass, but not with his finger, with the tip of a blade. Dragging the knife along the glass, he makes his move, stepping toward me.
Immediately, I cower back, my hand steadying me on the board.
“Stay right there!” I call out, and as expected, he doesn’t listen, striding toward me again.
I move back, my breath quickening.
“I’m not gonna do that,” he mutters, matching each step I take.
He’s a good twenty feet from me as I walk backward down the stretch of the rink until I hit the wall that forces me up and around the penalty boxes.
With my back to him, something snaps in me, and I take off, running around the other curve of the rink. Shit. The path is blocked off with some makeshift fence that is definitely out of place. That leaves me with only one option, and I turn down the hallway to my right.
I try to open the first door—locked. Same for the second and third. A glint off my flashlight bounces off the elevator doors at the end of the hallway.
Whoever is chasing me has kicked it into high gear, and he’s nearly sprinting behind me to catch up.
My heart is hammering in my chest as I slap the buttons, willing the doors to open faster. “Come on. Come on. Come on.”
Finally, a chime roars from it, and they slide open. I slip inside, finding only one button uncovered from painter’s tape. I don’t have time to question it.
I assault the unobstructed button, and the doors start closing, but the guy is gaining distance fast. Backing against the far wall of the enclosure, I slam my eyes shut, covering my face to prepare for whatever’s coming next.
“I’ve got you,” he growls out, and a scream tears through me.
My entire body tenses, ready for impact. The ground moves beneath me, and a burst of adrenaline spikes my system, heightening everything else.
The elevator’s moving. He didn’t make it to me in time.
“Ha! I won!” I shout, hoping he can hear my victorious cry.
My celebration is short-lived as the elevator slows. I know where it’s taking me, and I grip the bar at my hips tightly.
They isolated my choice, forcing me to face a new fear entirely—the skywalk that hangs a hundred feet in the air above the ice and above the massive video scoreboards.
There’s a deck that circles the top of the arena, guarded by thick railings that people can’t slip through. On opposite sides of the circle sits the entrances into the skywalk.
People aren’t allowed to cross it unless they’re hooked up to the rope system stretched above it.
The only reason I know about it is because I discovered it when I was wandering around sometime last year.
I was waiting for my dad to get lunch, and I got bored and found myself facing this death trap.
A memory flashes in my mind, something I forgot about entirely. Bates was there that day … in the elevator when I summoned it to bring me back down.
He made some joke about how scary it was, and I agreed, confessing that height was one of my biggest fears.
God, how did I forget about that?
What other moments did he coincidentally stumble into? I want to rack my mind, search for other instances, but I can’t. I don’t have time.
My brain is empty, my inner voice quiet as the doors open before me, revealing my nightmare in human form.
Bates.
I recognize him, even with his face covered by that burgundy leather heart-eyes mask, the soft LED red lights that outline his eyes illuminating. Jesus, I forgot how creepy it can look, especially being lit up by my phone in my hand, resting at my side.
“Where are you going to go, Little Cupid?” He steps between the doors, preventing them from closing. “I’ve got you right where I want you.”
His declaration flips a switch inside of me, triggering my fight-or-flight, and apparently, in the face of danger, I choose both.
I flash the light directly into his eyes, and he winces. I shove him to the side, slipping past him and out of the elevator.
“You little brat,” he grunts, and I break out into a fit of giggles as I race around the deck, careful to not glance over the edge, keeping myself tucked back by the wall.
“You’re mine, Serena,” my masked man calls after me.
I book it, moving faster than before as he races to catch me.
“You’re so slow!” I chirp at him. “I thought you were a professional athlete!”
Glancing back over my shoulder proves to be a mistake because I stumble a step when I watch him open his knife, the blade winking at me.
I gasp, struggling to balance myself, reaching out for the railing. Pure, agonizing terror rips through me as my hands wrap around the cold metal, stopping my fall.
“Holy shit,” I exhale shakily.
The world falls out from beneath me, and I suddenly question if I’ve been drugged because when I peer down below, I swear the building rocks side to side.
Oh my God, that’s so far down.
My body breaks out in goose bumps, my complexion paling more and more, the longer I look death in the face.
Suddenly, something sharp presses against my throat, and a hand latches around my waist. “Well, that wasn’t so hard. I thought you’d last longer than that.”
“Bates …” My voice quivers, my breathing erratic.
But Bates isn’t here right now; My Masked Valentine is, and he’s ruthless, pushing me past every limit and fear I have. He doesn’t shift an inch to give me comfort. In fact, he flattens his body against mine, pressing my stomach firmly against the railing.