Chapter 3
VI
The back room holds its breath.
So do I.
Cardboard presses into my spine. The air back here stays warmer than the open mall, trapped and stale. My sweat doesn’t cool. It clings. I adjust my weight a fraction at a time, careful with every movement. The boxes around me rasp softly, the sound swallowed by the mall’s low hum.
That’s when the pressure changes.
Not noise. Not motion.
Proximity.
My pulse jumps, sharp and fast, tightening the skin along my arms and neck.
Something occupies the space just beyond the stockroom door.
Close enough that the air shifts, thickens.
Close enough that my attention locks onto it with paralyzing concentration.
I look around for a weapon, something I can use to hold someone back long enough to allow me to run again.
There’s nothing, only cheap, plastic hangers.
But then I see a discarded fire extinguisher on the floor, most likely emptied out long ago.
But I don’t need the stuff it sprays. I just need something heavy and hard.
I count again. One. Two.
I stay still, teeth clenched, eyes fixed on the narrow crack between the door and the frame. Light bleeds through in a thin line, flickering yellow. A shadow crosses it, slow and deliberate, cutting the light clean in half.
Someone stops on the other side.
Fuck me.
My breath stalls. My chest holds tight, muscles braced, ready to explode into motion. Every instinct screams for speed, for distance, for the sharp relief of movement.
None of that happens.
Whoever stands there doesn’t rush. Doesn’t reach for the handle. Doesn’t test the door. The pause stretches, heavy and deliberate, long enough to tell me this isn’t guesswork.
Do they know I’m here? The question settles into my gut, hot and unwelcome.
I shift my hand against the floor, fingers splayed for balance. My muscles hum, wired and ready. That’s when it hits low, immediate, and entirely traitorous.
Heat.
Not fear. Not adrenaline. Something else. Something that has no business showing up here, in this place, with this man, this Rotter, on the other side of the door.
My core tightens. My thighs draw in without my say. My pulse doesn’t just race—it sharpens, narrows, focuses. I bite down hard, grinding my teeth until they ache.
No.
This isn’t happening.
The presence outside shifts. A boot scuffs softly against tile. Fabric moves. A controlled sound, meant to be heard. Meant to register.
My body reacts again, faster this time. Blood rushes, hot and insistent, pooling low. My skin prickles. My breath threatens to break loose, and I force it down, silent and thin.
Anger flashes bright and clean. At him. At this place. At myself. At the way strength announces itself without a word. At the way control hums in the air, heavy enough to suffocate. At the fact that some primitive part of me notices and answers.
I shove the response down hard, clamp it tight, bury it under focus and rage. So much rage.
The door handle doesn’t move.
Instead, a hand appears in the narrow slice of light—fingers covered in heavy rings, long, steady, relaxed. It rests against the doorframe, not touching the handle. Just there. Claiming space. Mocking me.
How I long to push the door shut with all my weight and break those fingers. Hear the bones crunch and see the blood spurt. Watch a Rotter scream and cry.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
The hand withdraws.
But it doesn’t leave.
I feel the shift in the air again, thicker, warmer, like someone exhaled just on the other side of the door. My skin prickles everywhere at once. My nipples tighten against the damp fabric of my shirt. My thighs clench so hard, I almost whimper. I pisses me the fuck off.
I force my legs apart an inch, just an inch, trying to shake off the heat pooling low.
It doesn’t help. If anything, it makes it worse.
The movement drags my jeans against the sensitive skin inside my thighs, and I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Focus. Focus on the discomfort. The fear.
Focus on the concrete biting into my back.
Focus on the way the boxes smell like mildew and old cardboard and something faintly sweet, like spilled perfume from years ago.
Anything but the way my body is screaming for contact it has no right to want.
Another scuff. Closer this time. Deliberate. Like he shifted his weight just to let me hear it.
My pulse slams in my ears so loud, I’m sure he can hear it through the door.
My breathing is too fast, too loud. I clamp my lips shut, force it through my nose, short and silent.
The air back here is thick with dust and decay and my own sweat.
It sticks to the back of my throat. I swallow and taste something awful again.
The shadow in the crack doesn’t move.
I picture him standing there, tall, broad, calm.
Probably smirking under whatever mask he wears, enjoying the hell out of terrorizing me.
He’s probably hard already, excited by his power.
The thought makes me want to vomit. It also makes the heat between my legs flare brighter.
I press my thighs together again, hard, trying to crush the feeling, the goddamn excitement, out of existence.
It only makes it worse. A small, involuntary sound slips out, barely a breath, but it feels like a scream in the silence.
I’m furious at my body. More furious than I am at him. More than at this place. More than at the fact that some part of me is already imagining what his hand would feel like if it closed around my throat instead of the doorframe.
Another scuff. Then silence. Long. Heavy. Intentional.
He’s waiting. Waiting for me to break. Waiting for me to make a sound. Waiting for me to run. I don’t. I stay perfectly still.
Let him wait. Let him wonder. Let him think I’m scared. Because I’m not scared. I’m fucking furious. And fury is a better fuel than fear.
I see an old wire hanger just outside my reach. If I could grab it and straighten the wire…
Jesus, girl.
I count again. One hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred.
The shadow finally moves. Slow. Reluctant. Like he’s disappointed I didn’t freak out, cry, or beg.
Fuck that.
Footsteps retreat. Not far. Just enough.
The pressure eases but doesn’t disappear. It lingers, stretched thin, an imaginary line pulled tight between us. The message lands clear and cold.
I’m being followed.
Fine. Whatever. No surprise there. That’s what this is all about, for Christ’s sake.
I stay wedged between the boxes for another ten counts. Twenty. My muscles cramps, coiled tight. Sweat trickles down one temple. My heartbeat refuses to slow, thudding hard, scolding me for getting into this situation.
I ease out from between the boxes and straighten, joints stiff, muscles tight. I press my ear to the door. The presence that crowded me moments ago has shifted, pulled back, redistributed. Not gone, at least not permanently. He’s toying with me. They’re toying with me.
It’s what I signed up for.
I crack the door and slip out of the stockroom, back onto the ruined sales floor. The lingerie store still sits empty, wrecked and quiet and frozen in time, a sad reminder that no one in the town of Rothwell can buy sexy undies anymore.
But the guy is done. No boots. No shadows in the doorway. No one waiting to grab me the second I step out. Just the checkout counter where I left it and the mannequins staring straight ahead, blank and patient. Ignoring me.
This Rotter wants me moving.
I roll my shoulders once, work the tension loose. My body wants motion. I give it purpose.
I step out into the mall corridor.
The wide-open space hits me after the confinement of the storeroom.
The ceiling stretches higher here, the shadows longer.
Emergency lights flicker, marking paths I don’t know.
To my left, the corridor bends toward the food court.
To my right, it disappears into darker retail rows…
and endless shoe stores. So many shoe stores.
Had I realized that when I was a kid, when my mother would take me shopping here?
How many goddamn shoes did the people of Rothwell need?
And look at us now.
Me, in a pair of lug-soled boots I had to sell my damn car for.
The Rot hums around me, low and constant. Somewhere deeper in the mall, another signal taps out. Somewhere, a woman cries and then stops. Another runner captured. That’s good news for me. If I’m the last one standing, I win.
That’s right, motherfuckers. I just need to hold out until all the other dumb bitches get themselves caught.
Sucks to be them, yo.
I cut straight across the corridor and slip into another side passage, keeping in the shadows, my pace controlled, my breath steady. My body hums with it now, alert, wired, angry. I’m not going to lie, it’s exhausting.
Then, an awareness follows.
Not at my back. Not at my throat. Above. Behind. Somewhere just out of sight.
The Rotter isn’t rushing me. He isn’t closing the distance. He’s letting me run so he can chase. Have his fucking fun.
I keep moving anyway, because stopping means I let him decide when this ends.
Come and get me, fuckface.