Chapter Seven #3
“Aww, it can be fun.” I lean against the vanity, arms folded. “You gotta let loose, and be like, ‘Come get me, Ghostface.’”
“Yeah, listen to the expert. Payton’s already been through round one.”
Amanda blinks at me. “You did?”
Kristy loops an arm around my shoulders. “Oh, it gets better. One of the Ghostfaces is her neighbor, and he got all feral on the other Ghostface for touching her.”
I toss her a side-eye. Next, she’ll be broadcasting it over the PA system.
Amanda’s jaw drops. “No. Way.”
“So, listen,” Kristy says, swiping Sinful Cherry across Amanda’s lips with all the grace of a war general prepping her troops. “It’s Halloween. And we’re sure as hell gonna get ourselves a Ghostface. There’s plenty to go around.”
“Uhm. I thought it was one hunter per two prey?”
“Exactly. We can share. Unless”—Kristy grins at me—“Payton doesn’t mind sharing hers.”
“He’s not mine. And I don’t even know where he is right now.”
“Probably waiting for you back at the tree.”
“Then I’ll thank him for the cardio and tell him I brought friends,” I deadpan.
Kristy laughs, tugging Amanda off the sink like a half-melted Barbie after a house fire. “C’mon, chin up. Shoulders back. Look like a snack.”
“Yeah,” Amanda murmurs. “Stale granola bar someone left in their glove compartment.”
“That’s the spirit.” I hold the trailer door open.
Kristy steers her toward it. “You’re a goddamn power bar. Now get out there and power-walk your cute little ass into a slasher’s fantasy.”
Amanda peeks outside.
I glance at her bare feet. “Need us to go find you your boots? I know where one of them is, at least. The other must be nearby.”
“It’s fine,” she mumbles.
Kristy pulls out her phone. “Okay, group selfie for the final girls.”
We squeeze together—Amanda with her busted outfit, Kristy with her neon shorts, me with my hoodie strategically hiding the hickey from hell.
Click.
Amanda peers at the screen. “You’re so much prettier in real life.”
Kristy mock-groans. “Aww, shucks.”
I smirk. “So, we’re not, like, total hotties?”
She cackles, throwing an arm around me and dragging Amanda into the hug. “If he’s not hard in thirty seconds, it’s an ego check for all men everywhere.”
“Can you tag me on Insta?” Amanda asks.
“Sure, let me just …” Kristy frowns. “Huh, no signal.”
“That’s weird.” I lean in to check. “I was talking to my parents when I got here. Got a couple texts too.”
Kristy holds her phone higher. Lower. Then sideways like she’s playing some demented game of signal Twister. “Yeah, one of my students tagged me earlier.”
I raise a brow. “Your students could see how you spent your Halloween?”
She scoffs. “Please. I’ve got Miss K for the kindergarten crowd—wholesome vibes, finger painting, that one time I dressed as a carrot for vegetable week. And then there’s my private account.”
Amanda perks up. “What’s on that one?”
“Regrettable life choices. Point is, the kids won’t see me doing body shots off a skeleton—if it comes to that tonight.”
Amanda groans. “Wish I was back in kindergarten.”
Kristy slings an arm around her. “Welcome to grown-up recess. The playground’s cursed and the monsters are hot.”
The trailer door creaks shut behind us.
Kristy tucks her phone away. “Well, ladies, time to get our money’s worth. Screams, trauma, maybe an orgasm or two.” She shoots me a cheeky look. “Or for Payton, three more and a commemorative T-shirt.”
I smile. “Why stop at three?”
Amanda clutches her elbows. “Maybe we shouldn’t split up?”
“Relax,” Kristy says, adjusting her neon shorts with far too much confidence for someone who’s got bark burn on her ass.
“If anything, the guys are more afraid of us. Especially if Payton’s bringing home her own Ghostface on a leash, like a sexy psycho puppy dog—or whatever it is you want to call a dude who gets off on stalking his neighbor with a knife and a hard-on. ”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I roll my eyes.
Amanda straightens and starts to walk off. “Guess I’ll go find the snack table.”
She pauses. Looks at me over her shoulder and waves.
I give her an apologetic half-wave back. Sorry, not sorry. You wanted a night of monster-mashing, so go get some.
She disappears into the dark.
Kristy wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Is someone thinking about round two?”
“Shut up. Gonna go find my backpack.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
We bump fists.
“Which is nothing,” I say.
“Exactly.” With a wink, she struts off, her neon shorts a beacon.
I follow the trail of discarded glow sticks. Every rustle makes my pulse spike. Every shadow could be him—or something worse.
Kade.
Has he found my backpack? Is he waiting for me? Or did he move on to fresher prey?
A sound slices through the silence. A moan? Maybe a whimper. Came from the thicket to my left. Human. Female. The kind of sound that shouldn’t make my stomach tighten, but—
Fuck. The Verge’s gotten in my head.
That moan again—high, breathless. My stomach knots. Is that—?
No. Kade wouldn’t.
Would he?
The closer I creep toward a gap in the brush, the louder the noises.
There they are. The brunette in a corset has her back to a tree. Wrists pinned above her head by a hunter.
Ghostface.