Chapter Fourteen
Neck Tat’s baton freezes mid-swing.
“Easy there, bud,” Sandwich Guy says, fingers hovering over his radio.
It’s just for show. They won’t call for help. Not because they can’t—they don’t even know the lines are jammed—but because they’re doing the math every minimum-wage grunt knows by heart.
One murdered player? Lawsuit.
Two dead staffers? Union grievance.
Let Ghostface #13 walk? Fired … but alive.
Neck Tat edges around the desk, toward a dented metal cabinet in the corner.
“You try anything, I’ll carve the next message straight into your thigh. Ask Trevor how that feels.”
Neck Tat stops moving, throat bobbing. Yeah, they read the injury report.
“Or I could go for the femoral. Takes four minutes to bleed out. Plenty of time to watch you realize you picked the wrong fight.”
Camera 9 flickers to Jessica again. Just a heartbeat but enough. They both catch it.
“The fuck did you do?” Sandwich Guy reaches for his radio again.
“Not me. But go ahead, hit that button. Explain to management why you let a killer waltz in here. Or better yet, call the cops. I’ll be gone before they arrive. But you?” I nod at the monitors. “You’ll be starring in the killer’s next home movie.”
Sandwich Guy finally stabs his radio button—
Camera 9 switches to Neck Tat, standing right where he is now, scratching his ass.
Timestamp: [NOW].
His hand freezes. “What the fuck?”
“Comms are fried,” Sandwich Guy mutters. He lunges for the phone.
Click. Click. Click. His fingers leave a mayo-smear on the receiver—greasy prints over the numbers.
“Shit. Landline’s dead too.”
I step forward, letting the silence stretch. The monitors blink back at us—camera feeds caught in loops, timestamps stuttering.
“Want the fun part?” I ask. “They’ve been watching this whole time.”
Sandwich Guy jerks his head toward me, eyes wide. “Who—management?”
Clueless fools. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
Behind me, Neck Tat exhales, ragged. Then the faint scrape of boot rubber on tile—he’s inching toward the cabinet again. It’s got either a weapon or a panic button. Neither would be useful—not with whoever’s puppeteering this horror show already in the systems.
I point my knife without turning. “Try it. I dare you.”
The monitor catches his faint reflection—hands raised, palms out. Smart choice.
Camera 9 shifts—now showing the hallway outside this very room.
There. Standing dead center, perfectly still.
Ghostface.
Head cocked, blade slick with fresh blood, staring right at us. He raises one gloved hand—and waves.
Neck Tat bolts past me, peeking out the door. “I-I don’t see him.”
Pre-recorded. He’s playing with us.
Sandwich Guy scowls at the monitor then at me. “Hey, is this some kind of prank? You’ve been messing with the feeds just to freak us out?”
Neck Tat glances out again before snapping his gaze back to me. “Yeah, man, you’re supposed to be hunting.”
I tilt my head. Match the Ghostface on Camera 9 beat for beat. “You really think I’d go through all this trouble just to punk a couple of rent-a-cops?”
Sandwich Guy’s jaw ticks.
The monitor flickers.
wanna save her?
Camera 9 switches to a grainy black-and-white feed with a heat map overlay.
Slumped against a tree is a figure with long hair. Impossible to tell the color. Motionless but warm—a faint red glow in the grayscale fog.
The shape could be anyone.
every moan she lets slip? that’s me carving my name into her skin. marking what’s mine.
My lungs lock. My fists clench.
you’re not her fantasy. you’re just her regret. spoiler: she called your name once. but only so i’d fuck her harder.
you ever hear what a safe word sounds like when it’s muffled by blood?
when i’m done, she’ll be bruised and broken, but she’ll still be begging for more. more sweet, delicious pain, more of that filthy little gasp when it hurts just right, more of me.
and you? you’ll be left with nothing but the taste of your own impotence.
My fingers hit the keyboard.
TOUCH HER AND I WILL TEAR YOU APART. PIECE BY FUCKING PIECE.
funny how the tough guy talks when his girl’s on her knees. let’s see if you can back it up.
A map pops up.
your prize → sector 5.
The route burns into my retinas.
still think she’s yours? then hurry up.
i’m almost done.
“You like carving up women?” The keyboard shatters under my fist. “I’ll peel your fucking face off. Make sure you choke on your own blood.”
The two meatheads stumble back. Jaws slack.
tick-tock. i’ll keep her warm.
I slip my mask back on and stalk toward the door, knife still raised.
“Tell Steve I said hi.”
I’m gone before they can choke out a single question.
Out of the security building, across the clearing, straight into the woods. The darkness feels alive—writhing, pulsing. My breaths echo inside the mask, a warped replay of the sounds she made gagging on me.
If only that memory were stuck on repeat. Not this dread curling tight in my chest like I’m already too fucking late. The thought of her—covered in bruises, bite marks … his cum. Her blood.
No.
I sprint uphill through the thicket, wired on nothing but the need to make sure she’s still alive. After that? I don’t give a damn if I walk out of these woods handcuffed and soaked in blood—as long as it’s not hers. I’ll bathe in his spinal fluid if it means her pulse keeps ticking.
Sector 5—that corner of The Verge, wedged between a haunted trail and fake graveyard, is empty. No stragglers, nothing but acres of trees. The closest structure is a decayed cabin with boarded-up windows, more set-dressing than shelter.
There. The old, gnarled tree. The same spot where that grainy infrared image showed her, slumped and still.
My knife rises as I close in.
The shape propped against it is draped in cobwebs. A fucking mannequin—face blank except for the eyes.
Green irises. Long lashes. Like Payton’s, glued into plastic sockets.
Motherfucker.
A sound. Faint.
I whip my head around. Is it the wind or—
No. Someone’s talking.
“Aht-aht. No touchy. You wanna slice ‘n’ dice, at least buy me dinner first.”
I pivot toward it.
“Mm-hmm. You gon’ be gentle? I bruise easy.”
I drag my gaze up. Up.
And there—
The girl’s last act.
Hung upside down from an oak. Black latex split open—sternum to pelvis. Intestines, glistening, ropes of them. Arms out. Wrists slit.
A display. A message.
“I’ve seen Saw, boo. This ain’t new. And for the record—if this is your idea of foreplay, your dick game weak.”
The sound’s coming from inside her.
“Wanna say hi for the fans, Ghost Daddy?”
I grit my teeth. Here goes nothing.
The oak’s trunk is gnarled, easy footholds. I haul myself up.
Level with her now.
Her mouth’s carved into a leer, cheeks pulled taut.
The phone’s buried in the slick nest of her guts.
Fuck.
I reach out with one hand. The smell—copper and her perfume—hits like a sucker punch even through my mask.
Warmth gushes over my wrist.
“You gonna stab me now or later? I like a little build-up, you know.”
“Shut. Up,” I grit out.
Her laughter gurgles from inside the meat. “Oh, that tickles.”
The screen’s glowing inside the ruin of her abdomen, wedged between ribs. The more I dig, the more her insides slither out.
My fingers close around the goddamn phone. I yank it free.
The mess clings to me. I wipe it on the girl’s thigh. She’d appreciate the aesthetic.
I climb down fast, landing hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Baby, I ain’t scared of no blade. You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want me to quit clownin’ on you from beyond.”
I swipe the screen. The video stops.
It’s a TikTok draft.
@VanessaGraves: POV: You’re getting murdered but your killer’s whack as hell.
#Ghostface #GhostDaddy #PrimalPlay #ScreamQueenSupreme
I replay it on mute, simply to see if she caught him on camera. Only a flash of his mask—Ghostface.
“How’s that for going viral?” I mutter, scrolling through her texts.
An unsent message—from him.
Congrats! You made it. Just in time.