Chapter Twenty-Nine
Abullet to the stomach is a bitch.
Doesn’t hurt all at once. Just heat blooming—then boiling water over my insides.
Left shoulder’s dead. Right palm split open.
And now this. Gaping, wet, pulsing in time with the walls.
The motherfucker’s still beneath me, trying to wrench his arm free.
He’s grinning. Can’t see but I feel it through the split mask. He thinks he’s won.
His hand shifts—gun rising, aiming up at my face.
Fuck no.
I stagger off him, the chapel tilting.
The knife. My $29.99 Halloween Special.
Already buried in his stomach.
Derek moves—slow, twitchy. One elbow. Then the other. The knife stays where it is—hilt jutting, brown handle stark against his soaked black robe.
My breath shudders. Can’t feel my legs.
“Thirteen.”
Black veins in my vision. I shake my head.
“Almost had me.” He stumbles upright. Yanks the mask off. A cough spliced with a chuckle. The hilt wobbles with each breath. The gun trembles in his grip. “After everything—you think that’s it?”
We face each other. Blood at our feet. He sways. So do I.
“Look at us.” He gestures with the muzzle. “Matching holes. Matching blood. Difference is, I’ve still got the bullets.”
He aims the gun square at my chest. His gaze shifts—past my shoulder.
I turn.
White Lace and the blonde—sobbing, dragging The Void between them, stumbling toward the doors.
bang.
bang.
Two bodies drop, one after the other.
“No,” White Lace screams. “Please—”
bang.
The bullet punches into the wall behind her.
She chokes out a sob.
Derek aims again—one hand braced on the altar.
“Hey!”
The scythe hooks into Derek’s shoulder. He stumbles sideways. The gun flies. Skids across the floor.
Wesley.
That guy was halfway to the exit.
Now he’s charging, swinging that fucking scythe. Must’ve chewed through those zip-ties, used a shard of glass or the knife—don’t know, don’t care. All that matters is he came back.
I lunge for the pistol. A Glock 19.
“Move,” I rasp.
Derek’s already backing up, one hand pressed to the wound in his gut, the other limp from the scythe hit. He clocks the gun in my grip.
“Wesley, move!”
He jerks away as I aim.
Derek’s gaze darts between me, Wesley, the Glock.
He’ll charge. Die fighting.
No. He bolts.
bang.
The shot hits the edge of the doorway—he ducks through.
Not the front doors.
A back exit—hidden in shadow behind the pulpit. Camouflaged until now.
I sag back against the stone.
The knife’s still buried in Derek. The scythe drew blood too.
But the bastard got away.
I take one step. Two. My vision whites out.
A yank. Wesley.
“You’ll be dead before you get past the door.”
I wrench my arm free. “Move.”
“Seriously, dude …”
The doors crack open. Wet air swallows the rest of his words.
Payton.
Dripping. Bloody.
She stops when she sees me.
We lock eyes.
She runs—
Crashes straight into me.
My grip on the gun goes slack, arms around her.
Her lips find mine.
She kisses me like I just returned from the dead.
I kiss her back like I did.
She pulls away. Her hands are shaking. Or maybe mine are. Two broken people, held together by nothing but each other.
My “Kristy?” and her “Did you get him?” clash at once.
We both shake our heads, breathing hard.
Her knees buckle. I catch her.
“Gone. She’s gone. Lana … I … they’re both dead.” She sobs against my chest.
I keep her upright, even as my legs tremble.
A low cough behind me.
Her head jerks up—eyes tracking past me.
“Look, I get it,” Wesley says. “But if we don’t move, he’s toast.”
Payton pulls back, looks down. Her face twists. “Fuck.”
She unzips her hoodie.
“Payton …”
She’s shivering. Left in nothing but a sports bra and skirt. Plus Kristy’s fanny pack—tight around her waist.
She presses the soaked hoodie to my stomach.
The world narrows to her face, her hands, the too-slow seep of red. Still fighting for me.
“Hey. You okay?” Wesley says.
Not to me. He’s edging toward White Lace—crouched between the bodies.
She rocks back on her heels. Hair stuck to her cheeks, hands and knees painted in her friend’s blood.
He extends a hand.
She reaches for it, eyes flicking past him. The corpses on the floor. The ones arranged in the front pew.
Wesley helps her to her feet. She trails after him.
“Come on,” Payton says, clutching my arm. “We have to go.”
I don’t move.
Her grip tightens. “Kade.”
“No. Not yet.”
She falters, blinks up. “What—?”
“His laptop.” I drag in a breath. “The footage—”
“Then smash it. Burn it. I don’t care.”
“If it’s uploading, destroying it could trigger a dead man’s switch.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Never mind. Only the footage with us. That’s all I’m scrubbing. The rest we use to nail him.”
“Stay.” She pushes past me. “I’ll get it.”
“Payton—don’t close it,” I rasp after her. “Or yank anything loose.”
She squares her shoulders, steps slowing the closer she gets to the altar.
My gut burns. Not only from the gunshot wound but from the memory of my fingers in her cunt. The way she fought—then melted.
I sag against the pew. The altar wavers—too fucking far—she’s already there. Reaching behind it …
“Kade.”
I blink. Somewhere between shallow breaths, I must’ve sat down. The laptop’s balanced on my thighs, still running.
Live feed minimized in the corner. Upload bar in progress.
The screen bleeds in and out of focus. 82% ... 83% …
The password prompt mocks me in crisp white letters against custom black interface.
“Fuck.” I smack the trackpad.
The numbers keep climbing. 84%.
Payton’s hands cover mine. ”Tell me what to do.”
No time to explain SSH protocols or brute-force scripts. “Three tries. Then we’re fucked.”
Her grip tightens. ”So guess good.”
The cursor blinks.
My right hand’s a throbbing mess. Split open deeper than I thought.
But my fingers can still move. Good enough.
I type the first obvious one:
CUT_PRINT
Access denied.
85%.
Payton’s nails dig into my wrist. ”His name? Birthday?”
“No. He’s—” I cough, metallic and wet. ”Vain. Not stupid.”
Second attempt:
PREDATOR
The screen flashes red.
86%.
The chapel air hums—or maybe that’s just my ears failing. The answer’s right there—in the way Derek smiled when Lana preened. Every frame staged.
My eyes flick to Payton’s tag. “Lana’s number. Do you know?”
“One.”
I type it in—
—or try to.
My fingers don’t listen. The keys blur, swim. I hit D twice. Miss the O. Backspace. Miss that too.
“Kade—”
“Dollface. All caps. Then zero one.”
She shifts closer, shoulder pressed to mine. One hand braces my wrist. The other takes the keyboard.
D
O
L
L
I watch her. If I look away, I’m gone.
F
A
C
E
0
1
Her finger hovers over ENTER.
“Hit it.”
The screen dissolves into code.
Upload terminated.
Payton sags against me—then straightens.
The screen’s filled with her. Altar feed. Every pixel screaming. Denim skirt rucked up, back arched, my hands gripping her thighs—
Motherfucker.
I smash CTRL+ALT+DELETE so hard the keys stick.
The screen flickers—
Deleting source files …
A blinking alert.
[UPLOAD INTERRUPTED – FAILSAFE SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED. DETONATION IN 09:57]
Of course—the bastard wouldn’t leave it to chance. If the upload fails, the laptop cannibalizes itself. If he couldn’t control the story, he’d torch the proof. Leak it—or lose it all.
“Fuck.”
Payton leans in. “What is it?”
I dive back into the command line, fingers trembling.
Her hand’s over mine. Correcting. Steadying.
ps aux | grep remote_trigger
There. A hidden script piggybacking on the purge process.
/etc/remote_access/dollface_trigger.sh
Figures.
kill -9 23098
My finger slips, hits 9 twice. She fixes it.
rm -rf /etc/remote_access/dollface_trigger.sh
One less leash for Derek to yank.
“He rigged a bomb.”
Her face goes slack. “What? Where?”
“My guess? The control room. Employee files, backup logs, payment records—all the shit that ties him here. If the footage leaked, the owners would get smoked first. Not him.”
“The laptop’s not enough?”
I glance down. Code floods the screen.
“It’s self-destructing. Auto-purge. He built this to go nuclear. Frame the owners, walk away clean.”
She swallows. “The bomb—it’s not in here too, right?”
“Hey, man. What’s the holdup?”
The timer ticks to 08:43. I shut the laptop.
Wesley exhales, shoulders dropping. “Okay. Good. Let’s go.”
“There’s a bomb in the control room,” I grit out. “We need to stop it.”
“A … what now? Hell no. We need to get the fuck out.”
“The key to the gates might be there too,” Payton whispers.
“Or we could wait at the exit. The staff should be here by morning. They’ll let us out.”
Payton looks at my makeshift bandage.
Her throat bobs. “If we go and you …”
… die.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Then don’t.” Her voice breaks. “Let someone else—”
“Payton. If we don’t stop it, he wins.”
“I can’t—” She looks at me like I’m already gone. “I can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t.”
“If you so much as stumble, I swear to God—”
I force a crooked smile. “You’ll save my ass?”
She squeezes my arm—hard. “No. I’ll drag you back from the fucking dead.”
“This is nuts.” Wesley pinches the bridge of his nose. Looks at the bodies. His throat works.
“That’s on Derek,” I mutter. “Not you.”
No one argues. Corpses don’t need convincing.
Wesley sighs. “Dumbest fucking plan ever.”
“What’s your name?” Payton asks.
White Lace is standing beyond the pews, arms crossed, trembling. “Ra-Rachel.”
“Rachel.” Payton nods. ”You should come with us. Especially with him still out there.”
“But—”
“Stick with us or die alone. Your choice.” A shaky exhale. “Sorry. It’s … been a really shitty night.”
“Payton.” I suck in a breath sharp enough to see stars. “Grab the gun.”
She picks up the Glock—awkward grip, both hands.
“Ever fired one?” I ask.
“No.”
“Point and shoot.”
Wesley scoffs. “She gets to hold the gun?”
“You’re helping me walk.”
“Can’t you say please?”
“Please.” I grit my teeth. Shift off the pew. “And thank you.”
The chapel sways. Wesley ducks under my arm, bearing most of my weight.
“Lean on me, not her,” he mutters, jerking his chin at Payton. ”She’s got the gun. And you’re fucking heavy.”
“Point and shoot,” she mumbles. “How hard can it be?”
My laugh cracks into a wet cough. I lock my knees, tell the dark closing in to fuck off. Ten more minutes.
“Derek’s still out there. Stay sharp.”
Wesley adjusts his grip. ”You die on me, I’m leaving your corpse here.”
I grin, all teeth and blood. ”Noted.”
Payton’s ahead, laptop in one hand, gun in the other. Rachel stumbles after her, arms wrapped around herself.
And me? I let Wesley haul my half-dead ass forward, one uneven step at a time.
My boots skid—fuck—he wrenches me upright before I eat floor.
Payton nods at Rachel to open the doors.
Cold slams into me like a fist. Better than the heat inside. The rain has eased but still does a good job of washing off the filth. Good. Fuck this place.
We move quickly—they do. I drag behind, every step carving fire through my stomach.
The shortcut looms ahead. Past the generator shed. Through the blackberry thorns.
Payton shoulders the door open. Waits until I can get one boot through the gap.
Derek’s out there.
The bomb’s ticking.
And I’m running out of blood.
One more step.
Just one more.