Simon Says (The Sect #1)

Prologue

My lungs are gravel, burning as I cut through the dark. Bare skin flashes between birch trunks. The soles of my shoes, sopping and muddy, thud a percussive panic through the fern beds. Blood pulses so loud I can’t hear my own ragged gasps. Or maybe he’s stopped making noise.

I risk a glance over my shoulder. My hair whips my cheek like a wet slap. The woods gape behind me, raw and empty. Blackness. Branches. No sign of the thing which hunts me. But I know he’s here. I can feel him peering at me.

I veer left, deeper. The roots are snake-pits in the lack of light. I slam my toe against a log and topple forward, skinning my knees. Fallen leaves slaps my cheek and stick to the sweat. I choke on a whimper, and even that small noise disgusts me. I’m not delicate. I need to fight.

My eyes sting. Snot bubbles from my nose and drips down my lips. I dig into the next stretch of muck and crash through it, wild and graceless.

A white face blossoms ahead. No. He’s to my right. Fuck. He’s no more than a flicker, and then gone. It could be his fucking mask. Or it could be white fungus on a tree in the moonlight. I can’t spare the precious seconds to figure out which.

I tear down a slope. Slip. But catch myself on a spruce, and yank off a handful of needles.

They wedge between my fingers, splinters already burning.

My feet slide out from under me. I go ass-first down the side of a trench.

Rocks grind against my tailbone. My mouth opens in a scream, but nothing comes out.

He’s there when I land. Of course he’s there.

He stands on the rim above. Black suit. Spotless, porcelain mask, white as a star. His tie is darker than midnight. His posture, arms loose, head cocked, says ‘I can wait. I enjoy this.’

His hands rest on the straps of his pack. He could be a dad on a field trip, if not for the way he looks at me. Even from this distance, I see his eyes. They glimmer through the slits. Not playful. Not angry. Famished.

I scramble to my feet, and even though my ankle twists and every nerve fires warning shots up my leg, I run. Or at least I try. But the pain pulls me down on all fours. I crawl and limp through the pangs. The cold is gone. I’m all fire now, slicked in fear and blood.

The moon barely exists above the canopy.

My pace is slow. Pathetic. I sob, spitting each foot forward on autopilot, until I hit a roadblock.

The trunk of a massive tree, smothered in moss, stretches across a dark stream.

There’s no way I’m crossing this thing without slipping and falling into the water. And turning back means accepting worse.

He appears, unhurried, ten feet behind. Silent as air. Hands at his sides. He stands there, letting me see him.

I make a noise like a dying cat. I back toward the water, feet squishing into a black paste. He doesn’t say anything. His head tilts, almost gentle.

He raises one hand, fingers loose, and beckons.

“Stay away,” I spit. My voice is shredded with nothing left. “Please.”

His mask opens at the mouth, just a curve of paint, but he makes it grin. He takes a single, slow step forward. The mud doesn’t grab him. His suit stays black, perfect. As though he’s from another reality.

I back into the stream and lose my balance. My heel sinks. Cold explodes up my calf, then the rest of me, breasts, arms, chin, splash into water so frigid it makes my heart jolt. I flail, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m crawling out of the stream. Toward him.

He's as dry as sawdust with his eyes locked on my face.

I try to scream, but words don’t come out. Just a raw howl. For help. For pity. For anything with a soul to come and end this.

He’s here. Inches away.

“Please,” I gasp. “J—just stop.”

I reach my muddy hand out to grab his coat while I beg. But he steps back and uses his open palm to swipe away the filth I’ve left on him, while his head shakes side to side with ‘no.’

He reaches up and unbuckles his backpack and drops it to the moss. Then, he stretches, arms long over his head, spine popping. There is no reason to do this except to see me watching him.

He squats and unzips the bag. The contents spill out in slow motion.

Coils of orange rope, dirty and frayed. Gray duct tape, the good kind, thick as a tongue. Silver handcuffs, too small for a man. Black rubber ball-gag, with teeth marks in it. Four, maybe five, metal rods the length of a child’s forearm, some bent, all squared on one end while rounded on the other.

I try to push myself up and run, but my left ankle gives out. I go down in the moss, and he is on me.

His fingers are strong. He grabs my wrist, squeezing until the bones grind. I hit him with my other hand. Slapping and clawing. He takes it, too, and kneels on my hips. I feel the weight of him, crushing, but not suffocating. Just enough to insist I don’t move.

He leans down so the mask fills my whole field of vision. It’s a flawless white. Void of any defects, scratches or nicks. His pupils behind the smooth holes are pits. He smells of old wool, sweat, and a hint of iron.

His voice, when it comes, is wrong. Too even. Like a teacher reading their roster aloud for attendance.

“Hold still,” he says. “Don’t make it worse.”

He lets go of my wrists and grabs the rope. He loops it around my neck, twice. Not tight. Just there, heavy, like a threat. The rest he uses to bind my hands in front, knotting it with slow, perfect tugs.

I spit in his face. It lands on the chin of the mask and beads up, shining.

The sound of his responding laugh is short, dry.

He uses the tape next. He rips off a piece with his teeth and slaps it over my mouth. The shock is more humiliating than painful.

He doesn’t say anything while he works. He arranges the rods, lines them up next to my leg. He picks up the handcuffs, runs a finger around the inside, then clicks them around my ankles, tight.

I try to kick him. He’s ready for it. He presses one palm against the balls of my feet and pins them down.

Tears are hot on my cheeks.

He leans close, face inches from mine.

“I could make this quick,” he says. The painted grin in the hollow of the mask grows wider in the shadows. “But where’s the fun in that?”

He yanks the tether at my neck, hard. It bites in, and I choke.

He stands, lifting me by the rope. My bound feet flail in the air before the tips of my sneakers land on the ground, providing just enough support to keep me from suffocating.

He ties the rope to a branch above, loops it three times, then tugs.

The bark squeals. I stand on tip-toe, calves already cramping, dangling like a caught rabbit.

He crouches and peels the tape off my mouth, slow, so it rips hairs from my face. The skin burns.

“Please,” I beg, because I can’t help it. “Don’t do this.”

Kneeling again, he picks up my foot, peels the shoe off, then does the same for the other. My feet are instantly raw, cold, wet with dew. He tosses the shoes into the darkness.

“You don’t need those,” he says. He taps a finger on my arch, then traces it up to my thigh.

He stands back and admires his work. He wipes his hands on his suit, then reaches for the duct tape again.

“No, no, no,” I whimper. He grabs my hair, pulls my head up, and wraps the tape around my eyes, over and over. I see nothing. The pressure is crushing. The light dies.

He lets go of my hair. I hang in the dark. Limbs numb. The damp and the rope and the humiliation settle in.

He steps away. I hear the snap of elastic. The peel of something coming apart. Then the wet clunk of the mask hitting dirt.

I wait for the next thing, but all I hear is his breathing. In and out. Slow and deliberate. Then a long, soft whisper.

“You’re mine now.”

Then silence.