Scarlett #3
I duck behind a ticket booth, chest heaving, back pressed to the peeling wood. The night air tastes of rust and old sugar, thick and sticky on my tongue. My body is shaking, but it’s not just fear — it’s the sick, humiliating thrill he’s coming for me.
The silence stretches, heavy, suffocating.
Then footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
“Little sister thinks she can outrun me?” His whisper slithers through the dark. “Cute.”
I press a hand over my mouth to smother a sound, every muscle quivering. He’s close. Too close.
And God help me, I don’t know if I want him to catch me or not.
The booth wall digs into my back, splinters snagging my shirt, but I don’t move. I can’t. My chest heaves with shallow, panicked breaths, my hands clamped over my mouth as if I can smother the sound of being alive.
The footsteps fade. Then return. Then vanish again. He’s circling.
“Scarlett…” My name drips from the shadows, low, drawn-out, intimate. “You know better than to hide from me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. My thighs press together, shaking, useless.
“You’re already wet for me, aren’t you?” The voice comes from the left, or maybe the right — I can’t tell anymore. “All that adrenaline, all that fear… you’re dripping, Scar. Admit it.”
I shake my head hard, biting down on my palm. A whimper still leaks out.
The footsteps stop. Silence.
Then, right behind me, breath at my ear: “Gotcha.”
I jolt, spin — but he’s not there. Just air. Just shadows. My knees buckle, the humiliation making me burn hotter.
“I can smell you from here.” His laugh is cruel, playful, echoing through the dead rides. “Little Rabbit thinks she’s clever, but her body gives her away.”
My heart is going to rip through my ribs. I want to run, but my legs won’t move. I want to scream, but all that comes out is a broken sob.
“Keep hiding,” he purrs, voice slipping away again, as if he’s already stalking another angle. “It only makes me harder.”
The silence is worse than the footsteps. Worse than his laugh. It presses in on me, thick and suffocating, until I swear the shadows themselves are leaning closer.
I dig my nails into my thighs, trying to anchor myself. My pulse is chaos. Every rustle of leaves, every creak of rusted steel sounds like him.
“Scarlett…” The whisper comes again, softer this time. Too soft. Like he’s crouched right beside me.
My body jolts, scraping back against the booth wall. Nothing there. Just darkness swallowing more darkness.
“You’re trembling,” his voice floats from farther away now, casual, cruel. “Do you know how fucking hot you look when you’re scared of me?”
“Stop,” I whisper into my palms, though I don’t mean it. My breath fogs the air; my chest is heaving.
He hums. “Beg me to stop and I’ll hunt you harder. Beg me to keep going…” His chuckle slices straight through me. “…and I’ll tear you apart when I catch you.”
I can’t take it. My body moves before my mind does. My sneakers slam against the cracked pavement, and I’m running again—down the midway, past rusted prize stalls, broken glass crunching under my feet.
The fairground swallows me whole, every turn a dead end, every corner another place for him to trap me.
Behind me, faint but steady: his boots.
Not fast. Just close enough to remind me he’ll never stop.
“Run, little sister,” he calls, voice carrying across the empty rides. “The longer you make me chase, the filthier I’ll make you pay.”
My lungs scream, but I force my legs to move, pushing off the booth and sprinting deeper into the maze of broken rides. Rusted carousel horses leer in the dark, their painted eyes cracked, their grins chipped. I weave between them, my breath ragged, my palms slick.
Every step feels louder than it should. Every gasp like it’s echoing down the whole fairground.
Behind me, somewhere — a laugh. Low. Merciless.
“Run faster, Scar. Make it fun for me.”
The air snags in my throat. I nearly trip, catching myself on a horse’s cold flank before darting into the yawning mouth of the funhouse. The painted clown face is peeling; the teeth jagged with chipped white paint. It swallows me whole.
Inside, it’s worse. Darker. Mirrors cracked and smeared. The smell of dust and rot pressed in.
My reflection stares back at me a hundred times over — wide eyes, tangled hair, lips parted, chest heaving. A ghost girl multiplied.
“You picked the wrong hiding place.” His voice slithers through the funhouse, everywhere at once. “Now I get to watch you panic.”
I spin, my reflection spinning with me. Every angle looks like him stepping closer.
My knees are jelly. My heart is tearing itself apart.
And still, I don’t stop running.
I lunge deeper into the funhouse, glass catching flashes of me from every angle. My hands smack against cold mirrors, my breath fogging the glass as I stumble left, then right, chasing the promise of an exit that never comes.
Everywhere I turn, I see myself. Wide eyes. Shaking hands. A girl unravelling.
And then — him.
Or maybe it’s another reflection, another trick. His outline flickers in the cracked glass, a shadow stretching taller than it should.
I backpedal, slam into another mirror, watch myself flinch in a hundred directions.
“Lost already?” His voice doesn’t echo — it crawls. It’s in the glass, in my skin, in my skull. “Pathetic little rabbit.”
I press my palm to my mouth. My pulse is a war drum.
“Tell me,” he whispers, the sound rippling through the reflections, “when you touch yourself at night, do you imagine you’re alone? Or do you picture me watching?”
The mirrors shimmer. A hundred Scarletts break down at once, her cheeks wet, her chest rising, falling, her thighs pressed together as if she can trap the heat there.
I whirl — nothing. Just me. Always just me.
And yet I feel it — breath close at my neck, the prickle of fingers that aren’t there.
I want out. I want him. I want to scream.
But there’s nowhere to run.
The mirrors close in, a hundred of me pressed up against the glass, wide-eyed and trembling. I stagger sideways, palms sliding against the cold surface, my breath painting foggy halos on the glass.
“Scarlett…” His voice winds low, silk and smoke, curling through the dark. “I can see every inch of you. Every crack. Every filthy little thought.”
I spin, chest heaving. Just me. Always me.
“Don’t bother hiding,” he murmurs. “Your body’s already telling me the truth.”
I choke on a gasp, squeezing my thighs together as if I can strangle the heat that keeps pulsing there. But my reflection betrays me — all of them do. A thousand Scarlets pressed her legs tight, shaking, trying to deny.
“Look at you.” His laugh is cruel, soft, maddening. “Running scared, but dripping. Do you even know how loud you sound when you’re this wet? I could track you blindfolded.”
Tears sting my eyes. I hate him. I crave him. I slam my fists against the glass, one reflection cracking, spider-webbing into a shattered version of me.
“Break all the mirrors you want, little rabbit.” His voice purrs from the broken glass. “There’s still only one truth.”
The air shifts. A fingertip brushes my hair back. Or maybe I imagined it.
I slap the mirror. Nothing. No one. Just me. Always me.
Until his whisper cuts the dark again, velvet and vicious:
“Say it, Scar. Say You want me to catch you.”
My lips stay sealed. My chest heaves like I’ve run for miles, but not a sound leaves me. I won’t give him the words.
The mirrors tremble with the weight of my silence — a hundred Scarlets pressing their mouths shut, wide-eyed, shaking, refusing.
“Defiant,” he drawls, voice low and dangerous. “Even now.”
The funhouse hums with it. My silence. His taunting. The sharp crack of my heartbeat against the glass.
“Do you know what happens when prey refuses to beg?” His voice slithers from the ceiling, the floor, the fractured reflections. “The predator takes more.”
A chill crawls down my spine. I press my back against the mirror, trembling so hard I feel the glass rattle.
Somewhere close — a footstep. Heavy. Unhurried.
My breath catches, but I don’t move. If I run, he’ll chase. If I stay, he’ll find me.
“Shhh,” he whispers now, almost gentle, and it feels like warm breath ghosts over my ear. “Don’t cry, little rabbit. The more you fight, the sweeter it tastes.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Silent. Always silent.
And then—knuckles drag against the mirror just inches from my cheek. Slow. Scraping. Claiming.
“Scarlett.” His voice is velvet wrapped around a knife. “I’m right here.”
The scrape of his knuckles fades, swallowed by the mirrors. My pulse thunders so loud I almost believe it could crack the glass for me. Almost.
I keep my mouth shut. I don’t beg. I don’t call his name.
“Still quiet,” he murmurs from somewhere behind me — but when I whirl, there’s nothing. Just a row of Scarletts staring back, lips clamped shut, eyes glistening like hunted things.
The floor creaks two steps to my left. Then, there were three behind me. Then closer, so close I swear the breath on my neck is real, though every time I spin I see nothing but myself.
“Every time you don’t answer, Scar…” His voice slides down my spine, molten and cruel. “…I imagine what you’ll sound like when I finally take the choice away.”
My nails dig into my palms. The mirrors multiply my trembling body, my pressed lips, my shame.
“You’re soaked, aren’t you?” The words are silk and venom. “Lost, scared, and wet. You don’t need to say it — your silence already gave you away.”
I press harder into the mirror behind me, glass biting cold through my shirt, my chest rising and falling in frantic waves.
Somewhere close — a low laugh. Not loud, not sharp. Just soft. Certain.
“You won’t last long, little rabbit,” he whispers, circling. “I’ll hear it in your voice. I’ll taste it when you break.”
The silence after is worse than the words. It thrums thick and endless until my knees almost buckle beneath it.