Let her feel safe. Let her think she’s alone… Let the hope rise.
Hope tastes better when you crush it.
She turns again, slower now. Listening. Her eyes scan the dark. She knows we’re close. I can smell the moment her adrenaline spikes. The moment her body wants to run again but her brain whispers,don’t waste it.
She still thinks she has a chance.
I lower myself behind a scarecrow, one of the ones I rigged with a speaker and a motion sensor. A whisper slithers through the air: her name, repeated in my voice, warped by static.
“Lila... Lila...”
She flinches.
Not much. Just a jerk of her shoulders, but it’s enough.
She’s fraying at the edges.
She’s almost ready.
Ipress my hand to the ground. It’s cold and damp. This game, this place, it only works because we make it real.
Wemakethem believe.
And when the time comes, when she finally runs without thinking, when she finally screams without planning… That’s when we’ll catch her.
But not to hurt her.
No.
She’s not just a player in our little haunted game. Not a victim. She’s something else. A match.
And matches?
They were made to burn.
CHAPTER 5
ELIAS
They think this is a game.
A chase. A thrill. Something to laugh about until the night ends and the lights come back on.
But I don’t play for laughs.
I move slowly. Always slow. Quiet steps on gravel, soft against the rustling corn. My black mask is smooth and empty, like a void swallowing the light. No eyes to blink. No mouth to betray.
I watch.
Not just Lila, though she fascinates me.
I watch her hunters.
Harlan moves like a wolf, stalking close, breathing down her neck. Adrian is reckless, too eager, too loud. He wants to scare, to taunt, to feel the hunt in his veins.
But me? I wait.
Waiting is a weapon.
