The maze folds around me like a fortress. I know every turn, every dead end. I know where the fog thickens. I know where the weak spots are. I know where she will try to hide.
And I wait for her to make a mistake.
She thinks she can outsmart us. That she can map the maze with her fingertips, trick us with her footsteps.
But the maze is alive, and so are we.
Harlan stalks close behind her, a hunter hungry for the kill. Adrian is the spark, chaos wrapped in a cracked grin.
I am the trap.
When she tires… When her breath comes ragged and her eyes blur. I’ll be there.
I watch her stop now, near the center of the maze, pressing her hands to the cold wood of a fake wall, head bowed. She’s thinking. Planning a way to escape us.
Good.
That means she’s afraid.
Fear sharpens the senses, but it also makes people make mistakes.
I move closer, still just out of sight. A ghost in the corn. The blackness between the stalks.
I catch the scent of her as I draw closer. Sweat mixed with something sweet. Her heartbeat pounding like a drum beneath the skin.
She’s not running anymore.
Not really.
She’s waiting.
Waiting for us.
And I will give her what she wants.
Because the silence before the scream? That’s the best part.
CHAPTER 6
ADRIAN
She stops running.
And oh… that makes me smile.
Behind the cracked porcelain, behind the too-wide grin I wear like a second face, I can’t stop grinning for real. I feel the tension roll off her, half fear, half something she doesn’t want to admit yet.
Something hot… Somethinghungry.
I keep my distance for now, gliding between stalks like a whisper dressed in bone-white and shadow. Every broken laugh I left for her in the speakers is still humming in the back of her head. I can see it. She flinches when the corn rustles. Pauses when the wind dies too suddenly.
She thinks she’s catching on to us. She thinks she knows what kind of game this is. I wonder what she'll do when she finds out there areno rules.
Just the three of us… And her.
Our little prize with blood in her cheeks and wild in her eyes.
I glance to the side. Harlan is circling wide, always the first to close the gap. He hunts like a beast. No subtlety about it. Just pure obsession.
