“I can’t believe a smokeshow like you is here alone,” he said, slowing slightly as we waited for our eyes to adjust to the relative pitch black of the room. When I looked down at our held hands, the black bracelets she put on now glowed with little masks all around them. The green ones glowed bright as well, so everyone knew what everyone was looking for.
In the distance, further than I anticipated, flickering candles on wall sconces lit the way down a winding hall, my hand in Joon’s going slick with sweat.
Every step I took felt warmer, a blanket of quiet pierced by distant screams that I wasn’t sure were a recording or genuine, making me jump around every bend.
I chastised myself not to dissect the experience, refusing to let my brain work double time to untangle the layers of atmosphere that’d be carefully curated into the space, down to the cobwebs we had to duck to avoid as we moved, our breaths coming fast in our eagerness, loud as they bounced back to us.
As a horror buff, I loved to pull it all apart and see what made it scary–but as a girl who needed to get over a lame as fuck breakup with a fun night of being scared shitless by masked alphas looking to suck and fuck… yeah, okay, it was brain off time.
“I just broke up with my boyfriend,” I admitted. “This is like, my first night out trying to get over it.”
“And you came to a horror orgy?” Joon said, blinking with a flutter of false lashes.
Damn, he really did commit to the bit.
A scuttling noise made him jump with a scream, his body colliding hard with mine.
“Sorry!”
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I laughed, knocking our temples together playfully. “But yeah… My friend convinced me to come.”
“Remind me to send her a gift basket.” Joon said, pulling away to walk at my side again, leaving me with a heavy dose of his sweet candy apple scent, a little sour with his temporary fear. “His loss issomy gain.”
I couldn’t quite tell if he was joking, and I opened my mouth to ask if he was when we rounded the corner to be blinded by the heady crimson glow of neon lights.
My nerves were finally starting to get the best of me, solidified as a piercing scream I was sure was real rang through the air, making me actually jump. The familiar rush of adrenaline I'd been addicted to since I was a teen flooded my senses and drawing a smile to my lips as we crept down the path towards a fork in the road, barely visible after being blinded.
“Which wa—” I started to ask as a giant man in a mask popped from an alcove I hadn’t noticed before, chainsaw roaring. I screamed, my legs kicking into motion before my brain could catch up, carrying me as far and fast as I could go before my breath was ragged, heart hammering in my chest.
There were more noises and lights and hands reaching out from the black, but it registered as I sprinted, the heat becoming nearly unbearable. The air humid and thick in the confined space.
Sweltering.
When I finally slowed, I turned at the sound of heavy footfalls behind me, expecting to see Joon following—shocked to find an alpha with a rapidly receding hairline round the corner instead.
"Well, well, well…” He crooned in a husky, croaking voice that set my teeth on edge. “What do we have here?"
My nose scrunched as I scented him. It smelled like black licorice and something pungent I wasn't drawn to at all.
"Looks like we found a little omega bitch in heat. First rodeo, sugar?"
Heat?
I wasn't inheat.
At the very least, I was still a few weeks off. But maybe this was part of the scene, you know, the helpless damsel thing?
Either way, I wasn’t particularly interested in talking about it with this alpha; it was obvious we weren't a match—scent-wise or anything else.
I turned to run again. Maybe this asshole just wanted to get off on the thrill of scaring somebody. But as I tried to get away, I ran smack dab into another body, alpha pheromones like the cheap body spray alphas in high school used instead of a shower flooding my nose and making me choke. He grabbed my arm, twisting me around like a doll as the first alpha approached, eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Let go," I said, trying to wiggle from his grasp.
"I don't think so, sweet green. An unattended omega in heat is a bad idea in a place like this. Just think of what could happen."
“Yeah,” the balding alpha said, voice dripping with excitement. “Somebody might take advantage.”
Fuck.
