The bathroom is loud, crowded, echoing with laughter and the muffled bass bleeding through the walls. I let the door swing shut behind me and raise my voice just enough to cut through it.
“Everybody get the fuck out.”
A few people laugh, thinking I’m joking.
I lift the knife, just enough for the light to catch the blade.
“Now,” I say calmly. “Unless you feel like testing me.”
That fucking does it.
Stalls slam shut, shoes squeal, and someone swears under their breath as bodies rush for the exit. I don’t hurry them. I don’t need to. Fear does that just fine.
I move down the row of stalls, kicking them open one by one. Empty. Empty. Empty.
The last one swings open hard.
There she is.
She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. She leans back against the stall wall, arms crossed, chin tipped up like she’s been waiting.
“Took you long enough,” she says, mouth curling.
I grab her wrist and haul her out in one smooth motion, backing her into the sink hard enough to rattle the mirror. Not brutal but controlled.
She grins anyway. Smug and fucking challenging.
“I thought I told you to run fast,” I say, head tilting beneath the mask, disappointment threading my voice like I actually give a shit.
She snorts and points at her heels. “Yeah, well, in case you didn’t notice, these aren’t exactly built for fucking cardio or parkour.”
I don’t answer her right away.
Instead, I take my time looking around the bathroom. Grimy tiles. Flickering light. A cracked mirror barely holding on behindher. The place is a shithole. My shoulders loosen anyway, the way they always do when I settle into a space I can control.
She watches me do it, like she knows exactly what I’m clocking. Like she enjoys it.
“So this is where you end up?” I ask, dry as hell. “A filthy bathroom. A fucking dead end.” My gaze slides back to her. “Gotta say, valentine, I expected more effort.”
She laughs—bright, unapologetic, irritating in the way that makes my mouth twitch. “Oh, I put in effort,” she says. “Just not on the whole running-for-my-life part.”
That gets my attention.
I feel it immediately—the shift, the recalculation. She sees it too. Her smile sharpens like she just scored a point.
“Instead,” she continues, stepping past me. “Instead, I put the effort into the location.”
The lock clicks behind us. Loud. Final.
“I figured,” she adds casually, “with all that frustration you keep claiming you have, it made more sense to let it out somewhere we wouldn’t get interrupted. Or draw unwanted attention.” She shrugs. “Seemed smarter. Considering…”
A short, humorless laugh slips out of me as I step back into her space, close enough that she has to tip her chin up to keep eye contact.
“So this was intentional,” I say.
She tilts her head, grin pure trouble. “You did tell me not to make it boring. Bet you didn’t see this coming, did ya, big guy?”
I study her through the mask, slow and deliberate. “Careful,” I murmur. “That kind of planning makes it sound like you actually wanted to get caught.”
