Even inside the towering luxury castle with its midnight black turrets and orange lights framing each of the dozens of windows, it’s rumored to be drafty. Last year, Cyn tookher family through for the Christmas event and her mother complained she should sue; she nearly got frostbite, she claimed.
I stand on my tiptoes in my platform black fur-trimmed boots, looking over the heads in front of us toward the towering entrance. They keep closing the heavy glass doors for obvious reasons as they check everyone’s digital tickets, but they can also only let a small number of people in at a time for each haunted experience.
My friends and I are still on the staircase leading up to the expansive stone porch.
Clouds of cold billow in the air from everyone’s breath and while there are small, grated fires ahead, we aren’t close enough to feel them.
“I don’t know,” I say, my lips going numb as I shiver under the night sky. “They’re moving slow.”
“Okay,” Cyn says as she pops her hip and looks me up and down. “Between the three of us, you’re the one showing off the most.” She nods toward my skintight ski uniform. “Go skip the line and invite us up.”
I roll my eyes but a smile leaves my lips all the same. “Not a chance. Not with…” I trail off, refusing to think of Jackson. The blood. I clear my throat. “I don’t need any more stalkers.”
Karter sighs dramatically and rakes her hand through her hair as her eyes find mine. In the orange-tinted spooky lights from the castle, her hair takes on an odd hell-ish tint. “They were definitely talking about you, weren’t they?” she asks, and I know she’s talking about the game.
I lift my chin as we inch forward when another group goes inside the castle and a scream leaks out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But inside my head, I feel Sylvan at my back.
I see his dead eyes when I asked about his parents.
And his anger a heartbeat before when he asked if I’d fucked Faust.
Then they’re at each other’s throats on the ice, right after Faust just… snapped. Karter said he’d never gotten a penalty like that. He was ejected from the game, and it wasn’t retaliation for a bad hit. Just standard collision as far as I could tell.
Cyn didn’t come with us to the game; she’d had dinner with Tylone before meeting us here. They planned to link back up after the castle.
The same one Faust wanted me to go with him to.
But after spending the night with him, then being ambushed by Sylvan, I needed to be with the girls.
And if Tasia couldn’t make it to the game because she was headed to a Halloween party at the Beaches, I certainly wasn’t mad about it.
I like Karter a hell of a lot more than I like her friend.
Or at least… I did. Before she started being nosy.
“What? Who?” Cyn asks, looking between Karter and me.
I sigh, loudly, and Karter flashes me a grin.
“Oh? She didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I say pleasantly, full of sarcasm, “but you’re going to, aren’t you?”
“First,” Karter says, drawing out the word as she drags her eyes from me to Cynthia. “Faust took his gloves off to punch one of the other team’s players in the face. He got ejected from the game for that.” Karter waits, her eyebrows raised, so Cynthia can respond appropriately.
Meanwhile, impossibly, the warmth in my cheeks overpowers the below freezing temperatures as snow starts to drop from the sky and we all shuffle forward another few steps.
“What?” Cyn gasps the word as she looks from me, to Karter, and back again. “I’ve never seen Faust Darling fight.”
“How many games have you even been to?” I challenge.
“No, she’s right,” Karter rushes in. “I’ve been to almost all of them.” She shrugs. “Free hockey? Sign me up. Anyway, I’ve never seen him do anything like that.” She grins, triumphant. “But that’s not the best part.” She gives her attention back to Cynthia. “Thebestpart is, Faust charged over to Sylvan as soon as he was pulled off the other guy and got in his face. I don’t know what they said, but Faust looked like he was about to beat his ass, too.”
Cynthia’s mouth drops open, her eyes wide on me. “Was it aboutyou?You were at his place last night; was Sylvan there?—”
“Woah, wait, what.” Karter holds up her hand to pause Cyn. “Rewind. You were atFaust’shouse last night? That Gothic mansion that got leaked on social before?”
I exhale loudly and stare up at the sky. “I’m sure a dozen other girls at Drayton could say the same.” That’s probably how it was leaked.
