My eyes start stinging, and the swell that sinks me inflates my chest, making the pathetic idiot running look even dumber by scrunching my face with the emotions that are already draining down my thumping cheeks.
Making the last few strides past Scream of Hades, I choke, gulping back air that infiltrates my cry and knots my throat.
I hate this place. So much.
Others see a kingdom of fun. But it’s my prison. A claustrophobic, rotting cell that wants to see me fall limp on the floor and bloat to feed the maggots infesting dark corners.
I’mnotletting that happen. I’m not.
I growl, using what feels like my last gust of burning air to drive my legs through the curtains of my tent, my sneakers tugging against the floor to slow my radioactive shakes.
Focusing through the tears staining my vision, Junior standing front and center on my stage, under the spotlight with a conniving smirk, has my teeth baring and my shoulders stiffening straight. “Give it back.”
“Give what back, baby?”
“I’m not-” stepping closer, my lip ripples “-your baby. Save it for your wife.”
His amusement slowly slips away, leaving realization to simplify his expression as he looks down at his bare ring finger.
He chuckles through a huff, jaggedly rolling his sinister smile and empty eyes back up to me. “Should’ve known it was your heathen boyfriend that broke in through my window.” He shakes his head with another laugh, quickly cocking it in tandem with a haughty pinch of his brows. “Tell me, does he know you kiss other people when he’s not around?”
It really was him.
Why is this big, giant creeper screwing with me?
Stopping a few feet from him basking in his own glory on my stage, I wipe the remnants of tears from my cheeks, abrasively drying my palms off on my shorts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, really?” his brows jump theatrically. “’Cause it seems like a secret. Soo… You may want to come up here and make me seal my lips.”
“What do you want from me?!”
“I wanna taste how crazy you are so I know if I’m right.”
“Eww-ughh!” my face twists. Along with my stomach.
He jadedly rolls his eyes closed, huffing and opening them back up far off to the side.
Really, I can’t gauge whether I’m perturbed with the utmost disgust or chronically confused. A mixture of both, maybe. Because as he stands stifflike a chauvinistic pig, my heartbeat climbs my throat and trails of sweat leave distracting paths down the back of my neck.
I can’t think of what to say. My mind is a vacant room, resounding the thunder quaking my body. I haven’t even used the muscles to close my mouth yet.
Maybe that’s best. Because the movement my eyes are snapping to behind Junior is easily the most horrifying sight.
Razor still in his alter ego, drenched in sweat and shadows, moving out from the back of the curtains with inhumane calculation, his blown-out eyes equated to siphoning voids and his hands hidden behind his back, is clutching the last of the oxygen in my lungs and paralyzing me.
What do I do? Oh, shit…
“You know…” Junior sucks his teeth, completely oblivious to death reaping him.
This is an appropriate moment to cover my eyes. But they’re pinned wide open, fed off the terror of tracking Razor silently sneaking up behind Junior with a carnivorous target on his head.
All I can manage is a mute squeak that jumps my chest, numbing the sound of Junior’s droning voice complaining about something that has him rubbing down his face.
I don’t necessarily care about his life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want his kid growing up without a dad or his wife to neglect motherhood from a broken heart.
I guess I’m just super messed up because I’m more concerned about witnessing a live murder. In my tent. On the busiest night we have yet to see here.
Rampant breaths spin my head, watching Razor take the final step he needs. Then, everything surrounding us snaps to black, his ruthless doublegrip raising shiny metal attached to a long wooden handle, reaching the perfect, studied angle for the head of the axe to swing down into the side of Junior’s neck.
