I lean in, almost pressing my nose to the screen as Scarletta comes into view on the monitor. She's approaching the entrance…
Chapter 14
Scarletta
The maze entrance rises before me like something that shouldn't exist outside my own head.
Bamboo walls stretch fifteen feet high, woven so tightly I can't see through them, can't cheat by glimpsing what waits inside. The archway is exactly how I described it in the story—rough-hewn wood covered in carved symbols that look ancient and vaguely threatening.
He built this.
The thought won't settle properly in my brain.
He read my unpublished nightmare fantasy and built it into physical reality.
I stop walking. The earth below my feet is smooth, powdery, and deep. Like here, on this island, even the dirt is controlled by the unmasked man's obsessions.
Torches flicker in iron sconces on either side of the entrance, casting dancing shadows across the bamboo. The air smells like smoke, and jungle rot, and citronella—reminding me that this isn't real. This is theatre.
Very expensive theater.
Insanelyexpensive theater.
For me.
The archway seems to breathe in the firelight, and I notice speakers hidden in the carved wood, positioned exactly where I imagined Helix's telepathic voice would originate from. A small basket sits on a pedestal just inside the entrance, containing what looks like wireless earbuds.
My pussy clenches at the sight of them.
He's going to be inside my head.
The Call of the Labyrinth comes back to me like an old friend…
I stumble, falling. My chest hits the hard dirt and the air flows out of me in a loud breath. For a moment, I can't breathe. I just lie there, unsure what just happened. The claws, the teeth, the horns!
He was a monster!
Touching me, groping me!
His fingers between my legs and… oh, God.
The throbbing is back. the wetness pouring out of me like?—
Trees rustle somewhere behind me.
I shake myself out of the ridiculous fantasy inside my sick head, pull myself up, and find… a maze?
What the fuck! I want to screams this, but I don't dare. He'll hear me. Capture me.
And then what will he do, Lyra?
Fuck me…
Stop it! You're a sick piece of shit! It's not even human! It's an animal walking on two legs, nothing more!
And he's going to rape you if you don't snap the fuck out of what's happening here and pull yourself together!
I push the panic and arousal down and force myself to focus. The maze entrance rises in front of me like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
