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Nothing, zero response, he just keeps moving.

“You can’t just pick me up.” I watch the ground moving beneath us and consider my options. I push on his back, but he doesn’t notice or care. “This isn’t a chase. I thought that was the point?”

He finally stops walking and sets me down. As I glance up at him, Cave opens his mouth. “I carry what I won’t lose.” He pauses. “I don’t chase what can’t run. What am I?”

I blink up at him frantically in confusion. Just when I think I’m getting better at these riddles, he stumps me with this one.

“No idea,” I say, and he smirks.

I take one step back, pivot on my heel, and run. Twisting left around the haunted maze, because it’s the direction I remember from the tour, I find the path between Sideshow Alley and the maze. I push hard, knowing he will be right behind me, or at least I hope he is, because all I hear is my pulse thumping in my ears.

Cutting toward the cemetery, where the lanterns thin out, I slow just enough to see the path and hear footsteps beside me. I nearly stumble over my own feet as Noa falls into stride beside me. He has his zombie makeup on and his shovel slung over his shoulder.

“Are you also supposed to be chasing me?”

“Nixie didn’t want to trigger Cave. This is a trial run, basically to see if you survive the night.”

“Survive?! He isn’t that bad,” I retort, and Noa laughs. “He is behind us somewhere.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you scared then, if he is so scary?”

He looks at me sideways and grins. “Terrified, but it’s fun running from Cave and talking to you. So how is it?”

“It’s been less than half an hour. Only been running for a few minutes.”

“Strong start then.”

I glance back and see nothing. “Where does this path go?”

“Cemetery on the left, then there’s a fork. One way goes to the back fence, the other toward Cipher’s shed. The shed path is safest—the other ends at a cliff. One wrong step and it’s hello sharks.”

“Shed it is, then.”

The trees get thicker, the lights from the island fading away as the path narrows and we have to run single file. Noa keeps pace just behind me, talking about headstones, something about birds, and how funny it is to be running in the dark from an unhinged scarecrow. One who is probably not running but stalking us.

“There,” Noa says, pointing ahead through the trees to where I can see a light above the shed door. We hit the clearing, and Noa reaches the door first, shoving it open.

I push through behind him, and we both stop with our hands on our knees to catch our breath.

“Ha!” Noa says triumphantly.

I peer around the shed at the tools carefully laid out on the workbench. “Where’s Cipher?”

Noa stands up straight and glances around just as we are both lifted into the air. Mesh closes around us as we are hauled up toward the ceiling. As we swing, Noa bursts into laughter. We are suspended about six feet off the shed floor, tangled together in a net, Noa’s shovel captured between us.

“Oh shit,” Noa says.

I look down to where Cipher is standing, the rope in his hand, and he is looking up at us with a smile.

“You’re helping him,” I say.

Cipher nods just as Cave stands silhouetted in the shed doorway with his corn sword by his side.

“This is not what I thought was going to happen tonight,” I tell them.

Cave glances up at us.