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The figure does not take off the mask.

The glove strokes me anyway. Slow. Filthy. And my body answers it like nothing has changed. I am shaking, leaking and bleeding in the seat all at the same time, while Rhys, if that’s who it really is, is on the speaker telling me to get out. But I can’t.

“Shane. Talk to me. Where are you hurt?”

“Everywhere I asked,” I say, and I hear how insane that sounds. “Throat. Chest. Thigh. Above my cock. I named the places. I wanted his mouth there. I wanted him. I unlocked the door because I wanted him. I thought—I thought it was you, Rhys.”

“Shane, stay with me. I am coming down the last stretch. Keep talking. Do not close your eyes.”

“You—you sound close,” I say, my voice coming in short breaths now.

“I am close. Stay with me.”

The blade cuts that same place above my cock again. Shorter this time. Fresh heat. I am already bleeding from my thigh and my throat and my chest. My hips jerk into the fist and I come hard. Broken. Wet. My blood is on the glove, on my stomach, and on the wheel.

I make a sound I did not want him to hear.

“Shane?”

“Don’t,” I tell the mask. “I did what you wanted. I told you. I told you where. You do not get to keep doing that now. He can hear you. He—”

“Shane? Shane? Answer me. Not them. Me.”

I try but my voice is thin now. The bay tilts. The one light over the ramp looks far away.

“I locked the door behind you,” I tell the phone. “Every night. I thought that was the job. I thought if I waited long enough you would look at me. I waited for you tonight. You told me to go home. I came back anyway. I should have stayed out of this bay.”

“Do not do that. Do not talk like that. I am coming, Shane. I am on the road. Stay awake.”

I know he’s talking to me right now, but I can’t hold on to a single word. There is only the glove, still moving, and the cuts, still open, and the mask, still not off.

“It is not you,” I say. “Tell me you’re coming, Rhys. Tell me you’re close.”

“Shane, I’m coming. I’m nearly there. Get your hand on the lock. Can you reach the lock?”

I try. The seat belt holds my chest across the cut. My fingers slip on my own blood. The lock is a mile away.

“No.”

“Then the buckle. Only the buckle. You can do that.”

“I’m trying.” My mouth is wet. “I—I’m sorry, Rhys. I thought—I wanted it to be you.”

Lights cut across the ramp.

A car. Fast. His car. I know the sound of it better than I know my own.

The figure’s head turns toward the glass.

“I’m here,” Rhys says on the speaker, and then I hear him twice. On the phone and outside the door. Then the passenger door flings open.

The figure is out of the seat before I can stop it. Soft boots on the concrete. Grey coverall moving for the dark of the bay.

Rhys does not run at first. He sees the mask. Then he sees me. They look at each other for one second. That is all. He grabs for the hood.

He gets it. Then he doesn’t. The figure twists, knocks his hand off, and is already past him. Gone into the bay. I never see a face.

Rhys turns after it, then he looks at me. He does not go after it. He is in the seat. It’s him this time. I can tell because of those green-gold eyes I’ve come to know. There’s blood on his hands the second he touches me.