Page 10 of Theirs to Chase

My body trembles, teeth clattering. That prickling sense of awareness is back, sending a shudder through me that has me hugging myself. I swallow what feels like molten lava as I stare at Elias’s lifeless body. Another lost soul in my life.

Why is this happening to me?

A sudden cold brush against my shoulder leaves me startled as if just now realizing the person behind me.

Eros.

I meet Nadia’s gaze as she hunches down on her knees, her eyes wide with a kind of terror that slips through your soul andremains rooted there. We’re thinking the same thing.

What are the odds that Elias ended up dead the moment Eros appeared?

“Eveline, come,” Max tells me, eyeing Eros with the same suspicion as Nadia.

Nadia stands on her feet, trembling, but Max is there to catch her. She reaches out a hand for me to take just before other voices come behind us in the haunted house. Two men from the influencer’s group come up behind Eros, clasping his shoulder.

Eros was with me the entire time, only finding me short moments after I lost sight of Elias. He wouldn’t have had the time to kill him, but still, I grab Nadia’s hand and look back at Eros with a stiff smile.

“We need to call the police,” Max says as we step away from the corpse.

Elias is fucking dead.

The park descends into complete darkness once again, leaving my body freezing with the paralyzing fear that has my heart in a chokehold.

We approach a funhouse, the entrance now made into a clown opening its mouth to let visitors inside. We stay in the open, and I now realize how stupid that is, but it’ll allow us the chance to run. Someone murdered Elias. He couldn’t have done that to himself.

Max fumbles for his phone in his pocket, before cursing loudly. “Fuck, I forgot ours in the lockbox at the looping coaster,” he says, looking at Nadia.

“I have mine,” I tell him, remembering I stashed it in my pocket.

My hands tremble as I grab the phone, nearly falling right out of my hand. But a bucket of cold water washes over me when I see the “no service” sign on my phone.

“Fuck!” I whisper-shout, panic lacing my words.

“What?” Max asks, looking as if he’s going to spill his dinner.

“No service.”

“We need to head back to that roller coaster and retrieve our phones,” he says, and I swallow, nodding harshly.

The way to the coaster feels like it takes an eternity.

Our feet clash against the cobblestone, too loud for my liking. What if the murderer is out there?

The light returns and a group of people whoops in the distance, their chatter grating on my nerves. Don’t they realize what’s happened? It’s as if we’re isolated in a world that will never find us.

A hard, jostling sound echoes through my surroundings, and I jolt, staring ahead of me at the people entering a Ferris wheel. They get into the cart, which soon moves away, up toward the sky.

I realize only too late the man that stands there, his head tilted to the side as he studies the Ferris wheel. He’s covered in a black suit from head to toe, a red mask with horns and fake blood spilling out. It’s an eerie sight.

I watch the moment he pulls out a set of large, sharp wire cutters, menacingly cutting through the main support cables holding the cart where the people are. My chest somersaults, and I retreat a few steps in horror. As the ride continues, the weakened cables begin to strain, and the cart tilts dangerously.

I’m locked in a trance as I stare at the cart, not processing the reality of the situation.

As the motor of the attraction jumbles, it starts going forward, pausing repeatedly, snapping the last thread of the cables holding it hostage.

A scream lodges in my throat as I watch the cart lose its grip entirely on the Ferris wheel, tumbling to its death on the ground. Screams are heard, then complete silence, and the sound of glass shattering and blood spraying.

The man suddenly turns to me.

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