Page 123 of Beautiful Prey

Freak them out and maybe they’ll go away,said a little voice.

I curtsied in my dress and tilted my head the way Emery would. I could see that it made them nervous.

As creepily as possible, I slunk around the tree.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said in an almost singsong voice. “You should leave.”

“Why?” Kayla snapped. “Who the fuck are you?” I saw the crowbar gripped in her hand, but I forced myself not to appear worried.

Mal staying behind Kayla’s shoulder tugged at her sleeve. “Kayla, that mask…”

“What? Are you some kind of killer worshiper?” Kayla asked.

I stood very still, saying nothing, keeping my hands behind my back.

“Hello?”

I didn’t respond.

Mal shook her friend’s arm. “Kayla, I don’t like this. This is really freaking me—”

A scream from some distance away cut off her words. The girls looked around as a flow of curses and shouts broke through the night.

“What’s going on?”

I took a step toward them, and Kayla swung the crowbar.

“Woah, stay back, you crazy bitch!”

“Kayla, let’s just go!”

As Mal tried to pull her friend away, the boys broke out of the woods into the clearing. I was prepared to find them bloodyand bruised and was surprised to see they weren’t. Besides their clothes being dirty and hair full of bits of leaves, they were just scared shitless.

“Some big-ass motherfucker just came out of nowhere,” one of them shouted. “Picked Lance up and threw him like fifteen feet.” He stumbled when he saw me. He went for his bag while his friend, limping a little, stood beside the girls.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Jason told me. I could hear the shaking in his voice. Lance, a lankier boy, wearing thick glasses now partially covered with dirt, started for the other side of the clearing, not sticking around to see how this ended.

“Lance, wait!” he called.

Lance didn’t listen. He was on his way out, attempting to run even as he limped. The others hesitated to follow.

CSHHHH. SNAP.

The sound almost hurt my ears. Something huge hit the ground. The group jumped, one of them screamed. They bolted like rabbits.

They disappeared back into the woods.

I could follow them, run into the woods and try to hide. Get to a neighbor’s house.

But I didn’t follow.

Even if I thought I could get away, it was then I knew I was done running.

Still, I looked for them. I took the mask off, holding it against me as I stared into the woods, feeling strange, almost not myself. Like I was on the boundary of my past, present, and future and I didn’t know who I was anymore.

Maybe that was the power of the mask, after all.

“Eve.”

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