Page 10 of Cruel Games

I whipped out my phone and flipped on the stopwatch, shoving it back in my pocket as I pulled myself away from the building and searched for the nearby fire escape. Every one of these old buildings in town had one, and the asylum was no exception. Old, rusted, and likely to be loud as fuck, sitting right there on the corner of the building itself, just at the edge of the camera range.

Get in, get it done, get out.

I was careful to be gentle when I put my hands on the rungs, pulling myself up the warped and unclean metal ladder, watching my surroundings to make sure I wasn’t caught unawares. Step by step, I cleared the first floor, then the second, then the third, then counted over until I’d reached the window Bonnie claimed belonged to the Dogs.

Odd. They’d turned out all the lights.

I recounted the windows, reassuring myself I was in the right place. Once I’d double-checked the location, I set to workslipping the lock on the shitty, old, unreliable single-pane windows they’d never bothered to upgrade.

A minute and a half later, I was inside.

From the looks of it, I’d landed in a living room, right beside a TV that felt too small for as far away from the couch as it was. I started to move across the room and nearly fell face-first as I tripped over a pair of shoes laying haphazardly in the middle of the walkway.

Righting myself before I could make too much noise, I took the opportunity to adjust to the lack of light. Shapes in the dark slowly became objects I recognized–a coffee table, a chair against the wall, the sink across the room, a flag propped in the far corner. I noted the front entrance, pleased to see a chain lock dangling across the small gap between the door edge and the wall.

A single, malevolent, intrusive thought crossed my mind, and I had to stop myself from entertaining it.

Pick up the shoes and put em in the sink, on the table. Somewhere they know they’d never put them.

Scare them a little.

It wasn’t a terrible idea, but I didn’t want to show my hand too quickly. If I gave them reason to suspect someone was sneaking in and moving their shit, they might up security around here. And then I’d have to come up with another plan to give them what they deserved.

I didn’t want to go back to the start and rethink everything all over again.

I wanted them dead, sooner rather than later, so that I could live myownlife.

What even was my life? Did I have one anymore?

Mama turned to the bottle after Daddy’s murder. When we had a falling out, she disowned me, swearing never to let me through her doors again. I was an only child, which meant it was just me and the old, haunting memories of that night.

I couldn’t stay there, though; the trauma ran so deep. Never touched a red cent of the family money I'd inherited, never once set foot back in the house that held the worst nightmare of my life between the walls. My mother was too stubborn to ask me back, and I was, like her, too stubborn to forget the past.

Instead, I shacked up with some bitch from across town in a severely overpriced apartment with no personal space and no privacy, all to avoid dealing with my demons. Go fucking figure. In running from everything about my old life, I waltzed right into another one I hated.

People were miserable creatures when you stole their little slice of happiness.

I moved around the room like a panther, head low, crouched down in case someone happened to look at the same windows I’d studied minutes before. As I crossed through the kitchen, I took note of everything relevant to my future plans. How the sink, the counters, even the appliances, looked so boring and plain. It was as if they had no personality, no sense of style, no taste.

Which felt . . . kinda sad, really. They didn’t seem like the type to live so blandly. They seemed like they’d have more personality than this in their lives.

I was so stuck on the mundane shit, my fingers sliding over the small collection of out-of-date VHS tapes on the mantle, no tape player in sight, that I almost missed the sound of a slipper scuffing concrete flooring somewhere behind one of these doors. I sucked wind as I scrambled to find a place to hide, realizing the window was too far away now to guarantee an escape in time.

I eyeballed the table, then dismissed it as stupid, considering it was utterly open-legged. The cabinets might or might not have room for me inside; there was no way to tell without giving my position away. And if I risked hiding behind a chair or the couch, I could be stuck there for who knew how long.

At the last second, I lunged for the front door and slipped outit, leaving a crack for me to slip back in through once the asshole ducked back into his room. The corridor was silent and dark, so there wasn’t really a risk of getting caught. Plus, I was in my mask, so who’d recognize me, even if they did catch me?

My breath fogged up the side of the metal door as I watched a light come on in the living quarters, joined by the sounds of shuffling feet and annoyed grumbling. I clung to the door handle for dear life until my knuckles went white from the exertion, but just when I thought the coast was clear, something tugged at the door from the other side, and I wasn’t fast enough to think on my feet as the damn thing was yanked out of my grip and slammed shut. I could hear a faint voice on the other side grumbling aboutdamn assholes forgetting to close the door,but the voice was too far away to tell who it belonged to.

One thing I did know for sure–it wasn’t Jackal.

I wouldneverforget that voice as long as I lived.

Suddenly stranded inside an insane asylum, a building specifically designed to keep the outside world out and the residentsin,I was left with only one option–find another exit, and fast. The longer I stayed in this fucking place, the more danger I’d be in.

Staying put until someone came out of the room was dangerous. I couldn’t pick the lock, since I’d failed to bring my lockpick set with me. I couldn’t just walk out the front door?—

Or could I?

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