Page 55 of The Lies We Steal

I could no longer control my hands as they trembled.

Coughs littered my lungs, waving my arms with little use trying to move the smoke from my vision. Everything was a blur, all of it spinning too fast. I stood for a few moments, my stomach churning, closing my eyes wishing I was little again. Wishing I was back home in Texas and seeking comfort in my father’s arms. Allowing him to protect me.

I thought of my father and how he raised me to be stronger than this. Braver than the girl who lays down at the feet of those determined to knock her down. He showed me how to steal the wealth right under their upturned noses. I was taught to be unafraid of the bumps in the night. Because I was the bump in the night.

A shaky breath grazes my lips, my flashlight doing nothing except illuminating the clouds of smoke directly in front of my face. I focused my ears to the sounds of screams, to where the voices echoed from, if I could head in the direction of them, it would lead me out of this maze.

“Lyra!” I choke out, hoping my strangled voice will alert someone.

I shove the key into my pocket, popping the flashlight into my mouth and holding it with my teeth as I tear my pullover off my head and tossing it onto the ground.

A black wife-beater sticks to my skin with the help of some sweat that had trickled down between the valley of my breasts and onto my stomach. I steady my breath and try to calm the panic, moving towards the exit.

That’s when I hear the snickering.

A dark, hooded chuckle that made my muscles tense. They cause me to move my legs faster. Knowing something was close. They were close and I was trapped in here with them. The menacing aura from the sound had my bones shaking with panic. Echoes of laugher bouncing off the inside of my chest, buzzing in my head.

The carousel music spun faster, surging louder and louder with every step forward.

I felt a breeze of wind behind me, a chaste of a touch on my lower back making me spin around only to be met with more smoke. Another whisper of a hand against my left leg has me turning again. They were right there. Just beyond the wall of smoke, hiding, playing. I spun in circles while they grazed my body when I turned away from them.

I was stuck in a false reality. Shoved inside a haunted game I wanted no part of. My stomach swirled, my mind swimming as they cackled and brushed against me. Appearing and disappearing into the shadows.

They were everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Impossible to keep up with.

“What the fuck do you want?!” I scream, fed up with the games, tired of the cat and mouse torment. My flashlight pointed straight ahead as my chest heaved up and down with anger, “What do you want?!” I yell again.

More laughter follows, my flashlight catching glimpses of their faces as they inch closer and closer. Walking side by side, their broad shoulders moving in synch with one another. Bits of a clown mask cover the one on the far left, the one in the middle with the signature jigsaw face, and the last sported a simple plain white one that had blood leakingfrom where your eyes would be.

Vomit sits in my throat as they approach me. I back up, up, up, until I hit something solid. I was sure this is what hell felt like. The one with the white mask, the tallest, reaches out and hooks a piece of my braid between his fingers, rubbing it between his thumb and pointer.

I stayed so still while he leaned into me, pressing my hair into the nose holes of his mask and inhaling desperately loud.

“What do you want?” I ask with a scratchy, broken voice.

What I thought was a piece of the maze, begins to move behind me. I step away from him, only to step closer into another body. I had nowhere to go, there was nothing I could do to prevent his arms encircling me, his palm clamping over my mouth as he pressed his hard body into mine.

The one who lurks in the shade and is a child of the night. Even with a mask I knew which one he was. I could feel it.

I ready myself to scream at the horror in front of me,

“Your fear.” His animalistic tone loud over the music and commotion. I can taste the leather of his gloved palm as I wail into his large hand.

The front of his mask is touching my nose. My eyes crossing to make out the black and white skull on the upper portion of his face, the part where his lips should be is hidden by a thick, black gas mask that distorts his voice.

“Your silence.” He continues.

The smell of plastic and smoke is almost overwhelming, but not as strong as the underlying scent of clove and black magic. Adrenaline pumps through my veins like liquid gold. Every nerve ending firing, every atom shaking with energy. I was alive.

I was in the hands of death and I felt so fucking alive.

“The truth.” He grunts.

What truth?

That he’s a murderous son of a bitch? I could have already told him that.

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