Page 152 of The Wrong Play

It felt like someone.

Watching.

“Don’t let us get you, Thatcher,” a voice suddenly cut through the silence, distorted and mechanical, warped by a voice changer. “Run.”

I waited. Breathless. Tensed for whatever came next.

A beat of silence.

Then—laughter.

Low. Amused. Hungry.

The kind of sound a predator makes before it pounces.

My stomach clenched. My pulse thrummed. And then, I did exactly what the voice ordered…because I wasn’t a fucking idiot.

I ran.

The uneven forest floor snagged at my shoes, roots jutting from the dirt like tripwires. I leapt over a fallen log, my foot slipping on wet leaves before I caught myself and shoved forward again.

Branches clawed at my skin, leaving thin, stinging cuts on my arms.

Then—a metallic crack split the night air.

My body jerked on instinct, muscles screaming for cover.

What the fuck was that?

And why couldn’t I hear crickets? Where the fuck were the crickets? Or the squirrels? Give me a deer or something!

How had they managed to find the creepiest forest in all of Tennessee?

Or at least, I assumed I was in Tennessee.

Laughter echoed through the trees again.

I jumped.

And not just any kind of laughter.

Clown laughter. The distinct, nightmarish kind. The kind on Emma’s poster.

And then it wasn’t distant anymore.

It was closer.

I was being hunted. By clowns. Of fucking course.

A whizzing sound zipped past my ear. I flinched, twisting mid-stride—just in time to see pink paint explode against a tree trunk beside me.

I blinked. Paint?

They were hunting me with paintball guns?

I snorted.

Because now, all I could picture was a group of Sphinx members in ski masks, sprinting through the woods, giggling like gremlins as they tried to snipe me with Dollar Store warfare.

---