Page 64 of A Smile Full of Lies
I glanced at the tech I’d nudged out of my way when Silverface culled Ros from the rest of the herd of fans.
“You know what to do,” I murmured so only he could hear me. “I’ve got a fan experience to see to.”
The tech nodded and I slipped out of the control room and into the wine cellar, crouching behind one of the racks filled with my parents’ wine collection, waiting for her to get ahead of me.
Go on, baby. Take the bait.
Her gaze sharpened as she squinted into the darkness and her lips parted on a shaky inhale. She pressed her back to the wall as she eased the rest of the way down the stairs, her hand flexing against the stone.
I tracked the tension beneath her skin, the rise and fall of her chest beneath the soft cotton of her hoodie.
She knew she wasn’t alone, but she didn’t knowwhowas hunting her. Not yet.
Ros pushed away from the wall and took another step deeper into the wine cellar. Her footsteps echoed sharply beneath the high ceilings.
I pulled a small pebble out of my pocket and tossed it toward the far corner of the room. It clattered against the stone wall and her head jerked in that direction.
It was time.
I slipped out of my hiding place and snuck over to the base of the stairs she’d just walked down, cutting off her retreat. Then I purposely scuffed my boot against the stone floor.
Ros’s breath hitched as she whirled toward the sound.
Her mouth opened on a strangled scream.
The lights cut out, plunging us into near-complete blackness.
The noises she made surged in my ears, her breaths going sharp and uneven.
“Shit,” she whimpered.
I grinned behind my mask, reaching up and flipping the switch to turn on the battery powered purple neon face.
“Run for me sweetheart,” I crooned.
Chapter
Seventeen
ROS
A strangled screamripped out of me, cut short when the lights snapped off and the cellar drowned in suffocating black.
My breaths came sharp and ragged. Panic spiked hot in my chest, but it wasn’t the only thing. My stomach flipped, my thighs clenched, and somewhere beneath the terror, a pulse of something darker thrummed. Recognition.
“Shit,” I whimpered, stumbling back into the racks of wine. My palms scraped polished wood, corks, and cold glass bottles, searching for something solid, something real.
Then the dark bloomed with violet light. A face — if you could call it that — hung in the void. Jagged neon X’s where eyes should’ve been, a wide stitched grin glowing too bright, too wide, too wrong. It floated closer, searing into my vision like it had always belonged to my nightmares… or my fantasies.
My breath stuttered, torn between terror and the sick, shameful thrill clawing its way up my spine.
“Run for me, sweetheart,” the low, distorted voice crooned. The sound wrapped around me, vibrating straight through my bones, straight into that place I’d never admit out loud.
“Oh, hell no! Fuck this shit,” I hissed, scrambling backward between the racks of wine to put distance between me and that disembodied neon face.
The scrape of my shoes echoed too loud on the stone, and I knew he was following… each heavy footfall deliberate, closing in. My hand hit the wall and I dragged my palm along it like a lifeline, breath tearing in and out of my lungs.
I blinked hard, desperate for my eyes to adjust, for the dark to give me anything besides the floating violet grin and stitched-out eyes that loomed closer and closer. Fuck, whoever was wearing that mask was tall. He towered over me by more than a foot.
