Page 16 of A Smile Full of Lies
But this wasn’t pretend, and it wasn’t for just anybody.
Ros wanted to be chased. She wanted the real edge, the pulse-pounding truth of knowing she was being hunted. I could give her the feeling without ever putting her in real danger, but only if I could control the game… every fucking inch of it. And there was only one place I knew like the back of my hand.
I’d grown up in Stonewood Manor. I knew which boards creaked before you stepped on them, which stairwell echoed the loudest, which hallways bent the light just right to hide a shadow until it was too late. I knew where I could corner her, how I could steer her. The whole house was muscle memory, still burned into me no matter how much I hated it.
And Josh… Josh had offered me full creative control. He didn’t know what that really meant, not for me. It meant I could design the entire layout, choose the lighting, dictate who went where and when. It meant I could isolate her from the crowd entirely,send her into a wing no one else would see. It meant I could decide exactly when the hunt began and exactly how it ended.
Anywhere else would have too many variables, too many exits, and too much I couldn’t account for. But Stonewood Manor? There, I could build the perfect trap and know she’d never slip through it.
If I wanted to make her fantasy real — if I wanted to see what she’d do when it was just her instincts and mine — this was the only way.
The only place.
The only hunt worth willingly walking back into the house where my trauma lived and breathed. I sucked in a deep breath and let the full weight of the decision settle in my bones.
I’ll call the event coordinator back in the morning. I’ll tell the Southern Scare Collective I changed my mind. They can host the Halloween haunted house at Stonewood Manor, after all.
I’ve got a mask. I’ve got a plan. And I’ve got a girl who wants to be hunted.
I stepped toward the hall, intent on leaving through the back door just so I could look in on her once more on my way out.
But then I heard it: soft movement and the shuffle of blankets. Next came a low sound, half-asleep and confused.
My breath sharpened. I turned toward the hall and heard light footsteps followed by the quiet creak of her bedroom door.
Shit.
My chest tightened as Ros’s shadow stretched across the dark hallway.
She was awake, and I was still in her fucking house.
Chapter
Six
OCTOBER 11, 3:00 AM
ROS
I woketo the soft creak of a floorboard — too deliberate to be the house settling. For a split second, I stayed still, eyes wide in the dark, listening. Nothing. Just the quiet hum of the fridge and the faint whoosh of the ceiling fan in the hall. My heart pounded hard enough to leave me shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Had I imagined it?
Another sound snagged my attention, a muffled thud this time. My breath caught.
Someone was in my goddamn house.
I sat bolt upright, blankets tangled around my legs. The air felt colder than it should’ve. My pulse roared in my ears. I stared at the half-open bedroom door like it might start rattling on its own.
The glow from the hallway nightlight spilled a weak rectangle across the floor. I eased out of bed, every muscle screaming at me not to move. My bare feet touched the hardwood with a soft thump. I padded quietly toward the door, cursing the way my breath rasped too loud in my chest.
Another sound broke the silence, this one closer. The low scrape of a chair leg echoed from the kitchen. I didn’t grab a weapon, didn’t even think to. No, I just moved on pure instinct. Fear had hollowed me out too fast for strategy.
I froze in the hallway, heart in my throat. A light flickered on around the corner.
I wasn’t imagining it. Someone was definitely in my house.
Every step I took toward the kitchen felt like dragging myself through wet concrete. I sucked in a deep breath and held it, not breathing again until I reached the edge of the doorway, bracing myself.
And then I stepped into the kitchen, and screamed bloody murder.
