Page 47 of Bend & Break
Second stop, the section with the morgue table, complete with a blood-streaked sheet and a set of feet with a toe tag sticking out from underneath. I flip the sheet, flinch like I’m in the actual film.
My skin itches. I’m warm. My palms won’t stop sweating.
Third, I peer into the basement set. The lighting’s dim, reddish, flickering—intentionally broken. There are hooks on the wall and chains dangling, and a rusty drain, Ireallyhope is fake because it's crusted with something reddish that leaves me wondering. It looks eerily close to the basement in the murder video.
I have to duck under a beam to get all the way in, and my brain is a mess of visuals now. Her wrists in those cuffs. Her mouth parted. My hands under that jumper, finding every soft, covered place that’s been driving me mad since the moment we met.
I exhale. Run a hand over the back of my neck.
This is insane. I’ve kissed her. More than once. She’s hiding from me, and I’m two wrong thoughts away from saying fuck it and just?—
Whatisthe end goal of this game of hide and seek? I mean, I think we are on the same page, but we are also technically in public, and maybe I have assumed too much?
There’s a creak behind the curtain wall to my left.
Quiet. Small. But enough.
I step toward it and nudge the black curtain aside.
She’s there.
Half-crouched behind a stack of sound equipment cases, cheeks flushed, eyes panicky when she sees me. Like she knows exactly what I’ve been thinking. And worse—she’s been thinking it too.
I don’t say a word. I just look at her. Let the air stretch tight between us. Because I’m not sure what I’m about to do.
But I know it’s going to wreck us both.
Her chest rises in shallow breaths, eyes locked on mine—or where mine should be, hidden behind the mask.
I can see the war happening in her head, flickers of hesitation sparking behind the heat. She’s turned on, but she’s also unsure.
Not of me. Of the thrill.
Of the risk.
I could be anyone at this moment, and the fact that she’s still here, still kneeling in the dark with that look on her face, tells me everything I need to know.
She wants this—the tension, the surrender, the not-quite-certainty. She’s banking on it being me behind the mask. Betting her body on it.
And the part of me that’s twisted, the part that’s already half-gone for her, is obsessed with the idea that she’d let herself be ruined on a maybe. That she’d gamble that I’m the one she’s giving herself to, and not someone who’d take without asking. Because she knows I won’t. But she’s still handing me the metaphorical knife, just to see what I’ll do with it.
She bolts. No warning, no smirk to tip me off, just a sharp twist of her body and the scrape of sneakers on concrete. For half a second, I blink, then I’m after her, adrenaline hitting harder than any match I’ve ever played.
The set turns into a maze of shadows and fake walls, her laughter echoing ahead of me, taunting, daring me to keep up. My cock feels thicker and harder with each step I take toward her.
She ducks behind a hanging chain, cuts left past a false stairwell, her blue hair flashing in the dim red light.
She’s fast, but she’s not trying to lose me. Not really. Every turn slows just enough, every glance over her shoulder sparks through my chest. She wants to be caught as much as I want to catch her.
Good thing that knock she took during the game was minor, because I’m loving every minute of this.
I push harder, footfalls pounding against the hollow floorboards, closing the gap until I can almost feel the heat rolling off her.
She stumbles at the end of a hallway filled with props, and that’s all it takes—I lunge, hand catching her wrist, spinning her back into me. She gasps, half-laugh, half-shock, the sound lodging straight in my gut.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Her chest rises against mine, breath quick, the chain-set swaying where she nearly crashed into it. My grip tightens, but not enough to hurt. Just enough to remind her who caught whom.
She twists in my grip like she might break free and tries to dart sideways. The floor’s slick, uneven where the set pieces meet, and her foot slips out from under her.
