Page 62 of Bend & Break
“Yeah,” he says, smug as hell, fingers tracing lazy patterns over my back. “That’s usually the review I get.”
I groan and smack weakly at his chest. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.” He kisses my temple. “You okay?”
I force myself to lift my head, meet his eyes. He looks ridiculously pleased with himself.
“I’m fine,” I say, though my voice comes out breathless. “Better than fine, apparently.”
“Glad I dragged you out of the textbooks, then.”
I roll my eyes, but the corner of my mouth betrays me with the smallest smile. “You’re the worst.”
“Uh-huh.” He kisses me again, an impulse at this point. “And you love it.”
I try to shift back to my side, but Mads only tightens his arm around my waist, like he has no intention of letting me move even an inch. I give in, readjusting myself and settling against him as he pulls a blanket over us.
“Comfortable?” I mutter.
“Extremely.” He nuzzles into my hair, shameless.
I roll my eyes, pretending the warmth spreading through my chest is irritation and not something much worse. “You’re ridiculous.”
He hums in agreement, unbothered.
I’m about to tell him he’s also kind of cute when the soundtrack spikes with the crash of a jump scare. I jolt, my fingers clamping around his arm.
Mads bursts out laughing, unfazed by the murderous glare I aim at him. “You really are terrible at horror, Blue.”
I shove at his chest, but not hard. I don’t think I actually want to push him away anymore, not physically and not in any other way either.
Chapter 22
Mads
The credits roll, headlights flick on one row at a time, and the drive-in slowly dissolves into a mess of cars shuffling toward the exit. Blake yawns beside me, tugging the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She seems seconds from passing out. I plan to take her home. Let her crash, sleep for twelve hours, pretend we’re normal college students for once.
But then movement catches my eye.
A group of college kids is darting between the cars near the concession stand, loud and obnoxious. At first, it looks harmless. Then one of them turns, and my stomach drops.
The mask.
Not the flimsy vampire fangs or skeleton grins everyone else has been wearing tonight. No. This is the same mask from the video. That uncanny blankness that still knots my gut every time I think about it.
Blake notices the way I’ve frozen. “What?”
I nod toward the group, keeping my chin low so I don’t draw attention.
Her eyes narrow, tracking my gaze across the crowd. The second she lands on them, the shift in her is instant.
I don’t have to ask if she recognizes the masks; the way she stiffens tells me everything. Familiar, unmistakable. Those cheap, taunting things we’ve been chasing through half the semester.
We don’t move toward them. That would be too risky. But I tug my phone out, flick the camera on, and angle it just enough to catch the kids messing around under the floodlights. They’re laughing too loudly, shoving each other hard enough to stumble, breaking into sprints that end in shoulder checks and near collisions.
It passes for playful, though it’s not.
I zoom in, focus on the edges of the masks, the way they sit on their faces, hoping like hell one of them decides to take theirs off.
