Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
My ghost steps inside, his gleaming knife a warning of what’s to come.
Panic seeps into my bones.
I crawl up and dart off toward the nearest staircase, which leads up to the big auditorium hall, where hundreds of seats lead down the steps that I can use to my advantage to escape him.
At least for now.
There are multiple doors in here, which means there’s at least one way to get out, so I ram the door shut behind me and head down the steps.
The bright lights above flicker as harshly as my heart as I try to keep my cool while heading down the steps. Two more doors are near the stage, but the moment I climb on, the whole auditorium is cast into darkness.
The silence is deafening, and all I can feel is my own heart quaking in my body at the prospect of what I’m about to face.
The sound boxes in each corner of the auditorium crackle with noise when, finally, a whispery voice emerges. “Not fast enough …”
Oh shit.
“I have you right where I want you …” he whispers.
“Where are you?!” I yell through the darkness. “Show yourself!”
The voice laughs menacingly. Not at all like anything I’ve ever heard before.
“How much are you willing to beg?” he whispers.
The microphone beeps through the crackling boxes, and I turn to gaze at the exits.
A bright light is turned on right above my head, blinding me.
Turning up the crank on the adrenaline spiking my veins.
My breathing is erratic. Unhinged.
I can’t see a goddamn thing …
Except for the man in the hoodie with the glowing red eyes slowly walking down the steps I had just bolted down from, a sharp knife tightly clutched in his hand.
I race to the door on the left of the stage, and I jerk the handle hard, but it refuses to budge.
I glance over my shoulder. He’s nearly all the way down.
Shit.
I dart to the other end of the stage right before he gets there, staking my hopes on the last door available, but that too is locked. But it doesn’t make any sense. Unless it was locked from the inside out.
My bones suddenly feel cold.
He knew I was going to run in here.
When I turn around, there he is, in the middle of the stage, staring right back at me.
A devilish smile forms on his lips.
He takes two more steps.
CLICK.
All the lights have turned off again, and my mind is reeling.
I kneel as my hand dives into my boot, where I keep my only weapon; a small knife my mom once tucked into my hand and told me to keep with me at all costs, no matter where I go.
But how do I fight my enemy if I can’t even see him?
I breathe in and start walking away from the door. I have no choice but to move. He’ll find me if I don’t. So I slide past some seats and try not to make a sound as I head back up the stairs to the only remaining door.
I slip on one of the steps.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I can hear his hard steps moving up the stairs right behind me.
Two hands wrap around my ankle.
Shit!
I immediately swipe the knife left and right behind me, and the blade cuts through his arm. He hisses and retracts his claws as I swiftly crawl to my feet and jerk the handle of the door in front of me, to no avail.
All the doors are locked. There’s no way out.
I run to the opposite end of the hall and bolt down the steps there, back to the stage. There has to be another door, right? Somewhere, anywhere—
Suddenly, an arm wraps around my body from behind, and a knife slowly slips underneath my chin.
“Don’t move or my knife will taste your precious blood,” he whispers into my ear. “Now drop your knife.”
CHAPTER 13
Aspen
It takes me a few seconds to decide whether I’m going to cut him or do as he says.
“Don’t even think about it. You’ll be gushing blood along with me.”
Shit. He’s got the upper hand here.
The knife falls from my hand and clatters on the wood, and he swiftly kicks it away, out of sight.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I already told you. I’m the ghost that haunts your nightmares.”
God, even when all he does is whisper, it still makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because of how unholy it feels.
I try to glance over my shoulder, but he abruptly adjusts his position and pushes the knife further against my throat, until I can feel it when I swallow.
“Don’t look. You look at me, and it ends right here.”
I suck in a breath through my teeth. “What do you want?”
He breathes into my ear. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
My entire body shivers as his arm tightens around me, fingers digging into my skin. “I don’t—”