4. A fucking Catcher in the Rye reference?

4

A fucking Catcher in the Rye reference?

Harkins

" T his overthinking isn't like you." I don't mean to call her out, but if she's worried, I'm worried, and I don't like her being the voice of reason between the two of us.

It's unnerving.

She grabs at the collar of my shirt, her knee grazing my cock over the fabric of my pants like she's unhappy I put it away. "I just worry that I'm gonna make you do something you'll regret. Make you go somewhere you can't come back from."

Her voice is small, her tone unsure. There's something in it that breaks a piece of my heart, a lack of confidence that's nothing like her. Every day for the last year with Camila has been like a defibrillator to the chest, keeping me going when I thought nothing could.

She doesn't get it. I don't know if there's any way I can make her see it. All I can do is try to get her to feel what I feel. She is the moon, my compass, my guide. I was the pathetic professor with an unhealthy obsession with his student. Not even thirty, and I was already burned out from the education system—too young to be taken seriously by any of my colleagues in academia, so when my obvious desire for a student became public, it cost me the respect of every educator in the college.

Still, she was worth the price, and she, unbothered, held her head high the very next semester on that same campus when she became faculty herself. She silenced the whispers with singular looks, and suddenly, I didn't feel so weak anymore.

Camila teaches me that the things that set you free can sometimes feel like a prison at first. It just depends on what you do with the key.

Before her, I was lost. Before her, everything was a dull, Ohio gray. Before her, I was Holden Caulfield walking around that damn pond wondering where the fucking ducks go when it freezes over. Except I'm too old to still be relating to the self-hating rambling of an insufferable teenager, too old to still be drowning in my own cynical thoughts.

I'm still Holden. I hate the world because I hate myself.

She softens that somehow, in moments like this, when she makes it seem like I'm the only thing that matters. I don't have the courage to tell her just how lost I was when I found her, that I'll go wherever she tugs the lead around my neck, just as long as she keeps pulling.

I place my phone on a shelf, reaching for her face with both hands. "I will follow you to the edge of madness, Darkling. Just tell me when it's time to leap."

A wicked smile stretches over her face. "Let's fuck shit up." She's looking at me like she might be finally realizing how much power she holds just by loving me.

"Put her mask on." I shove the body her way before I begin undressing the other guy. Aside from a few clowns and the token zombie, even the haunt actors wear inmate orange, just not as faded as the other ones.

They don't seem like costumes either—the jumpsuits are thick, and the backs read NOCF: NorthEast Ohio Correctional Facility. She already has one on from intake, but I'm still in my regular clothes. She elbows me twice in the stomach as she moves the girl into a corner, so with a singular heave, I finish the effort for her. She turns on the LED light in the mask, the bright pink glowing in the dark.

"Jesus." I take a good look at her. "There is something so fuckable about you in that mask."

She brings her hands behind her back and swivels. "Add it to the shopping cart. This one's gonna be evidence by the end of the night."

"I have another surprise." I finish zipping up my jumpsuit and tossing the guy's body on top of the girl, moving the only thing I brought inside from the pocket of my jeans along with her phone.

I turn around and lift up the props . "They weren't lying."

Her jaw goes slack as I hand her the military flail. She wraps her fingers around the iron bar, the heavy, spiked ball dangling from the chain. Camila's eyes dart back up to me. "I don't think I've ever been this turned on in my life."

I slide the mask up her forehead, catching her mouth in a brief kiss, practically speaking into her lips as I answer, "Just wait ‘till this chainsaw gets going."

She bites her lips down into a flat line, a moan escaping her chest as she tests one of the many spikes on her weapon with the tip of a finger.

"It's gonna be pandemonium out there without power. You know that, right?" I warn her, but she just jumps up and down like a boxer, ready to go a round.

She gives me a singular nod. "I'm betting on it. How long until it's fixed?"

I laugh. "Not tonight. I took the chainsaw to the electric panel."

"The fact you won't let me bang you right now is borderline criminal." Her words are playful, but her tone says she's annoyed.

"Well, good thing we're in the right place then. Tell me the plan, Darkling." We've been here less than an hour, but I know my girl's twisted mind has already cooked something up.

"Start in cell block A. Kill the guards. Release the inmates." She lays it out like it's a grocery list.

"Rinse and repeat?" I ask with a smirk.

"Once it's batshit crazy out there, we go find our boy." She illuminates the real goal of the night.

She doesn't need to clarify who.

"No mistakes," I tell her. She doesn't need more than that.

Camila nods. She understands.

It's an entirely different world outside that closet. With a chainsaw and a flashlight as my only tools, I walk side-by-side with her back into the halls of cell block A. The jailed are like infectious leppers, caged away, moaning and pleading for help, attention, or maybe just to add to the frantic climate.

The tour group is a mess, some rich kid threatening to sue if a guard doesn't take him back to get his things and release him. The guards don't even acknowledge his presence.

That's when I notice it's a different tour group now, ours having already passed us and moved on to the next block.

Good.

It means our absence has gone unnoticed in the chaos. The guards are likely only getting paid enough to keep the inmates from rioting, and with them locked in the cells for the event, I'd bet money on them being fully unprepared for what havoc we're about to wreak.

"There are three I can see on the other end, plus the one directly behind us." Camila's quiet enough that only I can hear.

A gasp from her mouth forces me to turn my head. A pale hand slips through the bars of a cell and grabs Camila's jumpsuit.

"No touching!" the guard behind Camila barks, flashing his light at the prisoner.

She skulks back into the shadowed cell, the guard staying behind a few steps.

"I'll put this one to sleep. You get to the front," I whisper in her ear, giving her a nudge with the blade of my chainsaw.

She's in the middle of the group, almost camouflaged in the orange aside from the mask, but she's making casual conversation with a stranger, as if she has been there the whole time. I turn my mask off, stopping in place and feeling the guard's shoes against the back of my boots.

"Watch it," he snarls at me.

I turn around, an autonomous snort escaping me as I tower over the guard. Must be rough to have to overcompensate. His thumb is already on his holstered weapon, but it's out of instinct, not suspicion. "My bad. Crazy as shit in here." I laugh and lower the chainsaw to the ground, stretching my arms above me.

He huffs in agreement, dropping his hand back to his side as we stand next to each other, watching the crowd. "Shoulda seen them last night during the fake power outage. Buncha yuppies crying for their parents."

"It's part of the night?" This changes everything; we have an advantage we didn't realize we had if the staff thinks the power outage is part of the tour.

"Yup, power will come on in the morning after these rich kids piss their pants from all the ghost sightings." He laughs again and walks ahead of me.

But he only gets one step.

Wrapping my arm over his face, I use my bicep to muffle his shouts while my hand twists his neck. He digs his fingers into my arms, grunting frantically as I lift him from the ground. Nobody turns our way; they're all too loud and self-centered to care. I fight the last of resistance with a good pull, the cracking sound of his neck breaking is one I can almost feel between my teeth.

The guard is limp in my arms, heavier than before as I struggle to get him to the floor without making a sound. I hear a gasp to my right from the darkness of the cell.

Bringing a single finger to the front of my mask, I mimic a "shushing" gesture. Two eyes blink slowly as they come closer to the bars. A pale face makes itself seen as the inmate steps into the light, staring at me with a horrified expression.

I search through the guard's pockets until I find exactly what I need. Lifting the ring of keys into the air, I jingle them from my crouched position. "Wanna play?"

She nods slowly.

"The girl with the other mask like this." I use my head to point toward Camila as I slip the key into the hole. "Help her take out the rest of the guards."

Rotten teeth smile from ear to ear, both hands gripping the iron bars, shaking and rattling them with excitement.

And then, I turn the key.