Page 2 of You Were Warned: Part One

“No, but you slowed down, so it’s the same thing.”

“It is not,” I snap. When will this asshole get the hint?

“You’re right, but I can at least sleep better knowing you’re safe.”

I turn and look at him, but he simply smiles back at me. I swear that stupid red grin of his is one of the most annoying things about him.

“Leave me alone.”

He laughs. “I will when you’re safe.”

“I am so freaking safe right now, and you’re making me late.”

He checks something in his pocket—it might be an actual watch, but I don’t care enough to find out. “You have eleven minutes.”

“That’s not the point.” I roll my eyes, since I have been warned I can’t kill him, or even hurt him.

After everything that happened with the damn Scarecrow, the last thing I need is a trip to the ward. Been there, done that, and have the trauma to prove it. God forbid your fiancé hits you when you question where he has been and you fight back. Clearly that means there’s something wrong with me. I only hope that fucker can never have kids after the damage I caused. I did a public service by stabbing him in the dick, since he clearly couldn’t keep it out of his father’s secretary’s dried-up old cunt. No, I did his future wife a favor if you ask me.

“What’s the point then?”

I don’t answer because I don’t want to encourage this conversation. I have zero interest in this man, and he doesn’t seem to get the memo.

“Have a good night, Vesper,” he finally says, and maybe he isn’t as stupid as he looks. He peels off without glancing back, the sound of his bells fading, and instead I’m left with the silence of my own irritation.

Thankfully, my mood for being here is at an all-time high. I need to get out my frustration, and the best way to do that is to scare the life out of people. If they piss themselves, well, that would be a highlight.

I continue to my location and soon the first group comes past—two women and a man, who have clearly decided staying together is the best strategy. Some people come here to be genuinely scared, others to fulfill a fantasy, and some simply want to be chased and fucked. I let them move thirty feet down the corridor.

I can stalk these halls in the dark and have done it so many times. I know where the dead ends are, where the floor doesn’t creak, and every place where the light from outside comes through a crack in a window.

The man is at the rear, protecting the women’s backs, trying to be brave. I enjoy scaring those men the best—their screams speak to my soul. I sneak up behind them, close enough that I’m ready but not close enough he can feel my presence.

His shoulders tighten when I shift a little closer, and I smirk. When he slowly turns, I’m right there. A sound like a wounded animal leaves his body, and he grabs the arm of one of the women. It makes her scream, and the third joins in as well, until all three of them are backed against a wall, staring at me, and yet I have not even moved or made a sound.

I stare at them for a few seconds, then simply turn and walk away into the darkness as though I was never there. Behind me, laughter echoes through the corridor, and I hear the man say something about his heart.

The second group of the night is a stupid bachelorette party. I’ll give them credit, coming here beats going bar hopping with a list of little dares to complete by the end of the night. My old best friend organized that snoozefest; Pricilla was a great best friend for Lavina, the old me.

Vesper is my surname, and I refused to get rid of it completely after I was exiled from my former life. My father is not a bad man, but he is weak and ruled by my mother. He’s the only one who keeps in contact with me, though it’s only in secret, or he would find himself here with me, and he is accustomed to the finer things in life now. If he hadn’t inherited a shitload of money from a distant uncle, my mother would never have married him, but his poor upbringing was overlooked by my mother’s family who, mind you, are all rich enough to wipe their asses with money and not blink twice.

I was stripped of my inheritance when I was exiled. Yet I would rather pry my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than be subjected to Thomas Morningside the Third’s abuse. My mother blamed my father’s genetics for my unseemly behavior; apparently I was just like his mother, God rest her soul. If I am like my paternal grandmother, then I’m proud—at least I don’t walk around thinking I’m better than everyone else. My mother really needs to remove the gold-plated stick from her ass. Who knows? She might have a personality stuck up in there.

The eight women clad in skimpy clothes, heels, tiaras, and sashes are not quiet as they walk through. I can follow them easily without putting in much effort. They are making dares with each other and betting on who is going to scream first.

I slide into a corner where the corridor bends just before a dead end, knowing they will have to circle back. Two pass by me without noticing me standing there, but the third one pauses.

“Wait,” she says, and the others all stop.

I step out into the corridor. “They will never find your body, just like they didn’t find mine.”

Four of them scream and run back toward the dead end, another rushes past me to join her friends but drops her phone when I grab for her. The two who have already passed me grab for each other’s hands, but one is laughing, so I bend down and pick up the phone and hand it to her. At least one of them has two brain cells to rub together, and she thanks me and runs off after her friends. Rather than following behind them, I turn and wait for the other four to come back.

The first jingle of bells has me closing my eyes. I don’t turn around as they grow louder behind me, each step bringing that irritating sound closer.

“I’m starting to think you’re not that scary after all.”

I inhale slowly through my nose. Instead of stopping, he runs past me, and a second later there are screams as the four women come flying past me, shrieking at the tops of their lungs, and the damn Jester laughs as he stops beside me.