I moved through the chaos like I was born in it, dashing in and out of the strobe lights and fog.
Three teenage girls shrieked as I skidded up behind them, my boots screeching across the pavement with a theatrical flair that I’d perfected over three seasons. I tilted my head slowly, letting them see the black streaks of makeup running from my eyes down to my jaw, and smiled. Not friendly.
I was never friendly during showtime.
“Run,” I whispered, and they did.
I loved this part. The control. That’s what I really craved. Out here, I decided who felt fear and when they ran. The way people’s fear responses were so predictable, so easy to manipulate with nothing but body language and timing.
Ridgeway Park’s Scream Scene nights had been my kingdom for three years. I built my reputation on being the performer who committed hardest to the aesthetic, who never broke character, who could make grown men flinch with just a look. The OG Hunter. The blueprint. Management knew it, the other performers knew it, and most importantly, the crowds knew it.
The Hunters were Ridgeway’s premium attraction. We weren’t your typical haunted house ghouls stumbling around in rubber masks. We were the apex predators of the park, dressed in tactical gear and buckles, faces painted like death, hunting guests and each other through industrial mazes set to pounding music. We were post-apocalyptic soldiers who’d gone feral; dark romance book covers come to life; thirst trap meets genuine terror; the Eric Draven successors for a generation too young to remember the classic incarnation, way before the franchise sucked.
For the last two years, I’d performed with Taylor as my partner. We’d built the Hunters aesthetic from scratch, turned it into something that spawned thousands of TikToks and made Ridgeway one of the most talked-about Halloween attractions in the region. Taylor had been easy to work with. We’d grab beers after shifts, argue about the best horror movies, trade notes on new scare techniques. He’d laugh when I got too intense about perfecting a sequence, and I’d give him shit when he showed up late because his kid had a soccer game.
Then Taylor got a touring gig with a theater company and bailed three weeks before opening night. I was happy for him—genuinely—but it still felt like losing something I hadn’t realized I’d been taking for granted.
Management scrambled to find a replacement, and now I had Ash.
Fucking Ash.
I had wanted to roll solo this year. Just me, stalking the fog alone like some urban legend. Or maybe team up with Simon on weekends when he could spare time from his day job. That would give the crowds their choreographed stage fights without the commitment of a full partnership.
But management had other ideas.
“The Hunters work in pairs,” Parker had said. “It’s what people expect.”
So now I was stuck with Ash.
Ash, who’d been hired two days before the start of the season after a rushed audition and who looked at me like I was supposed to mentor him through every goddamn step.
Ash, who’d been here three weeks and already acted like he owned the place. The one who kept going off script during our choreographed fights and moved through the zones like he was made of violence and bad decisions waiting to happen.
And it was fucking Ash who was currently standing on top of a cargo container, backlit by red floodlights and soaking up the attention like he was owed it.
I’d heard him before I saw him because the crowd’s energy had shifted, their screams pitching higher.
Great.
He was early again, and that pissed me off even more.
His tactical gear hugged him in all the right places—I could acknowledge that objectively, the same way I could acknowledge that a painting was well-executed without wanting to take it home. He wasn’t as large a guy as Simon, but he had me beat on breadth alone. His shoulder-to-waist ratio had a whole-ass following on Instagram, much to my horror, and he’d added more buckles to his costume since last week that flaunted his form. He was copying my style but making it his own, which somehow made it worse.
Someone once said imitation was the highest form of flattery; that person was a fucking idiot.
Ash’s eyes met mine across the smoke and distance. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. More like a challenge.
Then he jumped.
The crowd lost their minds as Ash dropped ten feet and rolled, coming up in a crouch that transitioned seamlessly into a sprint. He was headed straight for my section, which wasn’t part of the blocking we’d rehearsed.
This was dangerous. Not the stunt—he clearly knew what he was doing. But the way my pulse kicked up watching him move and the way something uncomfortable twisted in my chest. That was the real threat. I’d felt this before. That pull toward someone who could get under my skin if I let them. The last time I’d ignored those instincts, I’d spent six months trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild walls that never should have come down.
But that was irrelevant in this competition between us. And I understood competition. It kept things simple and easy to compartmentalize.
Never one to be outdone or outplayed, I tossed the rehearsed routine out the window and moved to intercept his path. The audience wouldn’t know any different.
Ash and I collided hard enough that I felt it in my teeth, and his momentum carried us both backward until my spine hit the brick wall of a snack stand. For half a second, we were pressed together, chest to chest, and I could feel his heart hammering through all the tactical gear and leather.
We were almost the same height, though I put that down to his obsession with thick-soled shoes. I was pretty sure he wore inserts too because he always looked shorter outside of costume. But it was his bulk—that damn shoulder ratio—that made it feel and look like he dwarfed me. Between his shoulders and those thick damn arms, he made his tactical gear look earned instead of decorative. His undercut had already gone to hell, dark strands falling across his forehead in a way that shouldn’t have been attractive but was.
I shoved the thought down hard. Attractive didn’t matter. Attractive was a trap.
“You’re early,” I said, low enough that only he could hear it over the screaming tourists and industrial soundtrack.
His hand was flat against the wall beside my head, caging me in. His pupils were blown wide from adrenaline, and there was a split in his lip from where he’d bitten it too hard during a scare. “You looked bored. Thought I’d help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“No?” He shifted his weight, and suddenly his thigh was between my legs, and this was still technically part of our act—except it absolutely fucking wasn’t. “Could’ve fooled me.”
The crowd was eating this up, phones out, recording every second of what they thought was choreography. I should shove him off. Reset. Get back to the script. Instead, I grabbed a fistful of his tactical vest and yanked him closer, aggressive enough that the tourists gasped.
“If you’re going to improvise,” I said, “at least make it convincing.”
Then I twisted, using his momentum against him, and reversed our positions. He may have been bulky, but I was strong and fast. I was also the veteran; I had tricks up my sleeve he’d never dreamed of.
His back hit the wall hard enough that the air punched out of his lungs, and then I had one hand on his throat and the other on his chest, and the tourists were losing their absolute minds thinking this was staged violence and Hunter canon.
It mostly was.
Mostly.
His eyes were dark and furious, and his hand came up to grip my wrist where it pressed against his throat. Not pushing away, which surprised me. Just holding on, like he wanted to make sure I didn’t let go too soon. It caught me off guard. The normal reaction to a chokehold, even a play-pretend one, was to break it. Instead, he held me there, his other hand gripping my hip so hard it actually hurt.
What the fuck, dude?
Then the asshole hooked his ankle behind my knee and dropped his weight, and we both went down in a tangle of limbs and tactical gear that transitioned into the ground-fighting sequence we’d actually rehearsed.
God, I hated him.
We rolled across pavement that was sticky with spilled soda and artificial fog residue, trading positions like we’d done this a hundred times.
But we had done this a hundred times. That was the problem. I knew exactly how he moved now, could predict every counter, every shift of weight. Our fight choreography had evolved past what Parker had originally wanted from us, becoming something faster and more brutal, and the tourists thought it was incredible.
But I knew the truth. We were showing off to each other. Not them. This was about us and the hierarchy that existed behind the scenes and in the tunnels under Ridgeway Park.
Ash wanted all the glory and the respect of the team without having done the time or the work.
I refused to let him have it.
He ended up on top, which wasn’t how this sequence usually finished, straddling my hips with both hands pinning my wrists above my head. His chest heaved with exertion, black makeup smeared across his cheekbone, and every point of contact between us felt like a burn that wouldn’t fade.
The crowd was chanting something. I couldn’t process what it was and honestly, with how rabid some fangirls were, it was probably for the best.
“Better?” he asked, and his voice was rough from screaming at tourists all night.
I bucked my hips, testing his balance, and felt the exact moment his grip tightened in response. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to make a point. “You’re still early,” I said. “We’ve got six more minutes before the scheduled reset.”
“So, we improvise.” He leaned down, close enough that I could smell his cologne under the artificial fog and sweat. Close enough that anyone watching would think he was whispering threats. “Unless you can’t keep up.”
I twisted hard, broke his hold, and rolled us again. This time when I got him under me, I made it count. My hand went to his jaw, forcing his head back and exposing his throat to the red stage lights and the clicking cameras. His pulse jumped under my palm, rabbit-quick, and I pressed down just slightly harder than necessary.
He moaned.
The sound stopped me short. His eyes were half-lidded, hazy, and that look wasn’t performing. It was real want.
What the fuck.
I shoved myself up and away, breaking contact so fast I nearly tripped over my own boots. The crowd thought it was part of the act, and I did my best to play it straight. I brushed my wayward curls out of my eyes and flashed the audience a wicked grin, then I disappeared into the fog before Ash could respond. Before he could see the shock in my eyes and before this thing between us turned into something that couldn’t be explained away as performance.
I didn’t stop moving until I was near the creepy doll zone, and even then, my heart was still trying to break through my ribs. My hands were shaking.
I had four hours left in my shift, and I was already wrecked.
But this was fine. Everything was fine.
It was just another night dealing with weirdo-fucking-Ash.
