Page 73 of Your Masked Haunting

My Mona: It’s not you, is it?

My Mona: Casper, please answer me

My Mona: I’m going to call the police if you don’t stop

My Mona: I’m so serious

My Mona: This isn’t a joke anymore!

Two more missed calls.

My Mona: Cas, please hurry

One missed call. One voicemail.

I’m grabbing my keys, turning on my heel and storming out of the locker room while I lift my phone to my ear, listening to the voicemail.

Pure terror rings true in her voice, and it sounds like the phone is far away, only giving me a few clear words every sentence.

“Just … calm … don’t … okay … stop—” She screams, the bloodcurdling agony slicing through the phone and straight through my heart. “Please!”

Footsteps pound on the ground, like someone running into weeds or … corn. She’s in the corn maze.

Fuck!

My legs are moving as fast as they can as I race toward the parking garage. It isn’t until my passenger door opens and Kol slides into the seat as I start the engine that I realize I’m not alone.

I don’t say a word as I throw my car in drive and peel out of the garage, Bates’s pickup right on my tail. My knuckles are white as bone as I grip my steering wheel for dear life.

She’s fine. She’s totally fine. And if anything, whoever this is should be fearing for their life once she remembers how strong and brave she is.

Please be okay.

I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to her, if a hair on her head was misplaced. She is fucking everything to me, and I can’t live without her. As dramatic as that sounds, I mean it.

An idea appears in my mind, and I throw my phone at Kol, ordering him to, “Open my surveillance app. Find the backyard. Mona called, and I think someone’s trying to hurt her.”

I zip onto the freeway, Bates still behind me, and I speed, weaving through the cars, racing to her.

Kol clears his throat, anxiously searching through my phone. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get to her.”

“Fuck!” I smack my hand on the wheel as a call comes through my Bluetooth—Finny. “Hello?”

“What’re we walking into?” he asks, not bothering to wonder what the anger and panic is for or if flying down the freeway at a hundred miles an hour is worth it. He just shows up, ready to back me.

I fill him in, giving a bit more detail than I gave Kol. Not by choice. I just couldn’t get the damn words to stop.

“I’m going to kill whoever is doing this,” I grind out, taking the exit.

“Well, we can afford the bail,” Kol remarks without hesitation. “But that’s what we’re here for—to help you and make sure you don’t spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“Should we call the cops?” Bates asks. “Or do we want to handle this ourselves?”

I do. I want to make sure that whoever is after her never has the opportunity to do it again. But I also know that having the police there will bring an ambulance faster than I can drive her if she needs one. I’d rather the fuckrag live than for her to suffer.

“Call them.”

Ledger’s voice cuts through the speakers, riding with Bates in his pickup. “On it.”