Page 196 of Stay Scared

Owen lowers his hand and leaves the feed live.

Rook enters the frame behind me, giving the audience a clear view of the distance between us. He lifts Ash’s old mask.

“You dropped this.”

“It wasn’t mine when I dropped it.”

“It isn’t yours now.”

“I took it from Ash.”

“Ash offered you everything because he thought sacrifice could buy permanence.”

My fingers close around the edge of the next doorway. “What did you do to him?”

“He tried to take the radio.”

“Did you stab him?”

“The carriage stopped badly.”

Ash caused the crash.

I turn toward the red-room approach with Rook following.

“You told the audience Cade changed.”

“I told them what he did.”

“He watched you run toward danger.”

“He listened.”

“Owen is broadcasting your fear.”

“He’s doing what I asked.”

Rook picks up his pace, and I match it.

The emergency screen changes to an old route map with the red room marked ahead and a second point moving through an interior service passage.

Ash is taking the route Mark traced for him rather than following any tracker, and the passage leads exactly where I need him.

Rook sees it too. “You’re taking me toward Ash.”

“I’m taking you toward a room you think belongs to him.”

“He has no controls.”

“The house stopped belonging to controls hours ago.”

I reach the red-room door.

The first time I came here, someone dragged me through it.

Now I open it myself.

Portable red light floods the room.