Page 19

He works one finger beneath the edge of the knot and pulls.

Nothing.

“I’m pretty sure this makes me Halloween royalty.”

His head lifts.

“Which means you should probably bow.”

Again nothing.

“You could at least pretend to be impressed.”

He looks back down and tries the knot again, but the ribbon refuses to budge. A whistle cuts through the maze causing him to freeze. Three short bursts, sharp enough to carry over the music. Another whistle answers somewhere farther away.

His head snaps toward the sound then back to me.

Whatever playfulness existed between us disappears.

He grabs my shoulders. Not rough enough to hurt but hard enough that my smile falters.

“Okay.” A nervous laugh slips out. “What’s happening?”

He points behind me, toward the direction I came from.

“Go back?”

He gives me a quick nod.

“Why?”

He points again, more urgently this time.

“You’re really committed to the silent thing, huh?”

He releases me and steps past me, staring down the row.

I follow his gaze.

There’s nothing there… just corn and fog, the occasional wash of red light bleeding between the stalks.

Then something moves farther down the path, a shadow slips between one row and the next.

The masked man beside me goes completely still.

“Another Reaper?”

His head snaps toward me and shakes it once.

No.

For the first time tonight, something cold crawls slowly up my spine.

Not fear.

Not yet.

Just the sudden awareness that he isn’t fucking around anymore.