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They’re not home invaders. They’re victims,Nic shoots back a few seconds later.
They invaded his home. In the original, anyway. They’re sooo home invaders and I’m sure Texas has pretty solid stand your ground laws. I’m making us ‘Leatherface did nothing wrong’ shirts,I can’t help but tease.
Make mine green, she replies, then sends another message before I can reply.Leaving now. See you in 10.
The Field of Nightmares has never been this expansive. At least, it hadn’t been when I was here a few years ago, when I was a giggling, nervous eighteen-year-old. Now I’m still just as nervous, but I do less giggling to make it so obvious.
“I see it’s more than just afieldnow,” I point out, seeing the entrance to the corn field maze near a clearing on the farm where a large projector is set up to play horror movies. Tonight, I see the telltale street that Michael Myers frequents on the screen, and a very young Jamie Lee Curtis dressed in brown, walking down it, talking to someone. The clearing also hosts a huge fire pit and chairs, most of which are filled with other teenagers or college-aged adults drinking cider, hot cocoa, or off-brand bottles of water.
To the left of the field, the old barn that had been empty and closed off the last time I was here, has a sign above one door that saysenter here, and a line of ten or so people waiting to go in. It looks larger than it did, with an area outside made of boards and fences signifying the attraction isn’tjustin the barn.
Excitement pools in my stomach, taking flight like a thousand little birds as Nic parks and I pop out of the car, closing the back passenger door behind me as I stand on my tiptoes and stretch. “I feel like a teenager again,” I admit to Nolan as he comes around the car and zips up his hoodie. “I was so excited every time we came to one of these, remember?”
“I remember you bolting at the first rev of a chainsaw,” Nolan chuckles, giving me one of his kind smiles. Even when he’s joking or taunting one of us, it’s clear he’s too nice to actually hurt anyone’s feelings.
“The barn expansion’s new this year, I think,” Nic remarks, sweeping her hair off of her neck and into a ponytail. “Ticket sales are still over there.” She points to a stand near the empty field dedicated just to parking, where two people stand inside of a small shed-like building behind a low counter. Nic takes the initiative to trudge across the damp grass and I follow, thrilled that we’ve gotten to the farm on the edge of the woods at the best possible time, an hour or so before the sun sets.
“Three adults?” the woman at the shed asks, glancing between us. “Do you want just the field, just the barn, or both? You can add the hayride onto either for ten dollars extra.”
“Do we want to do just both haunts for now?” Nic looks between the two of us and I nod. Nolan shrugs in agreement, forking over his twenty dollars as I do the same. “Just both the field and barn,” Nic says, handing our money to the lady, who nods her head and gives her six tickets that Nic folds up into her pocket.
Again, excitement ruffles my insides, and I clutch my hoodie sleeves in my fingers as a smile grows on my lips. We haven’t done this in too long, that’s for sure. And I love being scared at haunted houses. While chainsaws definitely used to be the bane of my existence, it’s been a few years and a few Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie marathons since then, so I hope I’ll be okay. Or at least, at theveryleast, not make a fool of myself.
But we’re here and all is right with Hollow Bridge this week, so what could go wrong?
That’s the thought in my head as I turn, my lips parted so I can say something about the movie playing on the screen…until all of that flies out of my head at the familiar, curling blond hair and the more familiar laugh coming from the personunderthat hair.
“It’s going to be so fucking fake,” Evan Davids laughs, sliding his arm more comfortably over his girlfriend’s shoulders.
The brunette, Ava York, grins back up at him just as ferociously and says in a voice I’d grown up hearing, “You’re such an embarrassment when you drink, Evan. Shut the fuck up for a minute.”
But it isn’t that sentence that rings through my mind as I stare at them. It’s the other one, the last one she’d said to me before the courtroom. Beforeeverything,with her eyes locked on mine after I’d said that going out on the ice wasn’t going to happen.
Don’t be such a freak, Bailey. Can you at least act normal about this so Daisy has a chance of making friends?
The flash of memory makes all the guilt that I’d tried to push away—the guilt at that sentence being the thing that tipped me into doing the thing that got Daisy killed—pours back into me like boiling acid.
“Shit,” I murmur. Then, taking a step back, I manage to fall to my ass all in the same, unfortunate motion that has more people than I’d like looking over at me.
Including Ava.
Chapter15
Evan turns after her, his gaze on me so I can clearly see the surprise on his face, then the way he tries to hide a grin. His mouth opens, and I know he’s going to say something openly scathing, probably as a remark to Ava, and my stomach twists, hands digging into the soft dirt.
God, I look like an idiot. I brace myself for his words, but before I can do more than grit my teeth, a shape steps between Evan, Ava, and me, and Rory bends down until he’s in my personal space.
He’s not who I’m expecting. And I certainly couldn’t foresee the kind smile on his lips, or the way he reaches out one hand for me, fingers curling around mine when I place my now-scuffed palm in his. “They’re not worth it, Bailey,” he murmurs sweetly, helping me to my feet and holding my hand until he’s sure I’m not going to fall over again. “Don’t worry about what some small town loser thinks about you. He’sreallynot worth it. Have you looked at his eyes? They hate his face so much that they’re actively trying to escape from both sides.”
The insult is so off the wall, so unexpected and rude, that I snort out an undignified laugh and let Rory pull me away from the uneven ground. He reaches out to gently brush my sleeves off, his smile crooked, and when he looks back over his shoulder pointedly, I follow his gaze.
And see Phoenix. He’s prowled over to where Evan and Ava still stand, every inch of him seething with menace as he says something soft with a cruel smile etched on his lips. I have no idea what it is, but when he walks away with his hands shoved into his pockets and doesn’t give any of us a look from his dark eyes, I admire the effect it’s had on the now-silent Evan and unhappy Ava.
She looks at me suddenly, our eyes connecting for half a second before something like indecision crosses her gaze and she shakes her head. It prompts me to drop my gaze to Rory’s shoulder as they walk toward the field.
“Are you okay?” Nic is insistent at my side, but before I can answer, Rory turns to look at her, less than impressed judging by his frown.
“You weren’t going to say anything?” he asks her, rather impolitely in my opinion. “You saw the way they were looking at her.Neitherof you were going to stick up for your friend?” He says it quietly enough that people don’t stop as they stream around us toward the parking lot or the mazes. But I still busy myself with dusting off my leggings and my ass as much as I can while trying not to look embarrassed.
