Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Yeah, I grabbed his fucking jeans again with both hands that time and pushed at the middle of his back with my forehead.
To our right there was a nook with a couple of caskets under pale yellow light, and I knew, I knew something bad was going to happen. Why the hell had I agreed to this? Jesus. I’d been to a haunted house before; it wasn’t like I’d enjoyed it all that much.
I was too old for this shit. My heart was too old for this shit. I had so much left to live for.
Zac and I had gotten to almost the edge of the coffin display when this motherfucker came flying out from a trap door that the coffins had distracted us from, and I heard someone behind me yell, “Damn it!”
It was a split second later that something hit me in the back.
While I was taking a step.
I stumbled.
And I felt my ankle just go… sideways.
Yup.
Sideways.
“Whoa-ho-ho,” I screeched, lifting my leg up and wrapping my hands around it, bumping into Zac’s back.
CJ called out from behind, “Sorry! Amari pushed me!”
Something grabbed my shoulder, and just as I was about to push it off, Zac yelled, “What the hell happened?”
“I’m fine,” I told him, not sure if he could even hear me but knowing what he was going to say if he did.
He crouched in front of me, the lights flashing against his face and features. “Did you roll your ankle?”
I nodded.
His mouth went flat under the lighting.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
He looked at the foot I was still holding for a moment, then stood up and turned around.
Zac dropped into a squat position and said over his shoulder, “Come on. Hop up.”
I tried to set my weight down and nope.
“You all right?” CJ asked from behind.
I waved my hand at him. What was I going to do? Take a piggyback ride from him instead?
Nope.
I set my hands on Zac’s shoulders and tried to hop up as far as I could. Those big palms grabbed onto the backs of my thighs, hefting me up higher until I was pretty much straddling him from behind. Over his shoulder, he said, “Remember this, Peewee.”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you,” I said into his ear just as someone jumped out of fucking nowhere again, and I was pretty sure Amari screamed. Someone laughed, and I was glad one of us was having fun, even though I was pretty sure it was the owner having the time of his life laughing at his teammates.
“Hey?” Zac yelled so I could hear him.
“What?”
“Remember that time you said you’d be fine goin’ through a haunted house in heels and rolled your ankle two minutes in?”
I made a face he couldn’t see because mine was right next to his. The short hairs on his face tickled me. “Mind your business.”
I felt him laugh more than heard it as we approached a long length of hallway that was pitch-black. Great. Really, just great.
I tightened my arms around Zac’s shoulders, just in case he took off jogging. I doubted it; he hadn’t screamed so far, unlike my new friends who I hoped were still behind us and hadn’t been murdered. I didn’t want to risk looking behind me to see someone following us, trying to scare me. There was only one thing I could remember ever scaring Zac, and it sure as hell hadn’t been scary movies.
The last time I’d brought it up—a decade ago—he’d still insisted he hadn’t actually been scared and that he just hadn’t eaten breakfast and that’s why I passed out.
Yeah, right.
“You scared?” he hollered as we started down the hall.
“Scared you’re gonna drop me,” I said, even as my heartbeat sped up. I mean, my heart and most of my brain recognized that this was fake and that all these people were actors who wouldn’t even touch us… but the rest of me picked up on the scary music and the chainsaw still going from somewhere coming up ahead….
Well, whatever.
“I’m not gonna drop you, kiddo.”
“Okay,” I croaked into his ear when someone started banging on the other side of the walls we were walking by. “This is so stupid. I should have just stayed home.”
A chin appeared in my vision as Zac tried to glance at me over his shoulder. “We got this.”
“Eh.”
One of the hands on the back of my thighs patted it. “We got this.”
“I’ll poke them in the eyes, and you run.”
Beneath me, I could feel him laugh. “Throw some fart bombs at ’em.”
Pressing my forehead against his shoulder, I laughed. “You liked that, huh?”
“Kiddo, I like everything—goddamn it! Don’t do that!”
I didn’t get a chance to get scared because the actor who popped out of nowhere had appeared on the side of Zac where my face wasn’t. But when he shouted, I lifted my head and looked over to see someone in a creepy clown mask walking beside us, his nose literally inches from Zac’s face. Yeah, fuck this. I closed my eyes and put my face back where it had been, right by his throat that smelled like his nice cologne.