The door was locked.

That pissed me off. Even as I reached for it, tried to turn it, and it didn’t budge—I wasn’t scared. I was livid.

“Is that—it that locked?”

I ignored Heather and pounded on the door. “LET US THE FUCK OUT!” One second. “NOW!” When the door didn’t immediately open, I didn’t wait.

Holy hell, here I come. I was about to raise some.

I started banging on the door nonstop. There were no pauses between my fists and my yells. There were no windows down there, or doors, or secret walls. We were locked in a coffin. Okay, it might’ve been a pantry, but it was a coffin to me.

“LET US THE FUCK OUT! RIGHT NOW! I’M NOT GOING TO STOP!”

I banged the hell out of that door. I didn’t stop until I heard a sob from behind me. “Heather?”

“I am scared shitless right now.”

That was enough. My rage and terror switched to resourcefulness. This was a door. Doors weren’t cemented in, unlike the walls below. They had to be added, and . . . I felt along the end of it, finding the frame. That meant they had to be screwed in. No. I had to pull the pins out of the hinges.

“Okay. Heather.” I was going to get this door off, even if my fingers got all cut up and busted. I needed my feet to run, not my hands. “Do me a favor, okay?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I know. I know, but I’m going to undo these screws, so I might need your help.” I waited. Another pause.

Then, “What do you need me to do?”

“Hold me up, so that I don’t fall. Just brace yourself on a step and dig in. If I start falling, hold on to the rail with everything you’ve got.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good plan.”

“I know, but I’m improvising here.”

“I’m going to murder Logan when we get out of here.”

“That’s good. Murder. Keep envisioning that.”

“I’m going to take that carving knife we used on those pumpkins and I’m going—”

She kept going, but I tuned her out. I had to focus on the hinge pins, and they were in there tight. I cringed, already feeling my skin tear, but I didn’t cry out. That’d alarm Heather. I couldn’t have her scared any more than she was. That wasn’t going to help, so I kept going. The pain was ignored. I felt warm wetness dripping down my hands and knew it was blood. I could smell it, but I hoped Heather didn’t.

When I got one undone, the door sagged, just a tiny bit.

It gave me more momentum and I had to stretch for the second hinge pin. The last was in the middle. I wanted to keep it for last, to help steady the door. Once that was done, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had a few theories, though. My stomach was twisting up at all of them.

Success. I felt the last hinge pin fall free.

The blood was dripping down my arm. I ignored it.

“Okay.” I took a breath.

It was dark. I knew Heather was there, but it was easy to let my imagination run free. It was just as easy to imagine someone behind us, someone sneaking up the stairs, someone that wasn’t supposed to be there, someone who hadn’t been there before.

I shut that down, real fucking quick.

We were almost free. I wasn’t going to let fear stall us now.

“Heather,” I said, reaching for the last and final screw. My fingers were almost numb. They were twisted in there so tight.

“Yes?”

She had been sitting on the stairs, but stood now.

I began to twist and I felt the door becoming more and more loose. “This door is heavy. We’re at an angle. We’re beneath it—”

“When you’re done, it’s going to fall.”

She was steady. Her voice sounded calm.

I stopped unscrewing, just for a moment. “You’re not scared?”

Another snort in disgust. “Fuck yes I am, but you’re not giving up. I won’t either. You’re doing all the work. It’s the least I can do to help you how I can.”

Here was the old Heather, so sure of herself, so strong and confident. Relief surged through me, letting me breathe a bit more oxygen. I felt my lungs fill up. “Okay. Yeah. That’s what is going to happen. When I’m done, this door is going to go. It might even go before that.” And it would plunge down on anyone that was sneaking up to scare the shit out of us, or kill us. Whichever came first. I knew it was a figment of my imagination. No one was there, but still . . . I could’ve sworn I heard a third set of breathing.

My ears were playing tricks on me, just like they had with Taylor’s phone.

I stopped; the screw was almost out. I could pull it out in a few heartbeats. “You ready?”

She grabbed on to my arm, and I heard her tighten her hold on the handrail. “Ready.”

I didn’t get the chance to pull the screw out, or have it fall. The door gave way first. It fell, knocking against my shoulder, but it swung to the other wall. The screw held fast, for just a moment, which stopped the door from taking us out; then suddenly, there was a harsh sound of metal being torn and a loud thud, and BOOM!

The door hinge had torn off, and the door dropped. It hit the stairs once, then flipped and landed on the floor.

I had a stinging shoulder and numb fingers as my reward. Stepping out, I ran smack dab into a chest.

Hands grabbed my arms. “What the fuck?!”

I almost cried out. It was Mason. He’d found us.

* * *

I was sitting on a bathroom counter with Mason standing between my legs. He was bandaging my fingers, while I held an ice pack to my shoulder. Heather sat on the toilet with the seat down. A blanket was draped over her shoulders, and she was resting her elbows on her knees. When Mason found us, or when I ran into him, he took a page from my book. He started raising holy hell too.

The entire haunted house tour was paused. Lights were switched on, and Logan ran to find us.

We were bundled up and swept into a bathroom, and that was where we were now.

“I swear to God, Sam. I didn’t do this.” Logan sent someone to the store to grab a first-aid kit. He’d begun pacing while he waited for them, and once it was brought up, he’d been pacing back and forth in the bathroom ever since.

I glared around him. He went past where Mason’s back obstructed my view and I moved my head. I wanted to maintain constant glaring status. I loved Logan. He was family, but I was beyond livid.

I snapped, “Bullshit.”

“I didn’t.” His hand hadn’t moved from the top of his hair. He was pulling at it. “I mean it. I told the guys to show you to the basement as soon as you got here. I didn’t even know about that room. The door—” He stopped.

When they flicked the lights on, a large hole stood before us, but when we looked down, I felt new chills. The door looked exactly like the rest of the kitchen’s walls. It was a secret door, secret room. The whole thing was camouflaged, and if I’d been in the kitchen during daylight, I would’ve walked right past it like Logan was saying he had.

I had no idea how we’d found it, but we had.

I believed him, of course I did, but I was scared and I was mad, and I wanted someone to blame. Logan was throwing the party, so he got the brunt of it.

I wasn’t alone in the glaring. Mason was doing his share, and Heather hadn’t stopped. She was almost camouflaged under the white blanket someone found for her. Some of her pink mane was sticking out.

“That guy did it, then. He told us to go down there.”

“What guy?”

“The one with the chainsaw.”

Heather added, “Chainsaw asshole. That guy.”

Logan didn’t say anything. He stared at me, then Heather, then Mason.

My stomach dropped again. I was getting tired of this sick feeling.

But. I had to ask.

“What?”

He exchanged another look with Mason before his eyes found mine.

He said, “There is no chainsaw guy.”