The house was insane.

People were lined up out on the front sidewalk, waiting to get in. There were tombstones on the lawn, with mechanical ghosts popping up from behind and screaming before going back down. As we pulled up, some girls who had just joined the line screamed and fell down after the first ghost. If I hadn’t been buzzed, I would’ve too.

Heather scrambled out. “That’s awesome.”

I raised my eyebrows at Mason as I climbed out. He was dropping us off, then parking somewhere else, and, knowing Mason, he’d be jumping over some backyard fences in a shortcut to the party.

He shrugged. “Don’t act like you don’t know him. He’s your brother too.”

“He was yours first.”

I shut the door and saw Heather’s raised eyebrows.

“What?” I moved around her. “Yes. I went there.”

“Not your best retort.” She started beside me.

A few people grumbled when they realized we were cutting, but my glare shut them up. No way was I waiting in line for Logan’s party. The three guys who were trying to keep some order started to hold up their hands to stop us. “Really?” I clipped out, and we were shown inside. They opened the doors and stepped aside.

The inside was just as impressive.

It was dark inside, with a single lit-up path leading down a hallway. The first room was covered in goo. I tried telling myself it was probably just pudding, but it felt disgusting. We went down the path and hands shot out from somewhere to grab our ankles. I screamed, then kicked out. A muffled curse came next, but I wasn’t grabbed again.

That didn’t last long.

We had to go past another set of rooms. I heard screaming, so I was ready ahead of time, but when we got there, there was no preparing. The lights on the path turned off, and we had to stand still. I grabbed on to Heather, and she held me back. Neither of us spoke. We both knew we had to just endure this.

Then suddenly a light flashed, and a body hurled toward us.

“AHH!” I screamed. I couldn’t hold this one in either, and I jumped on top of Heather.

“Oomph.” She caught me, but looked up. “Are you serious?”

“Carry me. Be my Mason.”

“Fuck that.” She tossed me off. “You got legs. Use ’em.”

What she was saying made sense, but my knees weren’t accepting it. They were knocking together and I was about to drop to the floor. I grabbed on to her, holding myself upright. “I’m going to kill Logan.”

“Me too.” But she held on to me and we moved forward, like two grannies looking for their dropped dentures somewhere.

The third room wasn’t bad. We walked on crushed eggshells. Not a lovely feel, and they didn’t sound the best either. The fourth section was a hallway. This one had zombies, and yes, they chased us. I punched one. I wasn’t discriminating. Anything that came at us was getting hit. I’d never signed a disclaimer.

“I’m suddenly realizing why your knight in shining armor didn’t come with us,” Heather cursed, her hand clenched around my costume. “That fucker bypassed this for the real party.”

We could hear bass music somewhere. I was assuming the basement, but we had to get there. I sighed. “Why didn’t I think of wearing our night-vision goggles to this thing?”

Heather stopped. I ran into her.

As I bounced back, she whirled on me. “You have night-vision goggles?!”

“Logan’s . . .” And yep, I was cursing myself again. He probably had them with him. He was probably wearing them. He was probably right behind us.

Acting on a theory, I punched the air behind me.

Nothing.

“What are you doing?”

I turned back, lifting my shoulder up. “Had a hunch. Didn’t pan out.”

She grunted, and we were told by a loud booming voice, “PROCEED, UNDERLINGS.”

I jumped again, flicking my middle finger up. “Fuck you.”

Heather snorted in laughter, but we edged forward again, practically wrapped around each other. She laughed, muffling it by pressing her mouth into my shoulder. “We’re really embodying our costume. Two ends of a horses’ ass.”

“Shut up.” But I was laughing. “And it’s a farting unicorn costume.”

“Is there really a difference?”

“Pastel colors and glitter? We could glitter these assholes later.”

“I’m down for that.” She raised her voice as we bypassed one more room, and someone lunged for us with a bloodied chainsaw. “We’re going to fart glitter on you! Back OFF, CHAINSAW ASSHOLE!”

The guy did, holding his hands up. The chainsaw was attached to him by a strap. “Hey. Just doing what I was told.”

“We’re friends of Logan’s. We want the shortcut to the basement.”

He grinned, his face a grotesque green and bloody red. “Like we haven’t heard that before.”

“Hey!” I was in his face, shaking my finger. Heather was right behind me. “I’m Logan’s stepsister.” I wasn’t above dropping names in this situation. “I fuck Mason Kade.”

Heather’s head popped out. “And I have a weird sisterly friendship with Logan.” She paused. “I don’t fuck Mason Kade. I don’t even really talk to him. Full disclosure.”

He held his hands up. “It’s hard to recognize you with the whole . . .” he gestured to our costume. My black hair was covered by the white costume. “You know.”

“Where’s the basement?”

He pointed further down. “You’re almost there. When the line cuts right, go left. There’s a back door to the basement there.”

“Traitor!” someone called from behind us.

Heather glanced back. “You want us to fart glitter on you too? We’ll come back and find you. It will happen, trust me.”

The voice came back. “If the door sticks, just pull a little harder.”

A second person said, “What a wuss. It’s fucking glitter. Seriously?”

The first one retorted, “That shit doesn’t shower off of you. You’ll be wearing it for two weeks. Real turn-on when you’re trying to get your dick sucked later.”

Heather yelled back, “Okay. Thank you. We don’t need to hear about your future date aspirations.” Her hand tightened on my arm. “Let’s go.”

The line went right. We did as instructed, finding a doorknob and when the door swung open to reveal pure darkness, I said, “Hold on.” I felt the wall around us until I felt a light switch, and flicked the light on. Voila. Stairs appeared before us. We hurried in, shutting the door, but we left the light on. I was guessing we’d been told the back way into the basement party. There should have been more lighting.

“This place is freaky as fuck.”

I nodded. “Good on Logan’s part, huh?”

We got to the end. I was looking for another way out, but there was nothing. We’d stepped into a cement room. I couldn’t even see bookshelves, or under a wall or anything. It was three cement walls around us, and I looked behind the stairs—nothing there.

Chills went down my spine. “Heather . . .”

“That asshole set us up.”

I started to push her back to the stairs. “We should go upstai—”

The light went out, plunging us into darkness.

“AH!”

“AH!”

We both started screaming, and we didn’t stop.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO?”

I sagged against the wall. I didn’t know, but I stopped screaming. My voice was already starting to hurt.

“Phones. We have phones.”

“You’re right.” I could hear the relief in her voice, and felt her reaching for her pocket—then she froze. “Fuck.”

“Fuck?” I was feeling for mine too. Nothing. Both of my pockets . . . I didn’t have pockets. Neither of us had pockets.

“We gave them to Mason in the car.”

I hadn’t wanted to run the risk of losing mine, so I’d handed it over. Heather had followed suit.

I finished her train of thought. “Because our costume doesn’t have pockets.”

We both paused, then said together, “Shit!”

Okay. Fine. We could improvise. I began feeling the wall. “We need to go back up. Just follow this back to the stairs and we’ll go u—”

Something clicked.

It wasn’t the lock.

But it sounded like it was.

And it sounded like it came from the top of the stairs.

I wasn’t going to let myself think that way. No one would lock us in.

Heather’s voice hitched up. “What was that?”

“Um.” My mind was scrambling in the same rhythm as my heartbeat. It wanted to pound its way out of my chest. “I . . .” had no idea.

It most definitely was the door upstairs. The chainsaw asshole had done this. He was probably following orders, just like he said. Logan might’ve said, “Hey, if two chicks try to cut the line, send them to the other basement.” Then that guy might have been like, “Sure, no problem.” And he had. He’d lied to us, instead of helping us.

I’d make Mason hold him down so I could stick our glitter up his real asshole.

And none of these thoughts were making me feel better. I felt ready to puke, if anything.

Heather was shaking behind me. I grunted. “Aren’t you always the tough one in our duo? You’re the unicorn’s brains.”

“Give me a bar brawl, and I’m there. Give me ‘locked up in a dingy serial-killer basement’? Fuck no. It’s all you. This is your expertise. You grew up with the psychopath.” She patted my arm. “Get to it, prodigal psychopath. Lead us out of here.” Fear put edges in her tone. She whimpered. “Please.”

I groaned. She wasn’t helping me. “I’m not a prodigal psychopath. My mom was a psychopath, I’ll give you that.” I started edging forward. The steps would appear again. “But I’m not a prodigal anything. If anything, I’m a running prodigy.”

She snorted. “Or a prodigy at screwing Mason Kade.” Her voice went up a notch. She mimicked me, “‘I fuck Mason Kade.’”

I laughed with her, some of the tension easing now. “Shut up.” I edged further ahead, using my hand to feel the wall. We came to the end and I felt the bottom of it with my foot. When I felt the stairs, I sighed in relief. “It was supposed to strike terror in that guy.”

“Yeah. Didn’t happen.”

“Here.” I took her hand and guided her around me, showing her where the handrail for the stairs was. “Feel that? Just hold it tight, and we can go back up the stairs.”

“What if that sound was him locking us in?”

“Then . . .” I was hoping that wasn’t the case. “We’ll break that bitch down.”

She groaned, falling in line behind me as we started up the stairs. “Why don’t I have a good feeling about this?”

My hand held on tighter to the railing and I muttered under my breath, “Welcome to my life.” But we were going up and we were getting out of here, whether or not that door opened.

I was ready to raise holy hell.