Locked In

27

AINSLEY

Halloween was tomorrow.

I loved the air.

A deep breath filled my lungs as a smile split my face. I tilted my head back, letting the crisp October breeze kiss my skin. It was a lovely day, a day where everything seemed to hum with the rhythm of the changing season. The soft rustle of leaves and distant sounds of the neighbourhood felt like music, calming and filling my heart with a strange, peaceful contentment.

We walked hand in hand down the street, Theon’s fingers wrapped around mine. My heart felt...full. For the first time in forever, everything seemed to fall into place. I had a job practically overnight—one that seemed impossible just a week ago. And this man beside me...I had been cooped up with him since yesterday morning—after he woke me up with his dick inside me—wearing his clothes, refusing to leave his side or go back to my own place. None of us wanted to leave each other, and yesterday had been full of jokes, mostly about his cooking skill, then he said fuck it and made me his meal on his kitchen counter. He’d continued in the bathroom later till I was spent and boneless. I’d fallen right back to sleep the moment my body hit the bed.

So instead of staying indoors and swallowing his cum all day again, I suggested a walk to Ma’am Jeena’s. Of course, Theon followed, not that I was surprised.

As we strolled side by side, his grip on my hand tightened slightly, as though taming the itch to drag me back inside, away from here. He was not totally into the idea of going for a walk, but he’d followed.

There was just something about today, about this moment, that felt right. My heart swelled again with that strange fullness, a sense of completeness that I wasn’t sure I deserved. Maybe this was what it felt like to be happy.

But then my smile faded.

Ahead of us, a man walked in our direction, his slow steps carrying an air of heaviness. It wasn’t just anyone.

It was Mr. Granger. Hudson’s grandpa.

A pang of guilt and sorrow hit me so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of me. My fingers twitched inside Theon’s, and I felt his gaze shift to me, but I couldn’t meet it.

Mr. Granger. The man who had lost his grandson...because of me. Or rather, because I knew who the killer was.

Theon kept walking, and I wasn’t sure I could face him.

But I didn’t think there was an escape route for me because he lifted his head and sighted me, smiling warmly as he neared.

“Hello, child.” His voice had that familiar smooth, low cadence..

“Hi, Mr. Granger. How are you doing?” I managed an innocent smile, but guilt feasted at my insides.

“Great, good.” He stopped in front of us, his eyes landing on Theon. I glanced up at Theon, his face unreadable as ever. He was staring at Mr. Granger with calm indifference, not a shred of remorse flickering in his gaze. It was like he wasn’t even there.

The stare exchange grew awkward, Mr. Granger waiting for him to say something. Clearing my throat, I fumbled for words.

“I heard about him...your grandson.”

Oh, God. Why did I say that?

Mr. Granger’s smile faltered slightly, but he remained composed.

“Yeah, yeah. Real sad.” He nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. “I’m sorry ‘bout what he did to ya that day, been tryna reach out but...”

“It’s fine. I’m not mad. I’m sorry for your loss again.” My voice softened. “How’s the investigation going?” I asked, though I knew I shouldn’t have. I hadn’t gotten over the fear.

He let out a heavy sigh, shifting his weight.

“Well, ain’t goin’ too well. They couldn’t find no evidence to pin the culprit. Witness ain’t see the face proper.” He shook his head, resignation settling in his eyes. “It’s probably those folks he was runnin’ with. Looks like they’re gonna drop it.”

I swallowed hard. “That...I’m really sorry.”

I waited for Theon to say something, even just a nod or acknowledgment, but nothing. His calm demeanour remained intact, completely unaffected by the conversation. Mr. Granger gave Theon a strange look, likely wondering why he hadn’t spoken.

As the man finally waved and continued his walk, I cocked my head at Theon. “Would it kill you to act like you care? He kept looking at you strangely.”

Theon’s lips twitched, not a hint of regret. “Yes, it would.” His voice was flat, unmoved. “And you kept apologising. It was...vexing.”

I rolled my eyes. Why was I even surprised? “You killed his grandson, remember?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he replied, the edge of a smirk tugging at his lips.

I shook my head, trying to fight a smile as we neared Witch’s Brew Café . I was abetting a killer, and here I was, practically grinning about it. How twisted was that?

Suddenly, curiosity got the better of me. “Was my boss your first kill?”

“No.”

The breath caught in my throat. “You’ve killed more than three people?” I whispered, the words barely escaping my lips as I continued walking only because his hand pulled me along.

“My mom was my first.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, rooted to the spot. Theon, however, didn’t even blink as he turned to face me, one brow raised in mild amusement, as if he hadn’t just hit me with the biggest shock of my life.

“Why are you frozen?” His tone was so calm it was unnerving.

“Uh...I’m sorry. I don’t usually hear people casually mention killing their moms,” I stammered, still processing. “You’re joking, right—”

“Not all moms are moms, Ainsley. Some are maniacs,” he said smoothly, without the slightest trace of emotion. “And sometimes killing them is...necessary.” His eyes were so steady, so matter-of-fact, it sent a shiver through me.

Before I could even respond, he tugged at my hand again, and I fell into step beside him.

“So, it wasn’t accidental?” I probed cautiously.

“No.”

“Why?” I hesitated. “If you don’t want to—”

“To save myself.” He cut me off, his voice still disturbingly calm. His fingers brushed along his chest, tracing the long scar that cut across his skin. “If I had not killed her at that moment, I’d have been the dead one. This was her parting gift.”

I swallowed hard, unable to tear my eyes from the scar. It wasn’t from the fall like I’d assumed. It looked deeper, like a knife wound. How did he survive after being split open by his own mother like that? Was he just a kid when it happened?

“Your mind is loud. Ask your question,” he said with a faint smirk, reading me as easily as ever.

I blinked, startled from my thoughts. He was eyeing the umbrella shed in front of the café ahead, but my eyes were on him. I shouldn’t blame him for having the stomach to kill a person, he’d been on the brink of death twice and such things should be expected.

Okay.

I finally found my voice again. “I had no idea. I’m sorry. I thought that scar was from...that night.”

We never talked about that night. It was a black hole, but my curiosity kept pulling me back to it, and I wanted to know how he made it, what happened after, was it then he decided to start tormenting my existence, where he went, who saved him, and just everything he’d been doing for the past six years.

“I fell into the water, so no damage much. Hit my head on a rock in it,” he finally opened up.

My chest grew heavier as we got to the cafe. “How did you...”

“The water swept me to the shore, someone found me and took me to the hospital. Although I don’t know who it was because I woke up a year later.”

As Theon’s words sunk in, it felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. My hand flew to my mouth, muffling the gasp that escaped. His voice had been so calm, so detached, but what he’d just said was anything but. A whole year—he’d been lost to the world for that long, trapped in darkness, while the rest of us went on living, breathing. The thought hit me like a wave, crashing violently in my chest.

I blinked, but it didn’t stop the burning behind my eyes. The tears were already welling up, threatening to spill over. My throat tightened, my heart twisted painfully, and the sadness that gripped me was overwhelming, suffocating. We’d stopped walking, now standing under the café’s shed.

Ma’am Jeena rang the bell inside, waving at me when I looked, and scowling at Theon.

We sat outside. Since he’d fed me the beginning and got me interested, he went all the way in, starting from the part I was most curious about: how he got there just when I needed him.

The ease at which the words flowed out of him made me feel much better. He wasn’t traumatised by the past, just like I wasn’t. I’d chucked everything from that night in one dark part of me, and what the teachers had said back then had helped—it was a hallucination. So I’d pretended it was that, although I knew better.

But Theon never forgot, not when he was in a year-long coma because of it, and the girl that was the cause if it was living life in college. He’d been upset about the fact that there was no police record, leading him to think I left him there on purpose.

When he asked me why I’d been scared instead of relieved when I first saw him after six years, the memory resurfaced, vivid and sharp. I’d been pounding on his door, desperate to break through after I saw him walk out of his hallway, at first thinking he was a serial killer. I’d been scared because I was utterly shocked. I had already written him off as dead—buried that grief, forced myself to move on. Seeing him standing there, alive, in the dead of night, was a true horror. The shock hit me so fast that relief didn’t even have a chance to register. My mind couldn’t grasp it. For a second, I truly believed I was seeing things—a ghost, his ghost, that had come to collect whatever debt we had left between us. It felt like the ground was pulled from under me, and I was left hanging, unable to trust my own eyes.

Relief had come, but it arrived late.

“You two made up?” Ma’am Jeena stepped out of the door with a napkin and a big cup of Vampire Latte. “This is for you, sweetheart.”

I took the cup with a smile, not missing the way she made it obvious she didn’t bring one for Theon. “Thanks, Ma’am Jeena. It tasted really nice the other day.”

The tall, stout, dark-haired woman smiled, her not-so-friendly eyes on Theon. “Mind telling me when you rounded my shop with sad pumpkins?”

Theon turned his head to look at the pumpkins that were still there, now mixed with cruel-looking ones. “You like them, don’t you?”

I choked on the red, foamy latte, dropping it back on the table to hit my chest as I stifled my cough. The way he said that . Ma’am Jeena was probably not expecting that response, her ‘you little shit’ expression told me that much.

I tapped Theon’s leg under the table, his gaze fixed on Ma’am Jeena, staring at her with a face devoid of emotion. A dead, cold face. One he gave to the world, as if flipping everyone in it. If Ma’am Jeena read into it too—

“You have a black soul,” she said, squinting her eyes as they continued their stare.

Okay, here we go. She’s definitely going to bring up her tarot—

“I’ll do a reading for you. Free.”

Right on point. She did that for everyone who came to her café during high school. And she was very good at it. Meaning, there was a chance she’d see that he had killed someone before. Hold on, what if she learned about Hudson? The police wouldn’t believe her, of course, because there was no evidence, but others would, especially when everyone knew how good she was.

“What do you mean?” I chuckled, though my heart pounded in my throat. “He’s literally the sweetest. Did you see my house? What black soul are you talking about?”

She turned to me, her expression serious. “I’ll know when I do a reading. Give me a minute.”

“What?” I laughed outright, forcing it. “No. Look, I saw five people go in just now. Shouldn’t you attend to them, and oh, show them this Vampire stuff you made?”

She lifted her head to look inside through the glass and, sure enough, there were three people at the counter. I had no idea people went in behind me.

She sighed. “I need to get a reliable someone to help me out here. The last six people were thieves. I’ll be back, give me five.”

I nodded. You won’t meet us here . “Take your time.” As she went in, I mentally counted to ten and stood up. “Let’s go. We can’t let Ma’am Jeena do a reading.”

“Why?” Theon tilted his head, getting comfortable, his casualness somehow making me even more anxious.

“Because she might know you killed Hudson,” I leaned down to whisper.

His lips twitched into a smile, his eyes heated as they looked at me. “Ainsley Jenl Hades.”

I gritted my teeth, the sound of my full name on his tongue affecting me more than I could handle. “What?”

“Relax,” he said, leaning in slightly. “Tarot readings don’t work like that. They’re about energies, emotions. No one can look at some cards and just know you killed someone. She might sense something dark, but it’s not evidence. Just vague impressions.”

I rolled my eyes. “Still, let’s go. I’m not risking it. People trust her, and the last thing we need is everyone whispering about you.”

He smiled wider, his voice smooth as ever. “Now, we are on the same page. Hudson deserved what he got.”

I took in a deep breath, glancing inside. “Siding with you doesn’t mean I understand why you did that or accept that you did it. Let’s say this is for me because I don’t want you to end up in jail.”

He was downright amused, clearly enjoying the situation. “Same difference.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling my patience slip. “Let’s go, Theon. Before the whole town knows you killed Hudson.”

He shrugged, not moving a muscle. “I don’t care.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I snapped. “But I do.”

“Why do you care? Oh, because everyone would know your boyfriend killed for you?”

My mouth opened and closed, lost for words. Boyfriend. Of course he was. What was he if he wasn’t?

“You’re red. I bet if I went inside your panties, I’d find you wet for me.”

My stomach tightened as I looked around, hoping no one was too close to hear that. “That was very loud.”

“So I’m right.”

“Theon, why are you—what were we even talking about? Right, if Ma’am Jeena ends up bringing out her cards, I’ll kick you in the groin.”

He nodded, finding it appealing. “And you’ll suck me off later.”

I was burning up. And I was mad it wasn’t out of anger but rather with something that made me start feeling different between the legs. I thought I was sore with all the fucking yesterday.

“Fine. I’m leaving you here.” I turned around, and he was behind me in no time. It wasn’t until we were far enough from Ma’am Jeena’s that I let my shoulders drop.

“That is the end of your ‘walk’, right? We’re going back to bed.”

“Yeah, I—” My ringtone interrupted my response. I brought my phone up to see it was a video call from Jade.

“Hey—”

“Surprise!” Jade, Laura and Katy screamed, their faces filling my phone screen.

I sucked in a sharp breath when they raised the phone higher to let me see where they were. My front door.

“What are you girls doing here?”

“Uh, we just said surprise,” Laura chipped in as Katy started talking.

“We’re here because one, we’re going to celebrate your new job overnight.”

Yeah, I told them that.

“We brought our things,” Jade quickly said. My mouth was yet to close.

“Two, we’re attending the Fright Fest Frenzy tomorrow night because Laura got invited. A lot of people we know from school will be there. Why didn’t you tell us about it?”

“Y'all owe me one.” I heard Laura say.

“Fright Fest Frenzy?” Someone mentioned it in the café one time. Not just one person. Most young people were talking about it and what they would wear. “We’re going to dress in costumes? But I don’t have any.”

“Oh, girl. Like we didn’t know. We came fully prepared for you.” Laura took the phone from Katy and turned it to show me the white car parked in front of my house. “You have a lot to choose from. And where the fuck are you? Your door is locked.”

I sent Theon who didn’t seem to be enjoying our conversation a sidelong glance. His plan for us to stay in bed had just been dragged through the mud.

“Going for a walk,” I said, flicking the camera towards him briefly.

“Holy shit,” Laura mouthed and handed the phone over to a smiling Katy.

“I can’t wait to see the rock on your finger, Katy. How did he let you leave his side?”

She giggled. “I’ll be leaving by Saturday anyway.”

“Take your time with your walk, okay? We’ll be here waiting. Also, your place is jaw dropping. I bet these decorations look fire at night.” Jade collected and spun the phone to show me my front yard.

“Right. That’s what I’m thinking.” Laura was crouched next to a plastic witch’s cauldron, fiddling with one of the small skeletons that leaned against it.

“Okay, well. We’ll see you when you get here. Regards to...Theon,” Katy said, then cut the call.

I slipped my phone into my pocket slowly, a little apprehensive. “That was very...impromptu.”

When I looked up at Theon, I immediately regretted glancing his way. His expression was a thundercloud—eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line, and his jaw clenched so hard I half-expected to hear a crack. The sleepover my friends had just planned? It was clearly the last thing he wanted. His plans for us today—involving staying wrapped in each other, undisturbed—were shot. What was worse? They’d be here until Saturday. And there was no way I’d leave them in my place alone to stay with him. I wished I could, but I couldn’t do that to my friends, and he knew. Definitely why he wasn’t convincing me.

“You’re going to the party?” He looked down at me.

“Yeah, of course. You’re coming? You should.”

“There’ll be a lot of sweaty assholes there, and I’m keeping my promise about killing anyone who touches you, Ainsley.”

He was dead-ass serious.

“That’s why I said you should come. No one will touch me if we’re together.”

He stared down at me for a long moment, his dark eyes narrowing slightly as if he was weighing the consequences of stepping into a room filled with people he’d rather not deal with.

“Fine,” he said finally, his voice a low growl. “But if anyone so much as looks at you wrong, they’re out. You know that, right?”

I couldn’t help but smile, even though it frightened me. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Before I could say anything else, he pulled me into him, his arms sliding around my waist, firm and possessive. I tilted my head up to meet his gaze, and there was that familiar intensity—like I was the only thing that mattered in the world to him.

My heart pounded in my chest as I rested my head against his chest. I was truly happy, a rare feeling that made me feel lighter than I had in years. The thought of him being there at the party with me...it was oddly comforting, even though the possessiveness in his words should scare me. It did, but it made me feel secure more than it scared me.

We walked down the street together, and I couldn’t help but laugh softly, my mind drifting to the absurdity of imagining him in some ridiculous Halloween costume. He’d probably wear a mask. Although he didn’t need one. He was already terrifying enough.

I looked up at him, a soft smile still on my lips. “I’m really happy you’re coming.”

He glanced down, his expression softening just a fraction. “I’m only going because I hate the thought of you surrounded by horny men.”

“Same difference,” I teased, biting my lip to hold back a grin.

He smiled, and a laugh broke out of me.

Yeah, I was happy.