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“They were singing about a slide?” Mack asks, baffled. “Isn’t that the song that the Manson family claimed inspired their murders?” She flinches. She shouldn’t have brought up murders. It’s an opening to a path into Mack’s past, and Ava will take it. This is why she never talks, why Ava is dangerous as more than just competition. Mack drifts to the side. She’ll walk away. Easy.

Ava links her arm through Mack’s, snagging her and keeping her moving forward. “Weird, right? Though to be fair, those slides definitely look murdery.” As easy as that, Ava closes the opening, leaving Mack’s past safely sealed away as they walk in silence.

At last, they get to what looks like a flat concrete pond. Like everything, it’s a ruin of its former self, its smooth surface now pitted and cracked, green stabbing its way upward to the sun, slowly but surely reclaiming everything. There’s a shade structure built over the rusted uniformity of the bumper cars, and though it sags in the middle like Mack’s roof did, it seems solid enough. Better than that, it’s latticed metal thickly embroidered with ivy. Ava’s right. If they’re up there, they’ll be able to see down, but no one will be able to see up.

If something comes again, rooting with that horrible wet sniffing noise, padding softly with feet that sound like no feet Mack has ever heard, it’ll be a simple matter of turning their heads and pressing their eyes to a gap in the ivy.

Or not. She could choose not to look. She could fill her head with imagining what’s causing those sounds, live with it every day and every night for the rest of her life, but never know for sure. She has experience with that, at least.

Mack boosts Ava up first, and as Ava disappears over the top of the structure, Mack has a moment where her stomach drops. Ava could leave her. Settle in safely, forcing Mack to scramble to find a new hiding place.

If she were smart, she would do exactly that. Mack is half turned, already resigned, when Ava’s face pops over the edge. “Seems stable enough.” She holds out a hand.

Mack takes it.

Ava is right. The structure groans in complaint, and they’ll have to be careful to stay as still as possible, but it doesn’t feel like collapse is imminent. They settle close to the edge, where it’s supported the most. This spot is better than Mack’s, anyway, with massive overhanging trees providing relief from the impending assault of the sun. They might not have to cover themselves with the blanket at all.

Mack sets up carefully, meticulously, anything she might need in easy reach. She didn’t shower last night, not after the bonfire, and she regrets it as she can smell a hint of her body and the smoke, but above the ground like this with a healthy breeze she doubts any human could smell it.

Ava settles in next to her, so close their bodies have barely a rumor of space between them. As the sun cracks the horizon, breaking open the tedium of the day ahead of them, Ava whispers, “If Jaden doesn’t get out today, I’ll beat the shit out of him tonight.”

It’s not a comment on Mack, or her past. It’s not a question, or a demand. It’s an offer. An intimacy. Ava has her back.

Mack shifts slightly away.



* * *



—

It’s still predawn when Rebecca finds the old carousel. There’s something unnerving about the whimsical animals, once brightly painted, now chipped and faded to the wood beneath. She knows it’s wood—she knows it—but with the twin ruin of rot and sun bleach, her brain tells her she’s looking at bones, tortured and impaled in place forever, gruesome horrors of life.

Actually, she kind of loves it. It looks like a movie set. She can feel the camera behind her, taking in the view with her, letting the audience reach their own conclusions about what waits in the middle of the carousel, lurking in the shadows. Don’t go in, she almost hears them saying.

The hairs on the back of her neck rise, and she rubs her arms, though the slight early morning chill is already evaporating. No. Not a horror movie. Doubtless with her food allergies, a horror movie would find some really terrible, traumatic way of killing her. As if she hasn’t imagined asphyxiating nearly every day her entire life. As if her allergies are a plot gimmick and not a very real, constant source of everything from inconvenience to incredible pain and fear.

Not horror. A rom-com. She’s inherited a dilapidated old amusement park from a distant uncle. No. An estranged parent, so there are more emotional complications. This is her first tour, and she’s aghast at the state of it. What’s she supposed to do with a broken-down amusement park? Never mind that her fondest childhood memories took place here, the last time she spent a happy summer with her father. (Mother? Father. Paternal estrangement is less painful than maternal estrangement. At least for audiences. She finds both plenty painful, herself. But back to the movie.)

Now she’s going to turn around and run right into a man in a flannel shirt. Jeans that fit snuggly on a perfect ass. Sturdy boots, needed-to-shave-three-days-ago stubble, gruff voice, vibrant eyes. A contractor! Hired by her father before he passed! But why would she invest more in the park? Unless it means spending time with those vibrant eyes…

A stray breeze groans through the carousel, like the last breath pushed from dead lungs. No. This is not a rom-com set. This is a zombie movie set.

Focus, Rebecca. She steps into the carousel. It looks like the panels in the center are split apart. If she tries, she can squeeze inside. Bonus to not having her C-cups yet. Those would definitely get in the way.