Page 67 of Off the Rails

And I wasn’t going to find out how.

I needed that $20k so I could finally get out of here and start a new life.

Let the games begin.

38

CYRUS

“Ready or not, here I come!” The saloon door whipped open with a crack, nearly knocked off its hinges by the heel of my boot. Two Fright Nights down, and I was done fucking around. By the end of this night, Tess would be mine.

Call it fate, or call it dumb luck, but tonight, I had an advantage: tradition dictated that because it was my birthday, I chose my sector. Not the cards. And if I knew anything about the little snake we were harboring, she would be in the Old Frontier.

But where, exactly?

I moved through the saloon like a bull in a China shop, leaving behind little but splintered wreckage in my wake.

Not here.

I tore through the doorway and back into the cool night, passing from the general store to the train station to the blacksmith with the efficiency of the Grim Reaper.

When we were kids, our foster home Heirs of Promise would take us to Feverpoint at least once a summer; I guess they figured that amusement park rides and cotton candy would make the religious indoctrination go down easier.

And if I remembered correctly, a certain little loner loved the old Western town more than anything else. I could picture her clearly as I stormed toward the mining mountain — a young Tess shoveling down the black “coal” popcorn and begging one of the nuns to buy her a cowgirl hat.

After she’d had such bad luck in the further reaches of the park, my gut told me Tess would pick somewhere familiar. As the hours ticked on though, I feared that giving her a head start had been a mistake.

On top of being more familiar with this sector, Tess was just getting better at this game. Even if I knew exactly which ride she was hiding in, there were dozens of little cracks for her to slip into. But each moment that passed without finding her only fueled the furnace of rage burning in my chest.

She’s mine. She always has been. And after tonight, vengeance will be mine too.

The sky was already beginning to lighten as I crept up the winding service steps of Ground Breaker, the park’s water flume. Oversized plastic minecarts zipped through the water channels that weaved in and out of a giant “mining” mountain.

Fucking idiots who designed this town just Frankensteined together every old west trope they could think of, huh?

Unlike the mountains that overlooked this park, this one was built of foam and plaster. But as stupid as the design was, the execution was impeccable. If I didn’t know this park so well, I’d have believed I was scaling the world's tiniest mountain.

My machete dangled from my fingertips, scraping against the metal handrail with a long, bone-rattling scream. If I could scare Tess enough, maybe she’d slip. All I needed was one little mistake, one little hint of where she was hiding…

“Here, kitty, kitty…” At the top of the staircase, I delved into one of the ride’s many darkened caverns. Animatronic miners and loggers sat adjacent to the stream at every turn.

Once, they’d sang goofy little tunes and strummed fake banjos, but their sound systems had rotted long ago. The cheery songs had long since warped into the deep, garbled mutterings of the devil himself. And I couldn’t help but smirk beneath my mask.

Fitting. This is going to hurt like hell.

Careful to avoid the thick, metal chains that dragged the logs along the river track, I stepped into the water, letting the stream splash around my knees. “Come out, Tess. Let’s play a little game.”

I moved upstream, letting logs whip past me at breakneck speeds as I trudged through the water. It would be harder for Tess to place my footsteps amongst the rushing rapids. Easier for me to catch her by surprise.

But cart after cart passed by without an answer from Tess. Each announced its terminal velocity with a splash of water a hundred feet down. We were suspended right before the big drop — the one that would leave you dripping with water all day.

Tess used to love that; being cooled off for the day. She’d been so sweet and innocent back then. The memory made my stomach twist. I couldn’t think of her like that — so naive and vulnerable. Not if I was going to do what the cards — what her own sins — dictated.

Before the thoughts could consume me, a scuffle sounded across the cavern like an answered prayer. I whipped around, peering through the darkness for my prey. “Ragdoll?”

But before I could place the sound, she was running, slipping out from behind an animatronic badger in hardhat.

“There she is,” I purred. A wicked laugh ripped from my chest, killing my doubt. Feelings, conscience, choosing what was right: those were my constant torturers, trapping me in a prison of my own misgiving.