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SLOANE

THE GIRL WHO WANTED TO BE CHASED

I spent most of my life being the woman no one worried about. The responsible daughter. The dependable friend. The girlfriend who never asked for too much and pretended not to notice when she received too little. I learned early that people liked me best when I was easy. Easy to understand. Easy to please. Easy to forget.

So I smiled. I behaved. I swallowed every inconvenient part of myself until even I began to believe the sweet, careful woman reflected in the mirror was all there was. She wasn’t. My fantasies were never sweet.

They began as fragments—faceless men, dark rooms, locked doors. Being chased through the woods. Being captured by someone strong enough to overpower me but controlled enough never to truly hurt me.

I didn’t want my consent taken away. I wanted to trust someone enough to hand it over. There’s a difference most people don’t understand. My last boyfriend certainly didn’t. We were together for two years before I admitted what I wanted. I waited until we were in bed, naked beneath the sheets, with his arm resting around my waist. I told him I wanted to try restraints. A blindfold. Maybe a chase through the house where I would pretend to run and he would know I wanted to be caught.

He laughed. Cruelly. Then he asked what the fuck was wrong with me. I told him nothing. I made a joke, changed the subject, and pretended the humiliation didn’t matter. Three months later, I ended the relationship. He told everyone I left because I was afraid of commitment.

The truth was worse. I left because staying with him meant spending the rest of my life apologizing for wanting more. Afterward, I started learning. Not experimenting recklessly. Learning.

I read about boundaries, safe words, aftercare, risk awareness, and the difference between surrender and abuse. The more I learned, the more I understood that my desires didn’t make me broken. They made me honest. But knowledge was easier than action.

I could complete anonymous questionnaires. Browse private communities. Save dark fantasies on my phone. I still couldn’t make myself step through the door. Then my friends brought me to Blackwood Farm last Halloween. The ordinary attraction was harmless enough. Actors jumped from the corn. A fake corpse dropped from a tree. My friends screamed while I laughed hard enough to cry.

But beyond the public maze stood another gate. Black iron. No decorations. No smiling employees. Only a sign:

Private Event. Invitation Only. Adults 21+

My friends kept walking. I didn’t. Something waited beyond that gate. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it watching me from the corn. For one strange moment, every hidden part of me went quiet.

“Maybe next year,” I whispered.

I didn’t expect the darkness to hear me. Eleven months later, a black envelope appeared beneath my apartment door. There was no return address. No explanation. Only a photograph of the Blackwood gate and four words written across the back:

We never stopped waiting

Inside was an application more detailed than anything I had encountered. Limits. Fantasies. Medical concerns. Safe words. Aftercare preferences. Every question told me the same thing:

You can want this safely.

I completed it three times before submitting it. On my final attempt, I stopped answering as the woman everyone expected me to be.

I answered as myself. I wanted three men. I wanted masks. I wanted to run until my lungs burned and feel powerful hands drag me into the darkness. I wanted fear without danger. Surrender without violation. I wanted to scream until the dead beneath the churchyard knew my name. I wanted to cum so fucking hard that I squirted enough water to grow the stalks taller for next halloween. When Blackwood Farm accepted my application, I packed an overnight bag.

I told myself it was practical. A change of clothes. Toiletries. Something comfortable for the drive home. That was another lie. Some secret part of me knew I wouldn’t want to leave. For twenty-six years, I had been the good girl. On Halloween night, I tied three red ribbons around my wrist and entered the maze. Because I was finally ready to be caught.

RHYS

THE MAN BEHIND THE REAPER

Control is not cruelty. Cruel men lose control. They shout because they don’t know how to command a room. They strike because they cannot control their anger. They use fear because respect was never offered to them willingly. I learned that from my father. He called himself the head of our family.

What he meant was that the rest of us spent every night studying his face, trying to determine which version of him had come home. My mother learned how to lie with a smile. I learned how to listen. The way his keys struck the counter told me how much he had been drinking. The weight of his footsteps warned me whether I should keep my younger sister upstairs. The silence before his anger was more dangerous than the yelling that followed.

I became good at reading people because the alternative was letting someone get hurt. The night I turned eighteen, I put my father on the kitchen floor. He swung at my sister. I caught his wrist. For the first time, I understood that I was stronger than him. I also understood how easily strength could become brutality. I wanted to break every fucking bone in his hand. I didn’t.

I held him down until the police arrived, then packed our belongings before sunrise. My sister went to live with our aunt. I kept moving. Blackwood Farm was supposed to be temporary employment. Callum’s grandfather needed someone to repair fences and handle security during the Halloween season. I knew nothing about haunted attractions.

Callum knew nothing about speaking to people. We made an effective pair. He could build anything from wood, wire, and nightmares. I could turn his dangerous ideas into something people could experience safely. Dante arrived later and somehow became the laughter neither of us knew we needed. None of us shared blood.

That made our loyalty a choice. Chosen family means more to me than the one I was born into ever did. When we created the private hunt, I established its rules. No intoxicated participants. No surprises involving unapproved acts. No assuming silence meant yes. No ignoring a signal because someone appeared to enjoy themselves. Consent before the mask. Consent during the scene. Care after it ended. Callum designed the maze. Dante designed the temptation. I created the boundaries that allowed both to exist. The Reaper came naturally.

He is silent because he doesn’t need to raise his voice. He watches because people confess more through their bodies than their mouths. He takes control because control, offered willingly, can become a form of safety. Women look at the skull and expect death. What they receive is certainty. Then Sloane’s application arrived.