Lights Out

Right now, she was standing with Brinley near the window, talking quietly, one hand gripping the younger woman’s shoulder. I tuned in and out as I gathered mine and Brinley’s stuff, trusting Tanya to know all the right words to use as she coaxed Brinley back from the brink.

“You did so well,” I heard her say. “And I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass to make you feel better. I’ve seen other nurses with more experience freeze up during nights like this, but you kept your shit together and did what you had to.” She turned to me. “Back me up, Aly.”

I slung Brinley’s bag over my shoulder and joined them. “She’s not lying,” I said. “You crushed it, from what I saw. And it’s totally normal to break down a little afterward. All that adrenaline built up too high, and your cortisol levels probably went bananas. There’s no shame in disappearing into a miniature stress coma. I still do it, too, on really bad nights.”

Brinley paled. “I thought tonight was really bad.”

Whoops. Time to backtrack.

“It was,” I said. “I just meant I didn’t see the worst this time. I think you and Mallory did.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Oh. Okay.”

Tanya turned back to her. “Now, Aly’s gonna give you a ride home. Her shift is over, too.”

Brinley looked between us. “But my car is here.”

Tanya nodded. “Yes, but we don’t think you should drive right now.”

Brinley seemed to see the wisdom in that. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I checked your schedule. We’re both on shift at the same time tomorrow, so I’ll give you a lift back. You parked in the employee lot?”

She nodded.

“Your car should be fine there. Do you need to get anything out of it?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so?”

Tanya plucked the tea from her hands. “Then you two should get out of here while you can.”

“Thank you,” I mouthed at her.

She nodded.

It wasn’t uncommon to get roped into a few more hours of work if you loitered too long after your shift ended because someone always needed an extra set of hands or more people were required to help stabilize a patient. Brinley wasn’t in any shape for that, and I’d been here four extra hours already. It was time to go.

I steered Brinley toward the exit, and we took the back way out to avoid running into anyone else. She was quiet as we walked but looked much better than when I first saw her, so I took that as a good sign.

“Do you live with anyone?” I asked her.

“My boyfriend,” she said.

“Is he home right now?” I didn’t love the idea of leaving her alone if he wasn’t.

She nodded. “He is. I texted him at the end of my shift before I sat down, and, well. You saw.”

“Talking about it helps,” I told her. “I’m not sure if your boyfriend is squeamish, but telling him about what you went through tonight could get some of it out of your head.”

“I’m not sure,” she said, her voice laced with indecision.

“You don’t have to go into detail. Just the basics. And I put my number in your phone along with the therapist line, so you can always call me too.”

She shot me a relieved look. “Thank you. I don’t think he’d get it. You know?”

I nodded. I did know. Unlike Brinley, I was single…ish, but even when I had partners, I didn’t talk shop with them. I never dated seriously – I was too career-focused for that right now – and talking about a bad day or how sad it was when I lost a patient felt like the kind of thing you saved for a significant other. Mostly, I spilled my guts to therapists or other nurses, and from the look on Brinley’s face, I could tell she would be the same. Civilians, as we called non-healthcare or emergency workers, didn’t get it a lot of the time.

We chatted more on the way home about safer topics like the latest TV show everyone was watching to distract ourselves from the night we’d had. By the time I dropped Brinley off at her townhouse, the sun was starting to rise over the city, glinting off the distant high-rises and painting the clouds a macabre ombre that ranged from the deep purple of new bruises to the arterial red of freshly spilled blood.

God, I’m morbid this morning, I thought, pulling my eyes from the sky.

I’d spent so much time trying to help and then distract Brinley that I hadn’t processed my own shitshow of a night. There was a guy who’d gotten stabbed three times, a woman with a broken wrist, bloody nose, and a guilty-looking husband who wouldn’t let her speak for herself, and a two-year-old with RSV so bad he had to be med-flighted to the children’s hospital.

The worst was the homeless man with frostbite. Not because it was an extreme case – his frostbite was relatively mild, and he’d keep all his toes – but because no one else in my rotation wanted to go in his room because he smelled so bad, complaining loudly enough in the hall outside that he probably heard them. It both broke my heart and pissed me off, so I sent the others running and took care of him myself.

Those were the kind of cases that stuck with me now, not the overly gory ones, but the sad ones. I fixated on them. Where was that man’s family? Were they looking for him? What about the woman being abused by her husband? Would she be able to get out before he hurt her again?

My drive home passed in a blur as these thoughts filled my head, and before I knew it, I was pulling into my driveway. The street was dark enough that my house was lit up by twinkling string lights. It was well into the second week of January, but a few of my neighbors still had their holiday decorations up, so I wasn’t rushing to take mine down. Seeing those lights flashing merrily in the pre-dawn gloom was precisely the kind of pick-me-up I needed – anything to keep the darkness at bay.

I turned my car off and got out. My house wasn’t much, just a small two-bedroom craftsman-style cottage in a semi-safe neighborhood, but it was all mine, and I was damn proud of the work I’d done fixing it up and putting my unique stamp on the place. The siding was an antique pale blue-green, the trim was a warm white, and the small front deck looked festive and inviting thanks to the holiday-themed welcome sign and the Christmas tree that sparkled with tinsel and decorations.

Inside, it was just as merry. I didn’t have any family left that mattered, and decking my house out top to bottom in seasonal décor was how I distracted myself from the depressing fact that I either spent the holidays alone or working every year.

A loud yowl split the air as I closed the door behind me and kicked off my shoes.

Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. I did have Fred to keep me company. He must have been fast asleep on my bed when I walked in because his yowling started farther away and then rose in pitch and volume as he raced toward me, like an ambulance screaming down a highway.

Man, he’s loud when he’s angry, I thought. If he kept this up, my nearest neighbors were going to start thinking I hurt him.

“Oh my god, Fred,” I said as my long-haired black and white cat raced around the corner. “You’re fine. I’m only a few hours late this time.”

I scooped him up when he reached me, turning him onto his back so I could bury my face in his fluffy belly. My mom called this “fur therapy” growing up. She’d come home from a long day of work, and before saying hi to Dad or me, she’d head straight to a cat and snuggle them until they started to squirm. It always made her feel better, so I’d done the same thing to Fred since the day after he showed up in my yard, a half-drowned kitten crying to get out of a storm. I didn’t know if it was because he was so young when I started doing it to him, but he tolerated fur therapy pretty well, purring and making biscuits in my hair.

I probably would have seemed like a lunatic to non-cat people, but I didn’t give a shit. On principle, I didn’t trust anyone who didn’t like cats, so they’d never be around to judge me anyway.

I set Fred down once I’d gotten my fill, and he trotted behind me as I headed into my room to change. You think I’d be tired after such a long shift, but I was wide awake. Probably because I’d learned how to fall asleep at the drop of a dime, and I found somewhere to take a five-minute power nap whenever there was a lull. The hospital had been weirdly quiet from midnight to one, and I’d slept for a whole hour. Tanya told me one of the floor nurses – someone who worked on a higher floor in a specialty unit – had commented about it being slow when she came to pick up lab work, which jinxed us. ER nurses knew better than to say things like that.

I showered, changed into the coziest pajamas I owned, poured myself an oversized glass of white wine, and snuggled up with Fred on my couch. I had half a mind to turn on the TV and zone out for a while, but I hadn’t checked my phone once during my shift, and those social media notifications were calling.

Giving in to the inevitable, I pulled up my favorite app and started scrolling. There were the expected videos of cute animals doing cute things, people acting like idiots and getting themselves into trouble, storytimes about exes, and muscular people posing in gym mirrors. But more than anything else, there were thirst traps. Specifically, thirst traps of men wearing some sort of mask. My obsession with them started at the beginning of autumn when this subgenre of videos rose to the spotlight every year, thanks to horny book lovers and lusty lurkers like me.

With one hand, I scratched behind Fred’s ears. The other was busy smashing that like button for videos of men dressed in cosplay, decked out in futuristic military gear, and even a few sporting full horror movie costumes. I saved my favorites for the ghost-like masks, though. The shirtless ones had me drooling. Add in a knife and some fake blood, and that was an instant follow.

My absolute favorite creator was a user with the handle “the.faceless.man” because he had everything I loved most: a custom mask that was unlike anyone else’s and was as sensual as it was terrifying, muscles, good lighting, exceptional music selection, and an innate understanding of how to reel the viewer in and keep us begging for more. I had a whole favorite section devoted to his videos, and I routinely went back and rewatched them whenever I needed a distraction after a bad shift.

Like tonight.

I drained the last of my wine – damn, I completely lost track of time when I scrolled – and got up to pour myself another round. Fred jumped down from the couch and curled inside his little felt house by the TV, having reached his snuggle limit. I checked his food and water in the kitchen – both were still mostly full – and emptied the last of the wine into my glass. By the time I finished it, I’d be half a bottle deep.

Yup, I’d be tipsy soon and hopefully tired. I only had ten hours until my next shift started, and I desperately needed to catch up on all the sleep I’d missed during the usual holiday uptick at the hospital.

I tugged a blanket over myself as I sat back down, then pulled up my videos of the Faceless Man, as I’d taken to calling him. It was hard to pick a favorite, but if someone held a gun to my head and told me I had to, it would be the one where he was sprawled out over a couch, shirtless, his head resting on the arm, the scene flooded by red light. He was only visible from the ribs up, his skin covered in tattoos, muscles clenched as his arm moved in a rhythmic motion that suggested he was jerking off but didn’t go far enough to get him banned.

I never knew where to look when I watched it. At the way his biceps tensed and flexed with every stroke? Or how his chest heaved like he was on the brink of coming? Or just off-screen, where I could imagine his hand pumping his straining cock?

He started the video staring up at the ceiling. Toward the very end, he turned his head to stare directly into the camera, and even though I knew a mask couldn’t have an expression, it felt like his did. Like those gaping black eyes stared straight into my soul, and that smirking mouth was calling my name while he came. The video cut off right after he turned his head, and it was embarrassing how many times I’d paused it right before that happened so I could stare into those eyes a few moments longer.

What would it be like to be in the room with him when he filmed it? To be the one he thought of while he got himself off? Or better yet, to come home one day and find him taking up this very couch as he waited for me in the dark, covered in blood, light glinting off the steel of his knife?

That thought made me shudder with a mix of desire and fear. I wanted it in a way that probably wasn’t healthy, but after all the ugly shit I’d seen working in the trauma center, and even before that in my fucked-up teen years, it was only natural that my tastes were starting to skew heavily toward the dark side.

Maybe Tyler will wear it for me, I thought.

Right, Tyler. The guy I’d been hooking up with for almost a year now.

I’d nearly forgotten about him. It wasn’t that he was forgettable exactly – he was good-looking and a decent lay – but when work got busy, I tended to lose myself in it, and that had been happening a lot because of the hospital’s staffing crisis.

When was the last time we hooked up? It must have been before Christmas, at least. Meaning it was far past time for a booty call. Tomorrow was my last shift of the week, and then I had two glorious days off. What better way to spend them than spread out under a man who knew where a clit was?

I drained my wine, feeling high on the possibility of experiencing a masked man in real life. Before I could think better of it, I screenshotted an image of my favorite video and sent it to Tyler along with a text.

I have two days off starting Friday. Wanna come over that night and bring a mask like this? I promise I’ll make it interesting for you.

His response didn’t come back until a few hours into my shift the next day because he’d been asleep like a normal person when I sent my text.

My heart sank as I read his words.

Damn, girl. You still alive? I thought you ghosted me. It’s been two months. Pass on the mask thing. I’m not into it, and I’m seeing someone anyway.

Two months? Had it really been that long? I scrolled up in our text thread, and, shit, it had. Maybe it was time to book another therapy session and ask if they had any tips for balancing a personal life alongside this line of work.

Because clearly, I was failing.

Chapter 2

Josh

You good, man?” I asked my roommate. We’d paused our video game five minutes ago so he could text someone, and I was getting bored.

Tyler flopped onto the couch next to me. “Yeah, just had to break things off with that girl Aly I was hooking up with.”

I frowned. “I thought you ended it months ago.”

He shook his head and ran a hand through his dark blond hair, flexing his bicep and turning to check his muscles out.

“Knock it off,” was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t anyone here for Tyler to impress, but he’d been vain as long as I’d known him, and he posed even when he didn’t realize he was doing it. It was almost like a nervous tic at this point, so he must have been more bothered by the Aly situation than he was letting on.

“I thought she ghosted me,” he said. “But she probably got busy at work again.”

I turned toward the TV and tried to act natural. “She’s an ER nurse, right?”

I already knew the answer to that, along with several other facts like her address, where she’d gone to nursing school, what kind of grades she got, and what her current work schedule was. You know, normal things people knew about their roommate’s ex-hookups.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “I don’t hear from her for two months, and then look at the shit she sends me.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and tossed it to me. I caught it out of the air and glanced down, freezing the second my eyes landed on the screen.

Oh, fuck.

It was happening. The day I’d dreaded since starting a secret social media account two years ago had finally arrived. My online life was colliding with my real one, and I was about to be found out.

Play it fucking cool, man, I told myself. Tyler was watching me, and I couldn’t let him see how freaked out I was. But, fuuuck, Aly had a mask kink, and of all the screenshots she could have sent my roommate, she chose this one.

I cleared my throat. “You never said she was into this kind of thing.” Which was weird because Tyler had a habit of telling me every sordid detail of his sex life, even though I’d begged him to keep it to himself.

He snorted. “I didn’t know she was, so it’s good I’m seeing Sarah because I’m not. I just want to get in, get off, and get the fuck out. I’m not down for playing games.”

How unfortunate for the people he slept with.

“I hear that,” I lied, tilting the phone toward me as if I were inspecting the picture, and, whoops, there went my thumb. “Shit. I just accidentally deleted the text.”

Tyler shrugged. “It’s fine. I don’t need some shirtless dude on my screen.”

Some shirtless dude, I thought as I handed the phone back. So, he hadn’t looked at the picture too closely because if he had, he would have recognized the tattoos. My tattoos. A girl he’d slept with had sent him a screenshot from one of my videos, and I’d be laughing if not for the fear of discovery and the adrenaline roaring through my veins.

“You ready?” he asked, lifting his controller.

“Sure.”

He unpaused the game, and we went back to shooting at everything that moved. I tried to focus on the split screen before me, but all I could think of was that text. Aly wanted to be fucked by someone wearing a mask.

I’d only met her once, but she’d made an impact. It was over the summer, early one morning after she’d spent the night in Tyler’s bed, not sleeping. I’d been awake, too, cursing the weird acoustics of our apartment until I found my noise-canceling headphones and drowned them out with music.

I’d always slept like shit, so I didn’t expect anyone else to be up when I finally threw in the towel and went to make coffee several hours later. Tyler’s door cracked open right after the machine beeped to tell me it had finished brewing. I’d half turned, expecting my roommate, only to see a woman instead. A tall woman, which was unfortunate because she was wearing one of Tyler’s shirts, and it barely covered her crotch. My eyes had immediately fallen, taking in her long legs. Tyler met her at his gym, and she looked like someone who regularly hit the weights: thick thighs, toned calves, and from what I could see of her arms, they were just as muscular.

I’d lifted my gaze, realizing I was staring, and instantly regretted it. Aly was hot. Not that I’d expected otherwise; Tyler always dated attractive people. But she was more striking than beautiful, with a pointed chin, full lips that looked like they’d been well-used the night before, a nose my mother would have said was distinctively Italian, and large dark eyes. Her brown hair was a mess, falling to her elbows in loops and snarls.

The smile she’d given me when our gazes locked was nearly blinding. “Please tell me you made enough for two.”

I’d grunted an affirmative and put my back to her.

She’d tried to make small talk with me, and I hadn’t been outright rude or anything, but I’d kept my distance and my face turned away while giving her monosyllabic answers, and she’d fallen quiet pretty fast. To make up for it, I poured her coffee first and set the mug on the counter where she could reach it. Then I’d splashed some into my cup and hightailed it out of there.

Tyler hadn’t told her who I was. He knew better than that, but I couldn’t risk her seeing my face for too long and starting to wonder who I reminded her of. I looked too much like my goddamn father, and that Netflix documentary had just come out about him. It would have been my luck that Aly had seen it.

The whole summer was rough, thanks to that documentary, and I’d barely left the apartment because of it. Whenever Daddy Dearest was in the news, I’d have someone stop me on the street or in the supermarket and say, “I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you look just like a guy I read about the other day.” Or they’d listened to a podcast about him. Or watched a true crime episode that focused on his many misdeeds.

With the documentary came a fresh wave of interest, and I’d been working overtime for months to keep people from finding me or my mom and stepdad. Everyone wanted the exclusive interview from George Marshall Secliff’s surviving family members, and sometimes they went to illegal lengths to track us down. It was why I’d gotten into hacking when I was still in high school. I’d wanted to help the three of us disappear from the internet, and I’d learned everything I could in pursuit of making that happen.

Those skills had paid off in the long run. Now, I worked for an exclusive cybersecurity firm writing code that kept other hackers from infiltrating Fortune 500 companies and stealing all their clients’ money. It allowed me to work from home, with flexible hours, leaving enough time to pursue other hobbies.

Like making thirst traps for all the other mask enthusiasts out there.

The same reason I stayed inside was why I didn’t date much. Even though my hair was darker than my dad’s, and I wore it shorter than his, we looked damn near identical. It wasn’t so bad when I was younger, and my face hadn’t filled out yet. Being a scrawny kid had saved me. Now that I’d grown into my man body and was nearing the age Dad was when he got caught, I was a carbon copy of his mugshot.

One of the first questions I asked the women I matched with on dating apps was whether or not they were into true crime. If they said yes, I blocked them and moved on. I only ever took a chance on the ones who said they hated “all that gross stuff.” On the rare occasions I did meet and hook up with women, it only lasted a few weeks at most. I broke things off when it felt like they were catching feelings or they got that look in their eyes that said they were trying to puzzle out where they knew me from.