Chapter 15 #2
All the options we have on this floor are limited to open and common areas where we can’t use a locked door to escape from him.
To prove my theory, I rattle the rooms’ doorknobs in hopes of getting one of them open, but none of them budge.
Either the Thetas have gotten the memo to lock their rooms for parties or Cupid is an evil genius.
“The rooms are all locked. Where else is there in this house?”
Carmen knits her brows together as she thinks. “All the houses have similar layouts. Theta, Delta and Kappa are the biggest ones, so they have two wings.”
“What else?”
“Each floor must have a common room or lounge area.”
None of this is helpful. We don’t need another open room where Cupid can chase us. We need a place to hide until everything is over, a place where we won’t be found as easily. Like a secret passage, a closet or . . .
“The attic,” I mumble. “Did Theta keep the attic while they were doing renovations?”
Carmen’s eyes light up with recognition.
“Yes! They love to use it for seven minutes in heaven,” she says, her voice shaking with a hint of excitement. Of hope. “You get to it through a storage closet.”
This is our chance to gain an advantage. If we can get to the attic without alerting Cupid, I can hide Carmen and then find Cerys and Danny. It might not be enough for us to escape this place, but we just need to stall long enough for people to figure out what’s going on in this horror house.
Carmen directs me along the corridor until we reach the lounge room.
It’s empty and it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here.
Perhaps Cupid hasn’t allowed them to get this far into the house, or people haven’t thought about it.
It doesn’t take us long to find the storage closet.
It’s messy and crowded, but I squeeze in and pull down the ladder to the attic.
Unfortunately, we can’t keep the ladder down with the door closed.
It doesn’t matter.
Not now, when all I care about is making sure Carmen is safely hidden.
“You go first,” I say, gesturing to the stairs. “I’ll keep watch here.”
My sister nods and stops pressing the now soaked bra to her wound, so she can use both arms to climb up the stairs. It takes her longer than it would if she wasn’t injured, but I don’t rush her, I simply watch her in admiration. I don’t know if I could handle a stab wound so stoically.
“These assholes don’t clean up here,” she complains, coughing as she gets fully into the attic.
I follow her up swiftly until I can stand on the floor as well.
She’s not wrong.
Theta uses the attic as if it were another storage room.
Full of boxes and crowding the AC units with their clutter.
I’m pretty sure it’s a violation of the attic regulations in Florida, considering the high temperatures in the summer.
I can’t complain now when it serves as a better hiding spot for Carmen.
At least she can rest against the boxes without having to lie down on the floor, so I’ll take it as a blessing in disguise.
“You can pull up the ladder now,” Carmen says, pointing at the entrance with her chin.
I feel my throat closing around itself.
“I can’t,” I say, dropping my gaze to the floor so I won’t have to face her expression. “I have to find Danny and Cerys.”
Carmen groans out. “Don’t do this, Mabel.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” she refutes with a hint of desperation marking her words. “It’s stupid to continue to put yourself at risk.”
“I owe it to Cerys,” I tell her. “You wouldn’t understand—”
“You’re right,” Carmen cuts me off. “I don’t understand, because it’s idiotic. There’s no way you’ll come back to me in one piece. I got stabbed while you were running,” she reminds me, motioning to her wound. “Do you think you’re invincible?”
I shake my head. “I know I’m not,” I snap. “But there’s a lot you don’t know about Cerys. She’s been through a lot, and I owe it to her to help her. She’s my best friend.”
“And you’re my sister!” she exclaims as if it trumps my own claim.
In many ways, it does.
I truly understand what she means. If I could, I would stay here in the attic with her, where it’s safer.
But I can’t. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to explain why, and even if there were, I couldn’t find an eloquent way to string them together.
While I’m a talented screenwriter, I’m not really great with spoken words.
They don’t come to me clearly on the spot, rather I have to polish them over a series of edits until they can convey the message I want.
I don’t have that kind of time or luxury. Especially when it feels like I’m wasting precious minutes that I could be using to find my friends.
Pressing my hands over my eyes, I try to come up with a way to make Carmen understand that I’m not going after Cerys and Danny because I’m some sort of martyr.
I don’t see my life as something I can easily exchange for them, but my conscience wouldn’t let me live if anything happened to Cerys because I was too much of a coward.
After everything we’ve been through, I can’t fail her again.
I can’t abandon her in the midst of this chaos.
I don’t think she would forgive me if I did.
I would never forgive myself. So even if it scares me to death, I have to try to find her, because I wouldn’t be able to live if I didn’t do everything in my power to help the ones I love.
“Carmen,” I start, but the words get trapped in my throat. “I have to go, but I promise I’ll come back.”
Now I feel like a liar, because I can’t guarantee I’ll make it back to her. Well, I don’t need to be in one perfect piece, I simply need to be alive. Just alive. It doesn’t matter how bad my condition is as long as I’m breathing and holding on to consciousness.
Danny made the same promise to me earlier, I realize.
Was he lying too? Was it something he said because he knew I wouldn’t let him go unless he did?
Somehow, the words rang true when they came from his lips.
Unlike me, Danny isn’t unreliable. His nature is always noble, going to any length to keep his word.
I’m sure he meant it when he swore that he would come back to me.
What if he made it back to the room where I left Zelda, looking for me, only to find me gone?
But I made sure not to make a promise I couldn’t keep when he asked me to not be a sacrifice. If it’s for Carmen or Cerys, there’s no other choice.
Slowly, I lift my gaze from the floor to meet my sister’s eyes. Her expression is twisted into a snarl, lips curving in disgust.
“You’re a bad liar, Mabel.”
“I know,” I admit. “But I swear I’ll do everything in my power to come back to you,” I vow, making sure to inject as much sincerity into that statement as I can.
To add more weight to my words, I curl my fingers, letting the pinky rise in the air between us.
Carmen lets a tear fall down her cheek and she mirrors my actions, linking her pinky with mine.
“Now it’s an unbreakable promise. You know I’ll fight like hell to come back to you. ”
Carmen throws herself at me, wrapping me into a clumsy one-armed hug. A pained moan is muffled into the crook of my neck as she wishes me good luck on my journey.
I press a kiss on her hair and make sure she’s keeping up the pressure on her wound because it has started oozing blood again.
The last thing I want is to find her bleeding out when I return, so I don’t move until she’s doing it.
I begin to make my way down the ladder, knowing I’m throwing myself back into danger.