10. Dahlia
The doorto our hotel room clicked shut behind us, the sound like a blade chopping down on a throat. Final, echoing the closure we desperately sought but could never truly find. My body hummed with the remnants of adrenaline, each cell of my flesh screaming for rest after running from the restaurant, unsure if Sam was right behind us. The old frantic prey animal emotions that had lived within me as a child had come back full force. I needed to hide. To disappear.
“Christ,” Drake muttered beside me, his voice as worn down as the leather of his boots. I turned my head to catch the glint of the lamp light on his sweat slicked skin. “I don’t see how this is possible.”
We staggered farther into the house, both of us sending furtive glances at the windows and doors, our limbs leaden with fatigue and our minds fogged by the terror of the night.
“He was there, Drake,” I said, my voice hissing out as though we were in a library, scared to speak up. “He watched us. He watched us kill Marco, he watched us fuck, hell, he may have watched us shower.”
“I know,” Drake said as he double checked the window locks. “We’ll figure it out, though. I’ll figure it out.”
He gritted his teeth in rage. I could see by the look on his face that he’d rarely ever been on the opposite side of this. He was the stalker, he was the hunter, not Sam. This change of position had confused and angered him. I wouldn’t want to be Sam if Drake ever got ahold of him. It would indeed be a bloody and painful day for that man. The thought, even through my fear, was exciting.
I grunted, my voice nothing more than a husk of sound. “Do we run again?”
Drake shook his head. “No running. Not yet anyway. If we keep running, we’ll never be able to figure this out. We stay, at least for a bit.” His eyes widened in surprise. “Shit. Turn the TV on. See if there’s anything on the news. Someone at the restaurant may have called the cops. Fuck. Sam probably even left the jump drive or whatever he used. The cops could have it right now, analyzing our faces. If that’s the case, running won’t work anyway.”
A leaden weight dropped into my stomach as I grabbed the remote and turned the television on. He was right. For once, I had to hope and wish that Sam was one step ahead of us and the authorities.
The television clicked on and the languid sound of Italian newscasters filled the room, a stream of foreign syllables that didn’t require understanding. It was all background noise, a drone of incomprehensible gibberish. I didn’t give a damn about what they were saying anyway. All I could do was stare, open mouthed as our faces flashed onto the screen. My heart jerked, a frantic beat against my ribs, as I lowered myself to a chair to stare at the all too familiar contours of our likenesses broadcasted across the room.
“Fucking hell,” Drake cursed under his breath. “I was worried about this.”
We didn’t need to comprehend the language to grasp the gravity of our visages being paraded before us. There was something perverse about seeing ourselves framed by the sleek graphics of the news channel, something obscene in its normalcy. Like it was every day that you were being talked about on a European TV channel, the news anchors describing all the awful things you’d done.
“Is there anything in English?” Drake asked.
“Uh, hang on,” I muttered and clicked the up channel button.
Nothing happened at first, then after a short delay the channel finally changed. It showed a nondescript news desk and a woman sitting behind it; her big blonde hair and gaudy make up almost enough to distract me from what she was saying, but not quite.
“Drake Gorman and Dahlia Belrose,” the woman said in a British accent, “are thought to be traveling together, in a coastal region of Southern Italy. Both are considered armed and dangerous. The United States authorities are working in close conjunction with Interpol as well as the Polizia di Stato of Italy to track down and apprehend the two fugitives.”
“Jesus,” Drake hissed. “Which channel is this? BBC?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, and frowned as I tried to change the channel, but nothing was happening. Batteries, maybe?
“The two are thought to be involved in the murder of prominent businessman Marco Laurent also known as Marco Sevantes this very evening. His home was found ablaze not long after sundown, and his charred body along with what appears to be another male were found on the scene. Marco is survived by his wife who was not home at the time. Not only that, the two fugitives also fucked like two sadistic little rabbits while they murdered Mr. Sevantes, like the whores they are.”
I blinked in surprise and shock at the words. Surely I hadn’t heard that. They couldn’t say things like that. Not on the news. Drake took a heavy step toward the TV, a look of understanding and rage filling his face.
“Do you see it?” Drake asked. “It’s her.”
I looked at the screen again. Her who?
The anchor shuffled some papers and grinned at the screen. She continued talking about our crimes and the awful things we’d done. That was when it clicked. I looked behind her, and the stage wasn’t exactly what it had first appeared. Instead, it actually looked more like a shitty hotel room that had been set up to look like a news desk. In fact, it looked identical to the supposed stage of the Italian news broadcast. When I looked at the anchor again, I had to squint to see what Drake was talking about. When I finally saw it, the remote dropped from my fingers, clattering to the floor. The hair was a wig. The voice deliberately pitched and accented to sound different, the makeup thick and caked on with heavy contouring, but once I knew what to look for I saw it.
“Bri?” I gasped.
“That concludes our report,” she said, and looked off camera. “Back to you, Owen.”
Bri glanced at the camera once more, and winked before the screen went dark.
“She’s alive,” Drake said. “She’s fucking alive.”
“What does it mean? She didn’t look hurt or anything. How did she survive the fire?”
Drake had begun to pace the floor, head down, in thought. “I think,” he said, “I may have misjudged Bri. It looks as though she may have been much more unbalanced than I’d initially thought. That, or the events at the playhouse sent her over the edge.”
“Huh?” I gaped at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Drake pointed at the television. “Did she look like she was being forced? To me, that looked like a woman who was well prepared, confident, and ready. No jitters, no hesitation, not even a shaking hand. That is not a person who’s worried she’ll get shot or stabbed if she fucks up, that looked like a woman who is working with someone.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She wouldn’t.”
Bri and I had never really gotten along. I’d had a weird relationship with all my housemates, but the one thing we’d all had in common was a deep and searing hatred for Sam. She’d never have willingly helped him.
“There’s no way she would help Sam,” I said. “She hated him. We all did.”
Drake nodded, and a bitter smile flashed across his lips. “True. But Sam was a known enemy. As you well know, sometimes pain can become pleasure, and with pleasure comes affection. And the one thing that can make affection turn to hate? Betrayal.”
His words were like a slap in the face, and I knew he was right. If Bri had discovered that Drake had been in league with Sam the whole time, she may very well have agreed to help him. It had been hard for me to overcome the betrayal I’d felt for Drake and his game he’d played. Even a few days ago, I’d been contemplating whether or not I could stay with Drake. I had a true connection to him, what would someone who didn’t have that emotional connection think?
“I changed my mind,” Drake said. “We need to get out of here.” He pointed at the TV. “That feed was sent directly to our room. They could already be in this compound.”
“How? There’s guards and stuff.”
“There’s always a way,” he said. “Grab your things.”
We leaped into action. Our go bags were always ready, a lifeline in moments just like this. I snatched mine, the weight of it a comfort against the uncertainty of our next steps. Drake did the same, movements swift and sure as we prepared to dissolve into the night once more. It was becoming a well-rehearsed habit.
“Do you think he’s coming for us tonight?” I said.
“Can’t be sure,” Drake admitted. “Looks like he’s enjoying fucking with us for now. But at some point he’s going to make a move.”
“Let him come,” I said, my blood singing with the promise of violence, my skin itching for the caress of blood. “Let that bastard taste his own blood for once.” The anticipation of the hunt curled within me, an intoxicating mix of dread and desire.
Drake looked at me, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Really? You aren’t scared?”
“I’m fucking terrified, Drake. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hunt this fucker down and pull his guts out while he screams.”
Drake put his hand behind my head and pulled my face to his, kissing me hard. When he pulled back, he grinned at me. “Dahlia, you do know how to make my dick hard, don’t you?”
Owen thought he could toy with us, but the game was about to change. He’d see just how deep our darkness ran. We were the embodiment of the horrors he sought to wield, but our shadows danced to no one’s tune but our own.
With each step toward the door, I felt the pull of the chase, the savage joy of survival. Owen may have set the stage, but we were the masters of our own fates, our lives inked in blood and lust, not fear.
Drake pulled open the kitchen drawer and pulled two long knives out, handing one to me. He held the handle of his in his hand, the blade tucked against his forearm, the tip pointed toward his elbow to keep it hidden but ready. I slipped my own up my sleeve and let the handle rest in my palm while Drake eased the front door open and glanced outside.
No one was near. No police sirens, no footsteps, nothing. Without taking his eyes off the exterior, he gestured for me to follow. The cool night air struck us as we left our refuge behind. The residential compound had looked so quaint and quiet when we first arrived. Safe and comforting. Now? The dark shadows around us looked more like grasping clawing fingers, trying to clutch at us and drag Drake and me down to hell. Every sound was a possible footstep of Sam, or Bri perhaps, ready to slice our bodies open, spilling our blood for the worms.
Even when we reached the guards at the valet station, our fear didn’t abate. I kept giving the armed men furtive glances, the pistols on their hips looking ominous. Had Sam bribed one of these men to let him on the property? Was that how he’d piped the video feed to our room? How much would he have to pay them for one of these people to pull their gun out and splatter our brains all over the cobblestones?
When the car arrived and Drake threw our bags in the back, I climbed in, still preparing myself for the sound of gunfire, the pop of a bullet shattering the bone of my skull and then everlasting darkness. It didn’t come, though. We drove away unmolested, unarrested, and unharmed. Drake drove us into the darkness, our new destination a hidden secret. And behind us, Sam continued to slither in the night.