CHAPTER 10 #2
Her voice trembles on the last word. Even in the dim light I can see the panic in her face.
I know how contradictory my words are. This is exactly what I didn’t want to do.
Split up. Leave her. But we need to find a way out, and if Wes goes down that hall and doesn’t come back, we are majorly fucked.
“He can’t go alone,” I reason, and she goes to follow me.
“Then I’ll come, too.”
“No!”
She flinches at the sound, and again I need to tell my heart to keep beating.
I don’t know how to do anything by halves.
I’m not sure I’m capable of it, so when Laurie and I became friends I knew I was all in.
I can deal with the three-hour documentaries that are lacking in any discernible conflict.
I can deal with the aversion to hugs. I can even deal with the lumberjack obsession because—despite our differences, or maybe because of them—she makes me feel seen and valued and understood in her no-nonsense way.
It’s not like I didn’t have friends before we met; it’s not like I haven’t made others since; but she’s just a really fucking good one.
The best, and if something happens to her…
well, I don’t even know. All I know is I will do everything to make sure nothing does.
If there is someone waiting down there, I won’t drag her into their path.
And that’s why I make myself sound calm and assured when I say, “I—we need you to watch our backs. The four of you just…”
I consider the scene setup, try to recall something that’s similar and how we can avoid playing out a bloody moment that would rival the one we’re all currently trying not to step in.
“Stay in the corner,” I say. Johnny Castle would roll over in his grave right now. At the same time, though, I am definitely not having the time of my life.
“Keep your back to the wall and no one can sneak up on you,” I add as Wes settles at my side. He’s still shaking his head, like the idea of me joining him is akin to making snow angels in the sticky mess blocking the hallway, but he directs the next instruction to the rest of the group.
“If the lights turn off, hit the ground and stay near the walls. If anything else happens, run. Run and then hide. Only fight back when you don’t have any other option.
” His eyes wander to the weakest-looking member of the group.
Campbell, obviously. “But stay together. Somebody is going to realize we’re missing eventually. Even if it takes the whole night.”
Billie rolls her eyes, but she wanders over to the corner where the halls meet and slumps between two gas lamps, her back firmly against the wall.
“Fantastic,” she quips. “I haven’t had a slumber party in years.”
I wonder why.
Wes turns back to the bodies obstructing our path with a sigh. “Come on.”
We can’t avoid the blood. It reaches wall to wall now, so Wes finds the shallowest part of the puddle and walks through it.
There are certain personal boundaries I’d like to remain intact after tonight, and walking barefoot through a blood spill is one of them.
I quickly slip my heels back on before I follow him, feeling Laurie’s eyes on my back as I fasten the straps around my ankles.
When I glance up, she’s just staring at me, so much emotion in her eyes I fear it’s going to pour right out of her.
She’d let me hug her right now if I wanted to, but it would feel too much like a goodbye.
There’s a finality to it that I don’t want to put out into the universe.
So instead of a hug, I just take advantage of our well-attuned facial expressions and silently promise I’ll be right back, because I’d never say it out loud.
I ignore the squelching of the carpet when I edge around the bodies, distract myself from the way the blood laps at the bottom of my shoes, and feel grateful I chose a closed toe for tonight.
When I reach Wes, they look like Louboutins, the bottoms stained red, and I have half a mind to just keep them on.
But then I imagine myself tripping again, this time while being pursued by the killer, and I’m taking them off.
I should just abandon them in the hallway, write them off as another casualty of the night, but I feel like they could defend me a little better than the beer bottle I took from Laurie.
So I clutch the straps in my free hand as I move closer to Wes, trying to ignore how the soles are dripping.
We’re only a few feet away from the rest of the group, but we might as well be on opposite sides of a river.
The rose petals scattered before us blend in better with the carpet without the darker shade of blood beneath it, but even then, I can’t ignore the fact their placement is deliberate.
The way they’ve been dropped along the corridor, it’s strategic, aesthetic.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was meant to be—
“How romantic,” Wes mutters when we start moving down the hall. His eyes are focused forward, jaw still tight, mouth thin, but he can’t help looking down at the petals every now and then. When he does, he makes a point of crushing them under his heel.
“You think this is supposed to be romantic?” I whisper, but I don’t get an immediate response when he pauses in front of me.
The trail continues around the corner, out of sight.
Corners are going to be the most dangerous part of our expedition because we’re blind to what’s around them until we’re close enough to get stabbed.
Wes must think the same thing, since he wraps his free hand around my wrist and pulls me behind him, drawing me in until my chest is firmly against his back.
The message is clear. Stay behind me. Stay close.
While that may be the intended communication, my brain still takes a second to add a very nice ass to the list of Wes’s admirable qualities. Once that’s securely in the memory bank, I make myself concentrate on the matter at hand.
“Wes?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs, moving his palm from my arm to the middle of my back to hold me against him. Like if anyone plans to stab me, they’ll have to literally go through him first. “I’ve never done the rose petal thing myself.”
No, I don’t imagine he has. Something like rose petals seems a little too showy for someone like Wes, but the thing is—his fingers grip a little tighter into the material of my dress and I feel the need to clear my throat—I don’t think he’d have to resort to it, either.
“That’s what they mean, right?” he says, our shoulders scraping against the wall as we move closer to the corner.
I can feel the rise and fall of his back against my chest. Wes’s smoky, spicy scent is so much stronger from sweat and proximity, and in the darkness my body misinterprets it all.
It thinks we’re moving toward a bedroom rather than to our potential demise, so when I poke my head around his arm and can see down the new hallway, see there’s nothing but rose petals, it takes a lot of effort to make myself move away from him.
“The rose petals were on top of the bodies, so that means they were put there after they were… well… it has to be deliberate.” He pauses, looks like he’s weighing whether to say the next sentence, then the muscle of his jaw shifts as he stares into the darkness ahead of us.
“Have you heard about that woman who was murdered recently?”
At first I’m tempted to ask which one. But then I remember the end of the report Laurie and I watched earlier today.
As soon as I move away from him, as soon as I catch a glimpse of those rose petals tracing down the corridor, I make the connection.
I barely registered it this afternoon because it was tragically similar to the countless reports of other women who have met a similar fate.
The ones who become reminders that I can’t walk at night with music blasting through my headphones, or that I need to hold my keys between my fingers when I walk to my car in the dark. But this one. This one’s still fresh.
Wes quirks his brow, and I know he’s thinking the same thing as me.
Our guy’s not an amateur. He’s a pro.