CHAPTER 11
“I hate your big dumb hunting knife and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick, it makes me commit a crime.”
The rose petals are too specific to be a coincidence.
Wes shifts on the spot, and the movement makes his arm brush against mine. Goose bumps ignite across my bare skin, and not the kind you’d expect to experience after discovering two bodies and a possible connection to a serial killer.
“You think this could be linked to those murders?” I ask, gesturing to the petals on the ground.
He nods, and I don’t think it’s just the dim, artificial lighting of the corridor that draws the color from his face. “Yeah, they could be.”
My brain starts cataloguing everything that’s happened tonight with the brief snippets of information I’ve picked up about the other murders with the same calling card.
I haven’t been paying close attention to them because—and I know this sounds morbid, but—it’s like watching a film you already know the ending to.
One that relies too heavily on a prescriptive format.
There’s nothing new about those murders. It’s the same movie, different cast.
Tonight, though?
“If this is connected, this would be an escalation, wouldn’t it? Going from murdering one woman at a time to trapping a bunch of people in a building and methodically killing them off one by one seems like a change in methodology. Or a change in MO, if we want to use the correct termi—”
I cut myself off when Wes moves his gaze from the corridor back to me, his mouth set in a firm line. Heat starts to flow up my neck and I drop my stare to the petals crushed beneath my feet.
“Sorry.” I shouldn’t be talking so much. We shouldn’t be talking so much. Not when our goal is to avoid the killer and find an exit. I could kick myself for almost going full me and—
“Why are you apologizing?”
I start when his hand brushes against the back of mine. This time the contact is on purpose, and when I glance at him that grave expression is gone. He looks confused.
“I just…” I pause. There’s got to be a better way to say I was about to go on a verbal tangent that would put my “dating is a dangerous pastime” word vomit to shame.
“Sometimes I get on a roll with a topic, and it seems like I’m eager or excited about things that people shouldn’t be eager and excited about.
For the record, I’m definitely not into what’s happening.
I just get caught up in my head, and when it comes out of my mouth…
” I shrug, like the reactions I get from people who think I should speak less don’t bother me. “It doesn’t always land well.”
Wes’s eyes trace over my face. The warmth in my cheeks feels different when he shakes his head and murmurs, “It lands well with me. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
He curls his hand around my wrist again, shifting his attention forward to where the corridor turns another corner, and that brings the conversation to a halt. Wes’s grip tightens against my skin, mine tightens around my weapons, and we skim along the wall.
“What did you mean when you were talking about the rules before?” Wes asks quietly after we inch our heads out around the edge and are greeted by more darkness.
“It’s a poster Laurie and I have in our apartment,” I say once we start to move down the corridor, side by side. “How to Survive a Slasher. There are ten rules to follow if you want to survive that kind of movie. ‘Don’t split up’ is number five.”
When we’re this close and I don’t have to speak above a whisper, I can keep my eyes on the path ahead of us. The sight isn’t a promising one. There’s more rose petals littering the floor, smooth walls that are punctuated by syncopated, flickering gas lamps, and not an exit to be found.
“You really are into horror movies then.”
I glance at him, spotting a smile amid the glow of the artificial flames illuminating his face.
“I really am. I never thought I’d live one out, though.”
I may have watched Only You or The Wedding Singer and hoped for some semblance of those storylines to appear in my life, but not for a second did I watch The Town That Dreaded Sundown or Wolf Creek and think: Man, just once I’d love for that to happen to me.
“I know it sounds dumb, but following the rules, it helps with the…” With the reality of what is happening to us right now.
That people have died, could be dying, will die, and that nobody on the outside—no police or anyone—has turned up to save us probably means that nobody is coming.
I can’t say that, though, not to this guy I met a couple of hours ago who is doing everything in his power to keep us alive.
So instead I say, “It helps with not being scared.”
If we were in a slasher, or even a rom-com, this would be the part where he tells me I don’t have to be scared because he’s not going to let anything happen to me.
Then there’d be a series of events that would lead to him being disemboweled by an ice hook and leave me incapable of trusting men at their word.
Wes doesn’t do that, though; he just shifts closer as we make it to the halfway point of the hallway.
“I count down from three.” His voice is right at my ear, his breath fanning across my temple, and when I look up, I see just how close he is.
His gaze is still focused straight ahead when he adds, “Whenever I’m scared or stressed or need to make a tough decision…
I give myself three seconds, and then I do it. ”
It’s so simple. I’ve only known him a short time, but it makes sense. He seems like the kind of guy who goes with his gut. The kind of guy who knows being brave isn’t about being fearless, it’s about doing what you need to do despite the fear.
“My parents taught me to do it when they realized I had poor impulse control as a kid and I guess it stuck.”
I like it, but I can’t ignore—
“Had poor impulse control?”
I catch the amused twitch at the side of his mouth as he lifts his head to look back the way we came. “It comes back every now and then.”
His chin grazes the top of my head, and I can imagine him doing the same thing on a street corner while we wait for the lights to change, or in a café when his coffee order is called. Sans bloody shoes and improvised weapons, of course.
“Counting works every time. I can anticipate what will happen, but I don’t have enough time to back out. It puts the pressure on. I work better under pressure.”
“I’ve noticed.”
His smile turns into a grin. Even though it looks like his entire body is ready to strike at the first sign of danger, his eyes are soft. I’m reminded of when we were sitting on either side of the table during our date. Bedroom eyes.
There’s a sound. A rustle that makes us both flinch until I realize it’s not a rustle, it’s a crackle coming from the closest gas lamp. The relief that it’s a loose wire, rather than a murderer, pulls a shuddering sigh from my lips.
“Let’s keep going,” Wes murmurs as he rolls out the tension in his shoulders. The false alarm doesn’t stop his questions, though, and I’d guess maintaining our conversation is more of a fear-reduction technique than a do-over for our bad first date.
“So, what’s the first rule of slashers?” he asks as we walk farther down the hallway, and that surprises me.
It’s the classic marker of the original slashers from the seventies and eighties.
The way you can identify the inimitable Final Girl—the conventionally attractive, doggedly determined heroine who hacks down the killer—among the other nubile, soon-to-be-dead teens.
“You don’t know?”
“I told you, I’m more of a Sandra Bullock fan.”
He’s half joking, but I get the feeling he’s a Speed repeater.
Wes does his usual “every angle” observation before looking back down at me, one brow quirked. I try to maintain eye contact, but it’s no use. I avert my gaze down to the petals. “Don’t have sex.”
“Sorry?”
I glance up to see the other eyebrow has joined its friend, high in the middle of his forehead.
“That’s the rule. If you have sex, you die.”
His eyes narrow in thought, like he’s considering the two options that rule presents, then he looks over at the entrance of the corridor, breathing out a sigh.
“Damn.”
At first I think he’s disappointed that that’s the rule.
Like getting lucky was high on his list of things to do tonight, right under “avoid a mass murderer,” but then I look down and see the rose petals have stopped at the edge of the carpet.
The whole point of a trail is to lead to something, right?
But we’ve just followed them right back around to where we were standing at that first crossroads.
I can see the bar on the edge of the dance floor straight ahead, and if we turn left we should see the others waiting for us.
We would’ve noticed the trail if it had been there from the start.
So that means whoever is doing this has been mere steps away from us this whole time.
And the idea the killer could have snuck up on Laurie and the others while Wes and I were following his trail makes the espresso martinis churn in my stomach.
It makes my hand sweat around the straps of my heels, but it also just makes me… confused.
I think Wes is right: the trail was deliberate. It was a message. If I were to go a step further, I’d say it was symbolic. You don’t need to have studied romantic movies to know roses equal love. I just can’t figure out why they’re here in the middle of a massacre.
We complete the final turn, and I see the rest of the group exactly where we left them, standing in the corner with their backs against the wall.
The bloodstain on the floor has stopped a few feet from encroaching on their “safe” area, and as we hurry down the corridor, Billie, Jennifer, and Laurie all jerk their heads in our direction.
They each have varying degrees of relief and expectation etched on their faces, but all I have to do is shake my head and they know. We didn’t find a way out.
Wes stiffens beside me, slows down. It draws my attention away from the three women, and that’s when I realize someone is missing.
“Where the hell is Campbell?” Wes blurts out, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice earlier.
Well, actually I can. This is Campbell we’re talking about. If anyone was going to run as soon as possible, it was him, and when Laurie informs us that he all but sprinted away as soon as we were out of sight, I can’t rustle up any kind of surprise.
Billie snorts from where she’s still propped in the corner, arms folded across her chest as she remarks, “Well, he was pretty flighty during our date, so at least he’s consistent.”
“Where the fuck would he have gone?” I ask, but it’s more a general exclamation rather than something that requires answering.
Campbell hasn’t displayed any kind of instincts in the time he’s been part of the group, and I just can’t help but think this is the kind of decision that gets you killed early in the first act of a slasher.
“Should we look for him?” Jennifer asks, following Laurie and joining me and Wes in the hallway. They both immediately place their backs against the opposite wall, so they have a 180 view.
Smart women.
It’s Jennifer’s cautious concern, teamed with her general wholesome aura, the fact she’s brunette…
I shouldn’t be thinking it, but she’s got all the indicators of becoming a Final Girl.
I push that thought away as quickly as it comes because there’s only one way someone becomes a Final Girl. When the rest of us are dead.
“We stick to the plan,” Wes murmurs as Laurie tries to swap out our weapons.
I push her bottle away. Using broken bottles to defend ourselves seems laughable now.
They aren’t enough to go up against someone who has killed seven people in the last hour or so.
It’d be like trying to fight a samurai with a toothpick.
But I want her to have the bigger bottle, the sharper one, just in case.
“We go and wait on the dance floor for the others. Hopefully they found a way out,” Wes says. “And we just have to hope Campbell hasn’t gotten himself killed.”
“Yay,” Billie says, finally pushing off the wall and joining our group. “Can’t wait to see how this turns out.”
That’s how we find ourselves moving back down the corridor, turning away from the end of the rose petal trail and coming into view of the bar that takes up an entire edge of the dance floor.
I can’t help but glance up at the mezzanine above it.
That’s where we’re going to have to move our search if the others haven’t found an exit.
Considering the evolution of Cravin’ into Serendipity seems to be more of a facelift rather than anything structural, I know what to expect up there.
It’ll be larger, more hallways, more rooms, more dead ends.
It’ll be so much easier to get lost. So much easier to be found…
The glint of the railing catches my eye, and it’s not the first time I’ve considered how dangerous it is to have this open space above the dance floor.
Not when it would be so easy to fall over the edge and end up on the bar.
Or maybe that’s just from watching Chopping Mall and Death Ship.
Those railings just give you a little more flair as you’re plummeting to your death.
“What the fuck?”
Wes’s voice is like thunder. It’s a suppressed warning, the personification of a dark cloud that rolls over before a deadly lightning strike.
And when I tear my eyes from the mezzanine and see what’s caused his entire body to go rigid, his face to go hard, fury almost crackling off him, I get it.
I feel it, too. Because there, standing beneath the disco ball, is John.
And only John.
He’s already holding his hands up in surrender, the Midori bottle loose in one fist and a first aid kit hanging from the other as I try to figure out why he isn’t flanked by two well-dressed women and an asshole in plaid.
“I told him we shouldn’t split up.”