CHAPTER 18
“I’ll kill you.”
“For what?”
“Your heart.”
—Not Love and Basketball
It’s nice to hear Wes speaking my language, and when he glances up from winding the bandage around my arm, I nod. “Right? This night might be one big romantic gesture to him.”
“The most fucked-up rom-com ever?” he replies with a dark smirk that I match as he fastens the end of the bandage with a clip.
“Something like that…” I say. “But then what’s the endgame for her? The woman he’s doing this for? Does he want her to make it out alive, or is he saving her for last?”
“I’d say he’s doing this for her, but if she doesn’t reciprocate, if she doesn’t appreciate what he’s doing…” He pauses, then murmurs, “Remember how I mentioned the woman that was found a few days ago? It was on the news.”
Blond, pretty, lights up the room. “Casey something—”
“Langenkamp,” he supplies. “Casey Langenkamp.”
I look down at the work he’s done on my arm. The blood is gone, the wound is covered, and—not that I’m an expert on this kind of thing—the bandage looks secure. Like if I have to run for my life again, it’ll hold up.
“On the news they said the police suspect that it’s connected to four other murders,” I say.
“It is.”
The way he says it—assuredly, conclusively—draws my eyes away from my arm and I watch as he sets out replacing the unused items back into the first aid kit. This isn’t the first time he’s done this.
“How do—”
“Let’s assume we’re right and tonight is connected to it, too?
” he says, hand paused over the first aid kit, his intensely dark gaze meeting mine again.
I wonder whether he’s been thinking this for a while.
Whether this is what was going through his mind when we were following those rose petals away from the bodies in the corridor.
“What if he pursued those women and then killed them when they couldn’t live up to his expectations? What if he’s looking for ‘the One’?”
I mull that over. His theory aligns well with mine. What if we’ve unwittingly entered into a slasher version of The Bachelor?
The rose theme is on brand, after all.
“In this case, the One is going to be a Final Girl,” I say. “And they’re not always considered the ideal woman.”
Although maybe the killer—Heart Eyes—wants the jaded “walking out of the ruins,” “the shit I’ve seen” kind of girl at the end of this.
It’s clear Wes has no idea what I’m talking about. Not when one of his dark eyebrows quirk up in confusion.
“A what girl?”
This is why he’d benefit from dating me. I could fill in these knowledge gaps.
“The last person standing at the end of a slasher. It’s usually a teenage girl, so they call her the Final Girl. The one who against all odds survives all the traps and all the killer’s attempts and ends up defeating him… Killing him.”
Wes considers that as he peels off the gloves. Despite the wipes, the latex is covered with my blood.
“So you think he wants her to kill him?”
If only it were that simple.
“No, because this isn’t just a slasher. You said it yourself; this is supposed to be romantic.”
“You’re losing me, Jamie,” he says, starting to slide out of the booth before I grip his wrist and pull him back onto the seat.
He could move away easily if he wanted, but he settles beside me without much effort on my part.
Digging into the first aid kit, I hold up one of the unopened wipes and point to where his shirt is stuck to his collarbone.
“Your turn.”
“It’s fine.”
“It would suck to make it through all of this just to die of an infection you picked up from this dirty club. That’s what we call situational irony,” I counter. The corner of his mouth twitches.
“It would suck, wouldn’t it?” he says, but doesn’t move. His eyes dart down to where my fingers are still circling his wrist, and when he looks back up they’re amused for some reason.
“Can I unbutton my shirt, or are you going to do it for me?” he murmurs, the slow spread of his smile and the rasp of his voice seeping deep into my pores.
Apparently that’s all it takes to make my nipples harden beyond belief.
I quickly glance down to make sure they aren’t visible through the material of my dress.
While he’s made a fantastic suggestion, I remove my fingers from his arm and pull out one of the larger Band-Aids from the kit.
The top button on his shirt is already undone, and he only needs to loosen two more and pull the collar to the side for me to spy where Dani was able to get him.
I tear my eyes away from the tip of the tattoo that peeks over his shoulder and see he’s right—it’s a minor cut in comparison to mine—but it still needs to get cleaned and covered up and…
yeah, maybe I do just want to reciprocate the effort he’s spent on me.
When the packet doesn’t rip open between my fingers, I use my teeth. That draws his attention to my mouth, his gaze unwavering until I free the wipe from its packaging and swipe it across the very top of his pec. He clears his throat. “You were talking about… romance.”
“So he wants the girl who’s going to make it to the end of this, right?
The Final Girl,” I say, trying not to let my fingers linger on his skin as I clean the wound.
There’s only so much I can get away with under the guise of medical attention.
But my efforts garner a sneak peek into the gap of his shirt—I did say if I had half a chance, I would—and what I see…
it’s good. It’s very, very good. We’ve moved from afraid and horny to decisively horny. Well done, Wes.
It’s my turn to clear my throat. “But what if he wants the Leading Lady as well? What if he’s like most men and expects a woman to be everything for him?”
“Ouch.” He faux-winces, straightening his collar after I’ve placed the adhesive onto his skin. He’s clean and covered up in no time, and it’s hard not to think I should’ve slowed down and enjoyed the procedure a little bit more. “I take it the Leading Lady is found in a rom-com?”
“You don’t have one without her,” I say, discarding the wipe next to the other used ones.
“She’s your Meg Ryan or your Julia Roberts.
Your favorite, Sandy B. Beautiful, assertive, independent in a nonthreatening way, emotional, vulnerable, and any flaws she has can be overlooked because of all her other redeeming qualities.
At some point tonight he decided he found her.
Or…” A chill runs down my spine. “He knew her beforehand and followed her here.”
I mean, Laurie and I came together. Who’s to say some of the other daters didn’t tag along with their friends, too? What if some poor woman brought some guy who thinks he’s been unfairly shafted into the friend zone, and he wanted to use tonight to prove his love for her?
The other women are listening in now, leaning over the booth or on the table to take in the twisted theory we’ve been working on.
Given none of them have made any exclamations in relation to the handwriting on the card, I’m guessing they weren’t able to identify anything, so I look across at them while I zip up the first aid kit and ask, “Did anyone come here with one of the guys tonight?”
They all shake their heads, except for Laurie, who just gestures to me with a “you’re my guy” look.
“So he’s decided someone here is his dream girl,” Wes says, working at retying his bracelet around his wrist as he slides out of the booth and leans against the table.
With the knife tied firmly to his wrist, Wes grips the handle, placing it carefully across his forearm after he folds his arms over his chest. I watch him turn his head to survey the bar on the other side of the mezzanine as he mulls over the theory, shaking his head as he comes to some conclusion.
“And he probably thought the same thing about those other women who he… well, whatever he thought, it didn’t last.”
Because we can’t be everything. No one can. And that’s the difference between real life and movies. Anyone can pretend to be perfect for the ninety-minute run time. The story plays out a lot differently after the credits roll. Wes seems to realize this, too.
“And if that’s the case, then whoever he’s doing this for, they’re in more danger than the rest of us, because as soon as he realizes she’s not perfect…”
The illusion will be shattered, and we’ll be firmly in slasher territory.
“We need to figure out who it is.” Billie says. “Which one of us he’s killing for. She’s making the rest of us targets and I don’t want to be anywhere near her.”
At least we can all agree Billie probably isn’t the cause of all this.
“What does that make us, then?” Dani asks. “Why is he hunting us if he wants her?”
“Because he sees us as obstacles,” Laurie says. I can tell she’s trying to keep her voice calm and even, but the way she catches my eye, the stoic fear behind her gaze—she’s sat through enough slashers and rom-coms to know that secondary characters aren’t guaranteed a happy ending.
“Fuck that,” Billie spits. “If he wants her, he can have her.”
Yeah, let’s throw some poor innocent woman to the wolves.
Or wolf, singular. I stop myself from taking the bait and turn to see if Wes has anything to say to minimize a potential witch hunt—since Billie sure as shit isn’t going to listen to me—but his gaze has dropped down to the dance floor, his eyes locked right beneath the disco ball, and when I stand up and slide out I can see a sliver of color that’s captured his attention.
Wes moves slowly toward the railing, his hands gripping the top bar, the knife around his wrist letting out a soft clank as it taps against the metal.
The sound repeats again, but Wes does nothing to stop the weapon swinging back into the steel barricade.
I push away from the booth to stand next to him to see what’s rooted him to the spot, and I get a clearer, unobstructed view of the space beneath us.
It should be empty. We walked across the floor maybe an hour ago and it was a clear path, but now—
“Holy shit,” Wes utters, and that’s enough to capture the attention of the other group members. One by one they move up to the railing and look down at what’s taken over the center of the dance floor.
Heart Eyes has been very busy. If the aim was to take someone’s breath away then he’s succeeded.
The effort he’s put into this newest gesture is unparalleled.
I’d say it was on par with anything Richard Curtis could write.
On par, that is, if he hadn’t been murdering people alongside these romantic gestures. Murdering them as part of it.
At first I can’t distinguish what the letters spell out.
The shape encasing them is easy enough to see; it’s a universal symbol, after all.
The fact the heart appears to be fashioned out of intestines doesn’t change that, and the mix of the red and pink of the innards conjures up images of Valentine’s Day.
A rose petal–like path of blood droplets trails from the heart to a booth off to the side of the floor, one that’s underneath the mezzanine and hard to see. When I lean over the railing, look straight down, I see a similar red and pink mix discarded across the booth’s circular seat.
Colette.
Dani lets out a sharp gasp when she sees it.
When she sees her. It pulls my attention from the tangle of insides that decorate the floor.
Dani sobs into Jennifer’s shoulder, the latter trying to hold back her own tears, as Laurie moves to my other side.
Her eyes lock on the letters inside the heart, head tilted to try and decipher them, and I turn back to it, too, trying to read the cursive that the tubes of tissue have been twisted into.
They could be a clue as to who is doing this.
Who he’s doing it for. This display isn’t just a message, it’s a declaration.
I figure out there’s either five or six letters. He’s managed to dot the “i” and connect the end of the “e” to the inside of the heart. Once I determine the vowels, it’s just the first letter—it kind of looks like an “L” but it’s hard to tell—and the middle—
No.
“Oh shit… Oh my god. Oh my god,” Laurie gasps when she recognizes the name, then she does what I want to do and throws up in an empty ice bucket on one of the tables.
“Well,” Billie drones. “At least we know who he’s doing it for.”
The sound of Laurie’s retching is still bouncing off the bucket by the time I wrench my eyes away from the name spelled out with Colette’s intestines. I turn away from the railing, but the image is burned across my retinas.
Billie’s voice is acidic in my ear when she adds, “You must’ve made quite an impression.”