CHAPTER 28 #2
Maybe in the past it would’ve been something that would instill hope, but relying on the assumption that being a police officer makes someone safe by default is the kind of thinking that can get you good and dead.
Not just in a horror movie. Not just in any movie.
Taking on the role of a “safe” person is the way that true evil can conceal itself.
It’s as much of a mask as the one Heart Eyes has been wearing tonight.
“I know,” Wes finally says, his voice hoarse and tight even when he tries to clear his throat. “I know. So don’t trust me because of that. Don’t trust me at all, if that’s what you want, but the alarm system is a chance for us to get out of here. This is a chance for us to end this.”
And that’s the carrot dangling in front of us.
His idea is one that could get us out. Yeah, he lied, but he was standing right next to me when John was killed.
I know he’s not Heart Eyes. Even though he’s hurt my feelings, that doesn’t make him a villain…
it just puts him in good company with a lot of other guys I’ve dated.
“What do you need us to do?”
I can’t bring much inflection back into my voice.
Wes picks up on it and I think sourly that it must be those well-honed investigative skills, but then that soft look is back on his face, now with an added layer of apology, and I’m unable to hold his gaze.
I turn my face to the partition as if I’m keeping watch.
Out of my periphery, I see him turn back to the others.
“The control panel is usually located at the main entrance, but we would’ve seen it when we were there… You said the roped-off areas are employee sections?”
Stu nods.
“Then we’ll probably find it in a utility room down one of those halls. We can send the signal from there, but if not, we’ll need to set off the alarms through the smoke detectors. Does anyone have a lighter?”
Everyone shakes their head, and I’ve never been more disappointed that smoking rates have declined among my generation. If we were in a nineties rom-com, at least half of the people in this room would be chain smokers.
“I have a vape? It’s flat, though,” Dani says quietly, and she pulls a pretty pink vape bar from inside the fold of her blue dress.
A deeply primal part of me has a spark of envy that her dress has pockets, but it’s quickly tamped down when Wes fashions the grim line of his mouth into a tight conciliatory smile, shaking his head at her offer.
“We should also go back to the janitor’s closet, then,” he says. “Get something flammable, a lighter or some matches.”
“So we should split up.”
I can’t stop my eyes from rolling. Stu really is a one-trick pony.
“That didn’t work out so great last time,” I remind him.
“We’re alive, aren’t we?”
I’m about to point out three other people from our original group no longer have that luxury when he uses his knife to point between me and Wes.
“You two can stick together. I think the three of us would rather stay away from the woman this is all happening for and the guy who’s been lying the whole night.”
That lands about as well as can be expected, and if glares were daggers, mine would pierce right through Stu’s skull.
Dani and Jennifer look apologetic when they finally meet my eye, but they don’t say anything to disagree.
In the last ten minutes, I’ve experienced the kind of peer rejection and painful unrequited realizations I thought were reserved for coming-of-age movies with melancholic soundtracks.
For the first time since Laurie went through that vent, I wish she were here.
“So you’ll go back to the janitor’s closet?” I ask. I figure Stu would want to take the safest option, the known path. Since he thinks I’m the catalyst for all this chaos and Wes is a liar, I’m sure he also thinks that makes us more disposable. “We’ll try to find the control panel?”
“We will go find the control panel,” Stu says, using his knifeless hand to gesture to Dani and Jennifer.
“If we find it, or a phone or something, we’ll sound the alarm.
You go to the janitor’s closet. If you find what you need to start a fire, come back here and set the alarm off.
It doesn’t matter who does it first as long as we get the fuck out of here.
If we can’t find what we’re looking for, then we meet back in this room and figure something else out. ”
Dani looks up at Stu like he’s pulled a glowing exit sign from his ass that’ll lead us out of the massacre, buying the hero-complex shit he’s hijacked from Wes. I want to tell her not to get too excited. It won’t end well.
Jennifer, at least, is unaffected by Stu’s new role. When she glances at me, I flick my eyes toward Stu and shake my head ever so subtly.
Don’t trust him.
She returns an almost imperceptible nod in understanding that makes me glad women are far more skilled at interpreting nonverbal communication than men.
Her gaze shifts to Wes. He’s quiet, tense, admonished by the way I won’t meet his eye.
Jennifer tips her head, and I pick up a similar message: be careful.
I nod, even though being warned about Wes makes my gut twist in dissent.
Stu enjoys Dani’s fawning attention too much and it makes him bold.
He scoffs after Wes explains how to set off the control panel and offers to go find it himself.
He’d let the four of us stick together and go searching for the alarm system alone, if we let him.
The idea of Wes by himself still makes my heart lodge in my throat.
Even after the lies. Even though my nails have left indents in my palm from how hard I’ve been trying to push down the anger and the hurt.
Stupid, infuriating hero-complex shit that is definitely not still sexy… not at all.
Stu shoots down the suggestion. “Just because you say you’re a cop and you know about this shit doesn’t mean we should trust you. You could just as easily disassemble the alarm.”
Wes shakes his head, and I hear a mutter that I think conveys what he’d actually like to disassemble.
“And besides.” Stu shrugs, his arrogant stare locked on where I’m standing, my bloody hands looking like a crude pair of gloves made to match my dress.
I look like a debutante from hell. “If it turns out you are the killer, well… this is your chance to have some more alone time with Jamie, isn’t it? ”