51. The Pianist
The Pianist
I don’t remember returning to my room, or readying myself for bed, but I am wrapped up in plush sheets when my eyes snap open to—
Quiet.
The echoes of a scream fade in my ears. Maybe it was a dream, or maybe it was me, the abrupt end replaying in my head over and over.
The sleek dress is in a pile on the floor like an oil spill. All the jewelry is strewn across the vanity. I’m only in my underwear. And every hair on my body stands on end.
I don’t remember undressing.
I quickly pull on a sweater and a pair of leggings from my pile of laundry, slip on the pair of soft boots sitting by the bathroom door.
Foggy clouds form at my lips with every exhalation. A thin layer of condensation has turned to ice on the windows. The room is freezing.
Nothing else has been touched, it seems. At some point, I must have returned from the party and collapsed in bed, but I can’t remember a thing past running into Leo and Mariane in the hall, telling me in so many words to get out, and then…
nothing. I take a deep breath, wrap my arms around my middle, shivering.
And notice my door is open. The hallway glows yellow on the other side. Completely silent.
Something’s wrong.
I don’t think anyone came in here, but there are so many people staying in this house and in the early hours after New Year’s, there’s no laughter trailing down the halls, no music rumbling through the house from the ballroom.
I slip on a pair of shoes and reach for my phone—before remembering that’s missing, too. Something bright and hot squeezes between my lungs. I’m not sure who I would even call.
Deep breath.
If something was wrong, surely I would have awoken sooner.
A nightmare. I must have had a nightmare that shook me from my sleep—every cell in my body buzzing, as though only seconds ago I was running for my life, believing with absolute certainty that I would be doomed if I could not outrun Death.
Any second now, a laugh will sound from down the hall, a hushed conversation between two partners, footsteps, soft on the carpet, betrayed only by the creaking of the wood underneath.
But I still don’t feel Baz around me and the air just seems to get thinner and quieter.
In either direction, the hall is empty. No one was given a room in the east wing, anyway—the guest wing the family actually used was on the west side of the house, I’ve learned.
The silence is entirely deafening, and that ringing in my ears won’t go away, even with the soft padding sound of my footsteps on the rug.
There’s no one in the main areas. No couples whispering on the staircase, no sounds traveling up from the ballroom, no music.
The house is a ghost town.
In the foyer, the clock points to nearly four AM. Three hours since I last remember checking the time.
I certainly did not have enough champagne to black out.
A hand lands on my shoulder. My body knows who it is before I can even look.
“What did I do?” The question shakes past my lips.
If I cover my eyes, if I hide away the world with total darkness, then maybe I can sink into myself, away from this moment and away from him. There’s another universe out there, one where this never happened, and Jason never happened, and Reece never happened.
And what scares me the most is not that they are dead, but that I feel only a little bad about it.
“Nothing.”
He wraps his arms around me, and I want so badly to relax against him, to pretend that we’re cocooned together in his attic room. I want to pretend we met in another life, and that he and I are normal.
Especially when I finally open my eyes and see red spatter on his hands.
“It’s alright. You’ve been asleep.”
“Asleep.” I’m not sure if I believe him, not when there’s literal blood on his hands. My head spins, the room spins.
His arms tighten around me. “It’s okay. You haven’t missed anything.”
“Did you—”
“Not yet.” He’s thrumming, a coiled snake anticipating the strike, crushing me into his chest.
I can’t breathe. “Baz, whose blood…?”
There are no bodies. The house is empty. Did he slash his way through hundreds of people? And then somehow dispose of them all? Did I help?
“It’s Leo’s,” he murmurs against my throat. Unmasked. “He wasn’t being very cooperative.”
Dread pools in my stomach, knowing there is carnage housed within these walls. That I may have had a hand in it.
Bastien was planning something, and I did not stop him—because I know what it feels like when the injustice of it all boils over and you have no choice but to lash out.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself—that this is some version of justice.
“You did so well.” A kiss pressed to my temple, tender, gentle. “I was watching. You gave life to our song—they don’t realize what they witnessed tonight. They heard our music, Mallary. Our song.”
“I—I didn’t see you.”
“I was there,” he assures me, pressing our foreheads together. His skin against mine. “I’ve—I haven’t worn my mask tonight. Everyone saw me. I was invisible, and they didn’t know it was me, but they saw me. And it’s because of you.”
“Baz.” I reach up until my fingers are brushing his cheek. The rough scratch of his stubble beneath my palm is so human, the warmth of his skin, the stray dark waves of his hair curling around my hands. I can feel his cheekbones, his skull. Not an animated corpse. Alive.
“Show me.” I knew this was the inevitable conclusion. Is that my fault, then? Is it my fault that I did nothing to stop him?
But who am I to stop it?
He walks freely through the halls, his strides quick, fingers linked through mine so that I almost have to jog to keep up. Every light hanging from the ceiling seems close enough to brush the top of his head. He’s too big for this house, for the men that came before him. He doesn’t fit.
“I’m glad you got some sleep. You needed rest,” he says over his shoulder. “I didn’t want to disturb you until it was time.”
“I don’t remember going to bed.”
He glances back at me. “Don’t worry about that. It’s good you spent a few hours lying down. We have a long night ahead of us.”
He doesn’t say another word, doesn’t look at me.
We don’t pass another soul until he’s leading me straight to the ballroom doors, and I’m terrified that inside will be a massacre, blood painting the walls and corpses strewn over every inch of the room.
He dragged everyone in here, slaughtered them all, and I’m the one that let it happen. I could have stopped this.
He shoves the doors open and they slam against the adjacent walls. Someone shrieks.
But there’s no massacre.
The party and all its guests disappeared, leaving behind glasses and decorations and dirty plates on the tables. Golden tinsel and confetti litter the floor, crystal flutes tipped over into puddles of champagne. The piano is still in the center of the room, and on either side—
Leo and Mariane, bound with hands behind their backs, a loose length of rope knotted at their necks.
Tears stream down Mariane’s cheeks, her blonde hair a matted mess, her makeup ruined.
Leo doesn’t look much better, as his face is sporting purple bruises. His lip is busted and blood dribbles down his chin. His glare is a rain of daggers pointed straight at us.
But they’re totally, completely, eerily silent.
“Baz, what is this?” I can’t move past the threshold. He didn’t tell me about this. “Where is everyone?”
“This is it, Mallary.” He grabs my hands again, pulling me inside. “After tonight, we won’t have to hide.”
He told me he would take care of them in the night—I assumed he meant something placed in their drinks, so they’d never wake again. I just thought—
There are nooses around Leo’s and Mariane’s necks, strung over old chandelier hooks on the ceiling, the ends tied to the legs of the grand piano I played only hours ago. My eyes trail the line of the rope up, back down to their throats.
They don’t say a word. They don’t beg for their lives, they don’t try to convince me to let them go.
“Just imagine,” Baz is saying, eyes wide with fervor, “the entire estate to ourselves. No one to disturb us. I have all of their money—we wouldn’t be able to spend it all in one lifetime.
Think of all the music we could play.” His fingers tighten around mine.
I can’t pull away. “I’ll write you a whole sonata.
And you’ll make the music real—we’ll get you on the stage, and everyone will hear it, everyone will know your name—just like I promised.
You won’t have to go back to New York yet. ”
By the time he’s done, he’s crushing my hands to his chest, my trembling hands.
Watching as Leo struggles to keep his swelling eye open, and as Marianne struggles to keep her composure when there’s rope looped around her neck—I don’t feel anything for them, I know I should be afraid for them, I should be afraid of Bastien.
This isn’t normal, this quiet in my head.
I’m not normal.
Everyone will know about Jason. Everyone will know I did it. And Bastien—he’s so unashamed of his cruelty, and he’s going to drag me down with him, when I still might have a chance out in the real world.
He must read it all on my face because his grip is steel when I try to wrench myself away. “No, don't look at me like that. Don’t look at me like I scare you.”
“You don’t scare me,” I say, too terribly soft.
“Not you. Anyone but you.”
He finally lets go, and I am able to stumble back a few steps, find some air between us to breathe.
“They are afraid.” He points behind his back to his parents.
“They have every reason to be—they deserve it. But you. You. What reason have I given you to be afraid of me? You’re still fighting this, aren’t you? When this is who you are.”
“Baz, I am a musician. I’m not—” My throat catches.
I’m not a murderer.
Jason was still an accident.