Chapter 5
Ikept telling myself to run. If not for myself, then for Austin and Gina.
If I could get out, then I could get them some help.
But my body refused to move. I stayed where I was, staring back at Felix’s sinister smirk while Austin’s blood continued to add to the pool beneath him.
Each soft plop of a crimson drop rang through my ears like a drum, taunting me with my own guilt.
Plop…
The door is right there.
Plop…
Go now.
Plop…
If you do nothing, then it will be your fault.
Plop…
Again.
Yet, nothing was exactly what I did. I didn’t even bother to rip my chin out of Felix’s grip. I just sat there.
Felix let go of my chin and took a step back. When my eyes shifted back to my escape, he tipped his head and widened that eerie smile on his face.
“You keep looking at the door, Poppet, but you don’t move. Do you know why?”
“What’s the point?” I said. “You’ll just chase me down.”
It was the best lie I could come up with. Honestly, I had no idea why I hadn’t taken off yet. Any normal person would’ve run the second they were unbound.
“That’s true.” Felix agreed. “Flynn and I do love a good hunt.”
Flynn didn’t have to nod or say anything for me to know that statement was true. The spark lighting up his cold, blue eyes told me everything I needed to know. His white painted face and black smile remained expressionless and dead, but his eyes were more alive than I’d felt in years.
“But that’s not why you aren’t moving. Running isn’t in you anymore…” His lips curled down in a mocking frown. “Is it, Poppet?”
I wished I could say he was wrong.
“Or it’s something else that’s keeping you here.”
Nothing was keeping me here. I was still feeling the residual effects of the drugs. That’s all it was. I was going to make a mad dash for the door as soon as I could make my legs cooperate.
“You want to watch, Poppet.”
What?
“No, I don’t.” No one was that heartless. Not even me.
“You want to feel their suffering,” Felix argued. “Because it’s the only way you can kill your own.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not like you.”
The only person I wanted to hurt was myself.
“Oh, but you are. Every human has that black seed of destruction in their soul. Most bury it and pretend it isn’t there. But you…” He bent over, placed his hands on the arms of my chair, leaned in, and drawled, “You don’t have the strength for that, do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then Felix said a name that caused every muscle in my body to freeze. “Thomas Carington.”
There was no way he could know that name. I left nothing behind, and there was no connection between us. His body hadn’t even been found yet.
“How long did it take you to track him down?”
Six months, three weeks, and two days.
“Did it feel good when you carved his victims’ names into his flesh?”
It felt amazing. That was the first time I felt alive since I lost her. That son of a bitch deserved a lot more than I gave him. Killing him was the one thing I could do for my sister. That bastard would never touch another kid again.
Felix’s mouth lifted in an amused smirk. “But his anguish didn’t chase away her laugh, did it?”
My stomach clenched as the mirrors around us rippled like a waterline. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear her coughing for air.
Felix leaned in, brushing his lips off the shell of my ear. “You let it happen. While she was fighting for her life, you were drinking with your boyfriend.”
A tear rolled down my cheek.
“You killed her, Poppet. Just like you killed him.”
My voice cracked out a broken, “No.”
“Yes,” he hissed in my ear. “You’re a killer, Mazie. That’s why you can’t look your parents in the eye. Because they’ll see what I do.”
“No,” I shook my head and let the tears fall. “I didn’t mean to. If I could go back—”
“But you can’t, can you?”
No, I couldn’t. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t deserve to live.
I was so lost in my own guilt that when a bloodcurdling scream tore through the air, it took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t coming from me.
Gina was now fully alert. She bounced around in her chair while hysterically voicing her terror.
On the upside, Felix’s attention was no longer on me. He stood up, whipped around, and walked over to her while she continued to scream.
The sound drowned out everything else. Felix was saying something. His lips were moving, but I heard nothing. It looked like Austin was trying to calm her down, and Flynn stared at her, amused. Or he was irritated. I couldn’t tell. I just wanted her to stop. Her shrill tone was making my head hurt.
I covered my ears, but that didn’t help. Her voice traveled through my hands as though they weren’t there. And she didn’t stop. She kept screaming. It dragged on, getting louder and louder until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I got up and walked over.
“SHUT UP!” The crack of my palm against Gina’s face snapped through the ballroom.
Her head whipped to the side as blood bloomed at the corner of her mouth.
The silence that followed was worse than her scream.
Felix’s laughter quickly spilled into it. “There it is,” he drawled. “That bite beneath the guilt. I knew you had teeth.”
My palm burned as I stumbled back. “I—I didn’t—”
“You didn’t mean to?” Felix finished for me. “Ah, but you did. You wanted her quiet, so you made her quiet.”
What did I do? Of course, Gina would scream. Flynn was torturing her.
I looked down at the hand I slapped her with.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Felix clapped once. The sharp sound caused me to jerk back a bit.
“Do you see, Flynn? Our little star can’t help herself. She’s already joining the act.”
Flynn tilted his head and bowed low in my direction, as though I’d earned the stage.
“No,” I shook my head.
“Violence suits you, Poppet. Wear it proudly.” Felix waved his gloved finger at me. “The audience doesn’t forgive hesitation, but they adore authenticity.”
Austin rolled his eyes my way. “Whose side are you on?”
“I—I—I…” was all I could stammer out. I couldn’t explain my actions to myself, let alone him.
Austin’s glare cut through me, sharper than Flynn’s knife ever could. Whose side are you on? My hand still burned from the strike. Proof I’d crossed a line that should never have.
Felix looked at me as if he’d been waiting for this exact fracture.
“It’s their fault.” I pointed at the twisted brothers.
They messed with my head and made it so I couldn’t think.
“Don’t blame us, Poppet.” Felix circled behind Gina and placed both his hands on her shoulders.
She tried to flinch away but had nowhere to go.
“We only ever reveal what’s already inside you.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I looked around at the mirrors, which seemed to shimmer in the light, and down at the worn and dull floor. Nothing in this place felt right. The laughter I was haunted by was too real here. This wasn’t a normal hotel. Where was I? And who were they?
I lifted my eyes back over to the brothers. “What are you?”
Were they even human? There was a question I never thought I’d ask myself. Maybe I was losing my mind.
Felix crouched down behind Gina and pressed his cheek to hers. “I don’t think she liked your performance, Gina.”
Flynn stepped forward and raised his knife, still gleaming with Austin’s blood.
“Wait…” I held out my hand. “Don’t….”
Felix’s ice-blue eyes locked on mine, pinning me in place. “All acts must come to an end, Poppet.”
Flynn grabbed Gina’s hair and yanked her head back, stretching her throat long under the pale chandelier light.
Austin thrashed and bellowed her name, but his binds held him in place. The only thing he accomplished was tipping his chair over onto the floor as Flynn drew the blade across Gina’s neck in one clean stroke.
Her scream was choked off and drowned out in a wet gurgle as blood poured down her chest.
Austin sobbed openly and cursed out his promises of vengeance. All I could do was watch as the light left Gina’s eyes and she stared back at me, empty and hollow, bright honey orbs suddenly void of all signs of life.
Just like her.
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
I could’ve run. I could’ve tried to get help. Instead, I let someone else die.
My stomach lurched, and the room tilted. I couldn’t breathe. Gina’s silence held heavily onto my lungs while the sting of my slap seared across my palm. The chandelier light fractured and spun in dizzy spirals.
Two words echoed through my mind as my knees buckled, and darkness seeped into my vision.
My fault.
The last thing I heard was Felix’s applause.