Chapter 10
A SCREAM CUTS THROUGH THE DARKNESS, FOLLOWED BY a thud, and I flinch.
Instinctively, my hand reaches for the person next to me, and I relax slightly when I recognize Danny’s touch meeting mine.
In the midst of the chaos, he came to find me.
His fingers intertwine with mine as he gives me a comforting squeeze that acts like a protective blanket around my terrified heart.
“Oops, sorry. I dropped my phone,” the screamer excuses herself, and I recognize the voice as Leighton’s.
Relief washes over me, and I let out a long sigh. My lungs relax with the breath, deflating along with the adrenaline coursing through my system.
“It’s fine,” Danny speaks up, and he gives my hand a reassuring squeeze.
While he’s jumping right into his leading role, he’s silently offering me his vote of confidence.
One thing about Danny is that, no matter the situation, he always slips into the leading role.
He’s always been good at working with people and guiding them, which is something not easily cultivated in the Greek Row environment.
It’s often a competition masquerading as siblinghood.
However, Danny does it naturally, giving his best to those around him, even in the stickiest of scenarios, like the one we’re in now. “It’s just a blackout.”
Although his tone is strong and convincing, I notice a subtle waver in his voice.
Is he lying? I think he is, and I can guess why.
Danny, Cerys and I came back to Westbrook because we received threatening letters; then there were the texts asking us to come here, and now, with the lights, it’s all too much of a coincidence.
We’re stuck in a perfect horror scenario.
I feel a twinge of pain behind my ribs when I realize how tonight’s events got twisted from what they were supposed to be.
Danny and I failed Cerys and Carmen. Instead of taking care of them like we had agreed to, making sure they didn’t get themselves into any trouble tonight, we ended up hooking up.
Then, we willingly brought them to this place, when we should’ve caught on that it was a trap.
We were stupid.
“Actually, it’s not a blackout,” Carmen points out. “You can hear the party outside.”
I close my eyes and focus. Behind all the rustling and our heavy breaths, you can hear the background hum of the music coming from Kappa’s house.
The statement falls into the pit of my stomach, dragging it to the soles of my feet.
If the rest of Greek Row has electricity, it means someone shut the main lines here.
The house was tampered with.
This can’t be a coincidence.
The feeling of impending doom returns to me, drilling into my bones.
I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
Danny’s hand abandons mine and I hear his footsteps move to my right. A second later, the flicking noise of the light switch echoes in the house. He’s testing the lights, but nothing turns on.
We would be in total darkness if it weren’t for the faint pink fairy lights taped up in the hall.
But they’re barely any source of illumination when the house is drowned in shadows.
The space is too big to be lit by small bulbs.
If anything, the faint pink glow makes the scenario seem even creepier.
Leighton turns on her phone’s flashlight, brightening the room.
“Right, I’m out of here,” one guy says, stomping out to the hall.
I step back, feeling the flat wall behind my back, and lean against it, hoping to find some balance.
Anxiety spreads in my brain, tingling down my body, and it increases when I hear the doorknob rattling.
He returns a moment later, yelling, “What the fuck? Did you lock the door when you came in?”
The question is directed toward Carmen and me.
After all, we were the last ones to show up to this place.
Everyone was already here, so I can understand how suspicious it looks.
Locking the door behind us would’ve been easy, but they’re missing an important factor here.
How could we have known that everyone was gathered there?
We had no way of making sure everyone had responded immediately to our summons.
I shouldn’t even be wasting time on their stupid theories. I should be focusing my attention on trying to solve this mystery before anything bad happens. It’s only a matter of time before the other shoe drops.
“Of course not,” Carmen responds curtly. “Why would we do that?”
“We can’t leave? What about the back door?” Sophia asks, her voice slightly wavering. More rattling follows and I hear people attempting to budge the door open. “Or the windows?”
“No point even trying.” Bethan crushes the idea before anyone moves.
“We struck a deal with Theta about having a completely closed afterparty, so we would have only one entrance and closing the others to prevent non-Greeks from sneaking in. And they like to put on the storm shutters for their parties.”
“Shit, the noise,” I mumble under my breath.
I had forgotten that Theta house is well known for their incredibly loud parties.
To prevent getting shut down by the police, they would put on storm shutters.
It drowns out the noise coming from the house, plus it prevents drunk kids from getting wild ideas.
One time, I saw one of the frats try to throw their mattresses from the second floor, so it seemed like a reasonable precaution.
Now? It only makes the paranoia in me spike.
We’re trapped in here with no way out.
If the shutters weren’t locked in place, we could crack a window open and sneak out. Instead, we’re stuck. I’m not sure if there’s a way to escape through the shutters. It would take a lot of effort and tools I’m pretty sure we don’t have.
“I’m going to see if I can find some flashlights,” Danny announces, once again taking the lead.
“How do you know they have any?” Elodie questions with a shake in her voice.
“Every house on Greek Row is required to keep flashlights in the house,” Danny responds, his voice soothing.
Maybe it’s my horror fanatic coming out, but it unnerves me that he’s volunteering to venture into the darkness to find flashlights.
I understand we need them. But it’s always when people start to split up that bad things happen.
I’m not prepared to lose him when I just got him, when we’ve finally found each other.
We haven’t even begun to establish a relationship, and now I’m scared to death something will happen to him if he goes alone.
“I’ll go with you,” I chip in, even though I know that volunteering to go into a dark part of a house isn’t the correct move.
It never is.
There are rules in every horror movie scenario.
Key points to ensure your survival, no matter what or who you’re facing.
One of them is to never volunteer to go anywhere, especially just before things begin to go downhill, like they are now.
This is usually the part when the audience yell at the people on the screen not to make that decision.
Yet I’m doing it because maybe, if I go with him, things won’t go downhill at all.
Maybe two negatives can turn into a positive, or however that math rule works.
It’s possible that this just ends up being a movie I’ve created in my mind, another of my scripts where I’ve self-inserted myself as a character.
Right?
God, I hope so, because I’m not prepared to handle the opposite.
Danny grabs both of my hands, lifts them to his lips, and presses a kiss on each of them. I can barely see his eyes with the dim glow of the pink lights, but they’re staring deep into mine. What I find in his puppy gaze isn’t the reassurance I’m looking for.
I frown.
What’s going on? Is he about to reject me?
“No, you stay here, Mabs,” he says in a soft but firm voice. “I’ll go with one of the guys.”
The V between my brows deepens to the point where I swear they touch each other.
One of the guys?
Why would he go with one of the guys when just a few minutes ago they were about to come to blows? It doesn’t seem like a logical choice. He can’t be thinking straight.
“What? Why?” I question immediately, clutching his hands so he doesn’t get to rush away before we’ve had a chance to discuss this.
I need one more minute to think about this.
It’s such a rash decision.
Danny wets his lips and subtly tilts his head toward Carmen and Cerys. He’s trying to say something without putting it into words. It takes me a second, but I get what he means. He’s telling me to stay here with my sister and my friend—in case anything happens.
The just in case attitude makes my stomach constrict painfully.
Reluctantly, I let his hands slip away from mine.
He calls out to Ollie—probably the best option he has—so they can go together.
He uses the excuse that he will need someone to help him raid the closets or perhaps a storage room, and they disappear down the hall seconds later, their voices fading with each step they take going farther away.
“Can anyone call someone to get us out of here?” I ask, forcing myself to be the spokesperson now Danny has left.
We can’t simply sit and do nothing. We have to get out of here as soon as possible, and the only way to do it is to ensure someone speaks up and guides the group.
It doesn’t matter that in a few hours the house will be plagued with college students looking to party.
A lot can happen in a few hours. After all, the best slasher movies have a runtime of an hour and a half.
The shorter the better. It raises the stakes, and it assures the audience that the bloodshed will be quick.