My heels dig into the dark carpet. I look behind me, and my eyes widen. He’s gone.
Why didn’t he follow me?I swallow as my breath picks up.Why am I suddenly nervous?I look at the table I was standing by only seconds ago, and he is nowhere.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath.
I turn back, and my head falls into a rock-hard chest. I stumble back, holding onto the wall, trying to steady myself as the man laughs.
It’s not the man I was with earlier; this one has a red shirt under his tux. “Nina.”
“Wha—?” I say, trying to figure out who this person is.
He slowly takes his mask off. It’s Marco.
His dark eyes pierce through mine.How did he know who I was?
“Marco, hi. How did you know it was me?”
“You’re working with the wrong person,” he says with nearly no emotion in his voice, completely ignoring my question.
“What do you mean?”
“The man you were with is one of the killers.” He laughs, and I do too. He doesn’t know that I am one of them. Or he is just playing his cards right.
“How do you know that?” I’m trying to sound as curious as possible.
“I just do.” He puts his mask back on and then straightens his tie. I’m kind of upset he took the mask off. The whole point of this is to remain a mystery.
I look down at his hands, silver rings wrapped around his fingers. What is stopping me from killing him in this moment?
Nothing.
“We never finished our game of Scrabble.” I step toward him, closing the small gap between us.
“Ah, no we didn’t.”
“Well, that’s a good thing . . . I suppose.” I laugh. “Because I always win.” I reach for a red note and place it softly on his chest, right above his heart.
“You’re not as innocent as people make you out to be.” He laughs as I push past him.
What does that mean?
I pick my dress up again and turn around the corner. I see a woman walk into one of the rooms, and I follow her.
I open the door slowly, but then my body gets tugged back. I stumble as the person who pulled me back catches my fall. I look up and notice it’s the man I was with before.
“Where the hell did you go?” I nearly shout at him.
“I’m right here,” he says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Well, I killed another one.”
“I saw.”
“Yeah, let’s go.” I walk back into the room the woman walked into. There are two candles lit, hanging from the wall. The room is decorated as if I’ve jumped back many centuries.
A large table fills the room. It looks like a conference table. The wood looks like it was stained the color of cherry, just like my papa’s office.
“Where did she go?” I whisper.