The smile snapped back on Felix’s face. “Oh, Poppet…” His voice dropped into a mockingly tender tone. “Are you trying to bargain with me?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he moved before I could get a word out. His hand swept across the table, plucking up a silver skewer from one of the platters, then he drove it into my left shoulder.
White heat tore through me, exploding behind my ears at the same time a violent orgasm ripped through my body. My scream came out thin and broken. The weight of the food shifted, throwing plates everywhere as it jerked from the pain and pleasure. Blood spread out and soaked into the tablecloth beneath me.
“Stars don’t negotiate,” Felix hissed into my ear. “They perform.”
The room started to tilt as my vision tunneled.
Through my narrowing haze, I saw Felix stroll to the head of the table where Austin writhed. He tore a handful of meat off the severed leg and crammed it between Austin’s clenched teeth.
He gagged and choked, but Felix kept cramming fistful after fistful into his mouth while growling something I couldn’t hear over the roar in my ears.
The last thing I saw before the dark swallowed me was Flynn’s painted-on grin hovering over me like a mask over a nightmare.
December 31, 8:03 pm
When I came to, it felt as if the world was breathing. As if a thousand small sighs were whispering at me from every direction.
My shoulder burned, and for half a second, I thought I was still on the table. But the dusty scent in the air told me otherwise. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Was this their next act, or was the nightmare over? And did I want it to be over?
I shouldprobably be scared—most people in my situation would be—but I wasn’t. I was waiting for it to be over. Or for my suffering to be enough, if it ever would be. Maybe I was waiting for my sister to come back and exact her revenge? I didn’t know what. I only knew that for some reason, I was still here, and she wasn’t.
Death didn’t mean anything to me because I was already in hell. And apparently, there was a ringmaster and a mime here with me.
I wasn’t naked anymore. I could feel clothes on my skin. It felt like a dress, maybe, and I was lying on something cold and smooth, like a tile floor. But it was the sound that sent a shiver up my spine, or lack thereof. It was quiet. So quiet that the air pulsed through my ears. And that was terrifying, not because of my situation, but because of who was there with me.
I could feel them watching.
Something wasn’t right with Flynn and Felix. They were clearly crazy, but there was something else. Something ismissing in that sparkle in their eyes. Almost like they lacked humanity. Maybe they were avenging angels? Maybe theywere demons? And maybe they were something else. Whatever they were, it wasn’t human.
I was tempted to lie there and feign sleep—that seemed like the safer choice—but not being able to see anything only made things worse. The ache in my shoulder crawled over my entire body while the smell of blood filled my nostrils, and the silence became a deafening whoosh sound until I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling open.
The first thing I saw was the black-and-white checkered pattern on the floor. When I pushed myself up, I saw the mirrors. Walls and walls of them. They stretched high into the darkness, multiplying my reflection into a dozen pale ghosts. And that wasn’t the strangest thing.
The girl staring back at me from those mirrors wasn’t me.
It was a doll-like version of me.
My skin was a chalky, powdered white, and a rosy circle hid the tan normally on my cheeks.
I frowned at the perfect crimson bow painted in the middle of my lips while rolling my eyes over the auburn braids someone had tied off with bright red ribbons.
The frilly white dress I was wearing wasn’t too uncomfortable, especially since the puffy sleeves hung off my shoulder and away from my fresh wound. But I could’ve done without the white thigh-high stockings with delicate red bows, and black Mary-Jane shoes.
What the fuck?
I cocked a brow at the blood staining my collarbone.
Why on earth would anyone dress me up like this? Why would they dress anyone up like this? Not sure that I wanted to know the answer to that. I looked like a living porcelain doll.
Okay, now I was scared.
A groan drew my attention to a figure on the floor beside me. Austin was also no longer naked, at least not from the waist down. He looked like he’d been run over, beaten with a bat, and tossed to the side. Besides, for the many, many bruises covering him, there was an angry cut across his chest. His wrists were raw from the restraints, and a trickle of dried blood crawled out of the corner of his mouth. Horror movie victims didn’t have shit on him.
I was about to ask Austin if he was okay when he sat up and cocked a brow at my dress. “What the hell did they do to you?”
“Apparently, we’re now in the land of mirrors, and I’m the resident doll.”
