It took half a second to realize what was happening, but Saffi caught on just in time. She slammed the door shut and locked it.Their gazes met briefly before darting away. The bathroom was a mess—the mirror still broken, drops of Dimple’s blood splattered across the floor.
Without a word, the two of them began cleaning up. The mirror would have to remain—there was nothing they could do about that. When Saffi unlocked the door, they left before the woman waiting outside could get in a single complaint.
Dimple walked ahead of Saffi. She’d cleaned her knuckles under water and the cuts weren’t as bad as they seemed, but it still looked an angry mess. Saffi caught her wrist, hoping it would be enough to convey the words she couldn’t say.
Somehow, it was.
—
When they finallymade it back to the hotel, cold and tired, Saffi had been certain that whatever happened in the bathroom would be left there. If she thought about it for too long, reminders ofshe’s a killerandguilty by proxywould flash in her mind until her head spun.
But then Dimple paused in front of her door and Saffi dared to hope. When a warm hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her inside, she knew she hadn’t been wrong.
“What—” she began, but Dimple shoved her back so hard that her head ricocheted against the door.
“Don’t say a word,” Dimple snapped.
Saffi obliged without question.
“This is so idiotic,” Dimple murmured as she leanedin.
Saffi couldn’t help but agree.
The dress Dimple wore had to be worth more than Saffi could imagine. With how pedantic she was, Saffi half expected Dimple to change the second they stepped inside. Instead, she barely touched the dress, giving the privilege of unwrapping her to Saffi alone.
Unwilling to let such an opportunity go, she took her time. She let the dress hang off Dimple’s shoulders like a curtain, like a waterfall, and admired the view. Then from her waist, her hips, her thighs. Each time it slipped, each time Saffi’s hand uncovered a new expanseof smooth brown skin, it sent a new thrill through her veins. Saffi’s fingertips pressed harshly into it, bruising and unrelenting. Dimple burned like coal and she stoked the flames.
With no barriers between them, nothing stopped them from melding into one. Lips pressed into lips, teeth into skin, fingers into flesh as warm lamplight cast deep shadows across their bodies.
If Saffi had stopped to consider, she might’ve realized that it no longer felt like a game at all. And that was more dangerous than anything.
Chapter Thirty-Five
September 6, 2026
Dimple woke upalone the next morning. There was no trace of Saffi in the hotel room—not her clothes, her voice, not even her scent. Dimple would’ve thought she hallucinated the night before if not for her bruised knuckles. They twinged as she flexed her fingers. Some part of her had thought this might be the exception to Saffi’s habitual desire to run, but clearly the instinct ran deeper than she’d initially thought.
She sat up slowly, ignoring the migraine pounding against her skull in protest. Both of them had been sober the night before, but that only meant that there was no excuse. The state of her mind then might as well have belonged to another person. They were a pair of scene partners too caught up in their respective roles. The performance rewiring their brains until they’d forgotten who they really were.
Or perhaps Dimple had finally lost her mind. Either way, her chest was left hollow, her veins ice-cold. She could still feel the bruising press of Saffi’s fingers, but it only served as a reminder of something that could never happen again.
Having gotten up much earlier than usual, Dimple went through the motions of her morning routine slowly. Priyal wanted to explore more of the festival so their flight back to California wasn’t until the next morning. When Dimple returned from her shower, the fogdispersing into the polar vortex of the room, she found a plastic coffee cup sitting on the desk and a new note scribbled onto the notepad.
Last minute news from a job I booked! Had to catch an early flight back to Cali—sorry!!!
Priyal <3
Dimple felt an irrational pang of hurt at the message, which she quickly tempered. Acting jobs were often impromptu opportunities. Priyal had no choice but to take it. However, wasn’t being here with Dimple her job as well? At least for the next two weeks? And hadn’t Priyal been the one who wanted to stay in Toronto longer?
It was unreasonable to dwell on it, though, so Dimple expelled the bitterness from her mind.
Priyal’s drink of choice today was pink. Dimple took a sip and then another. It was very sweet, but not bad overall. She’d been opening the curtains when the early-morning light hit the note just right, revealing mismatched lines of indention. Dimple picked the paper up and held it close to her face. It looked as though someone had previously written a note with too heavy a hand. Before she could dismiss it as something a past guest had written, Dimple spotted a word that looked eerily close to her name. But Priyal hadn’t written Dimple’s name in her note and the trash can was empty, so where did that come from?
There was only one other person who’d been in Dimple’s room since yesterday.
She pushed back the curtains and held the paper up to the sunlight, trying to decipher the indents. Priyal’s blocky writing made it difficult. She gave up, setting the note aside, and scanned the room instead. If Saffi wanted Dimple to read her message, the note had to be somewhere accessible. And if she hadn’t wanted Dimple to read it, she wouldn’t have left evidence behind.
Dimple double-checked the trash, but it remained stubbornlyempty. She reached for a cabinet, pausing when she realized the layer of dust above it had a handprint pressed into it. Dimple lined her fingers up with it in contemplation. There was the possibility of this being some kind of trap, but her curiosity was too great to ignore. Before she could change her mind, Dimple yanked open the cabinet door and came face-to-face with a locked safe.
