From my shadowed vantage point, I watch him scan the room. His confidence flickers as a ripple of unease twists inside him. He takes in the chaos of the reflections around him, and the smug smile he wore so proudly at the entrance slips away, peeled off by the disorientation that swallows him whole.
He pivots and moves to the opposite corridor. I slip out from my corner and drift silently along the left passage, letting a cold rush of air trail behind me. It washes over his back exactly as intended.
His clothes rustle as he spins, and a dim-witted laugh bursts out of him. “Lyla, you little menace. The harder you make it for me, the rougher your punishment will be.”
The urge to leap out and sink my blade straight through his mouth strikes me like a reflex, but I manage to suppress it.
He picks up speed, his boots squeaking sharply against the mirrored floor. He licks his lips, eyes roaming, before dipping his gaze downward. This funhouse ruins his pretty-boy illusion with every reflection, revealing the truth of him with brutal clarity.
I toy with him, slipping briefly into view behind him before vanishing into another corridor. He never catches the full shape of me, only fragments, and his disorientation grows deliciously frantic. A childlike thrill flares inside my chest as I move faster, more playfully, drifting from frame to frame, corner to corner, haunting him with half-visions of myself while my breathy laughs bounce off the walls and floor.
The light here is cold and metallic, almost clinical. Every angle slices him with sharp, sterile highlights. His reflection keeps appearing where logic says it shouldn’t—bending around corners before his body arrives or standing behind him even when the space is empty.
“Lyla, sweetie, come out to Daddy,” he calls, forced confidence tightening his voice.
That is my final drop of patience. I step out from the intersecting corridors with deliberate slowness, letting the moment stretch. He stands with his back to me, and when one of the mirrors catches a fuller sliver of my presence, his head turns until he is facing me.
I close the distance with calm, graceful steps, a faint smirk lifting my lips. My hands stay hidden behind my back. Each mirror I pass fractures the world around me into a thousand ghostly versions. Every copy of me moves a fraction off-beat, warped into strange, uncanny shapes.
Bodies shaped from the countless masks I have worn over the years, all dancing in broken rhythm as I walk toward him.
“You’re… not Lyla,” he mutters, shaking his head before slapping a palm against his cheek, as if trying to knockthe dizziness out of his skull. Poor idiot has no idea the disorientation wasn’t an accident.
“Would you like Lyla better?” I ask. A pointless question, a baited trap. I already know the answer, and I cage the urge to roll my eyes.
A flimsy smile crawls across his face. His gaze drags down the length of me, lingering on the sweep of black wings before dipping to the corset-tight dress hugging my torso. He stops at my cleavage, and his grin stretches wider.
Painfully predictable.
And boring beyond reason.
“Nope,” he says, popping the P as if he thinks it makes him charming. He licks his lips again, aiming for predatory but landing somewhere between pathetic and a medical emergency. “You’re an angel sent to save me, aren’t you?” he asks, voice thick and drowsy, like he’s drunk on the fantasy he built in his head.
“Do you want to come with me, Noah?” I ask, letting my voice wrap around his name in something slow and sultry.
His eyes widen, but instead of sobering, he laughs, smiling like a fool. “Fuck yes, I want to come with you, my mysterious angel.”
He starts toward me, then freezes as his gaze drops to the mirrored floor. There, behind him, another silhouette forms, causing his smile to dim. His hand rakes through his dirty-blonde hair as he wheels around.
“Didn’t know there’d be company,” he says, words coated in surprise.
His gaze locks onto Dante, a seed of panic blooming in the depths of his eyes. “Are you two together or something?” he asks. “Look, I didn’t know she was yours, man. She told me to follow—that’s why I did it.”
A laugh shudders through me as Dante and I begin to circle him. Cornered, he shifts from side to side, sweat breaking acrosshis forehead. He tugs at the collar of his shirt and starts to hyperventilate.
“I wanted it. I did,” I say, letting my voice fall into something patronizing and cruel. Hunger glints in my eyes as I glance at Dante, and his smirk answers mine perfectly.
“Can you let me go?” he asks, voice cracking, hands shooting up in surrender. “I just… I don’t feel good.”
“Ow, poor little thing,” I coo, mocking him with sugary venom. “Too scared?”
His mouth twitches as Dante and I step closer, a tremor bolting through his body. Then, something in him breaks, and with a hissed curse, he darts toward Dante, attempting to sprint past him.
He never makes it.
Dante’s knife whips through the air in a single elegant arc, slicing into the back of Noah’s lower leg. A raw scream tears from him as his body collapses, skidding across the mirrored floor, his cheek scraping harshly against the glass.
Blood splatters in bright, violent streaks. It stains the pristine panels with dark red droplets that patter like soft rain.
