Interrupting, Wes says, “You should stay here.With whoever stays behind,” and I shift my glare from Laurie to him.
“You’re not about to say he should stay here and play protector, right?”
He holds my gaze for a moment before he looks away with a sigh and mutters, “I’m not going tonow.”
I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest as a droll voice cutsthrough the unhappy silence.“I’ll go.”
My neck almost cracks from how quickly I whip my head around to gape at Billie.“It’s probably better for a woman to get them anyway.”She shrugs.“Wouldyoutrust a man by himself?”
I’m not going to pretend that she isn’t 100 percent on the money with that point.IfIwas hiding down there and a guy walked in, shoes covered in blood, a broken chair leg in his hand, it wouldn’t put me at ease.I’d probably stab him with my beer bottle first and ask questions later.
She pins me with an acidic look.“Not to mention we want to followthe rules, right?”
The tone is unnecessary, but the sentiment is correct.
“I don’t think I can go back down there,” Jennifer says quietly.
She’s back to gripping her arms again, eight white circles surrounding the skin where her nails dig into her flesh.Her dark eyes are wide, rimmed with darker lashes and unshed tears, and I immediately lose some of that confrontational energy that Billie seems to stir up in me.
“That’s fine,” John says, reaching out and laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder.It’s probably warm and comforting, and I remember again that—before the chaos—their date had looked… successful.
“It’s fine, right?”John says, turning his attention to the rest of us.He maintains such a calm tone that I find myself nodding, even though an uneven split of the group leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I know I’m the one who pointed out Dani and Colette were still missing.I know I’m the one who implied we needed to find them.I am still very much in favor of trying to get out of this mess with as many living people as possible.I just wish we didn’t have to split upagainto be able to do that.But since we have two willing volunteers and any further argument on my part will only earn me another swift punch in the boob, the plan is settled.After a few minutes of groupdiscussion, it’s decided that while Wes and Billie go down to the basement bar, the rest of us will move to the mezzanine.If Stu returns with an exit then we’ll get them and get out, and if he doesn’t, we’ll be able to watch the staircases to make sure no one can follow them down.But watching the stairs isn’t going to do much if the killer is already down there waiting for someone to walk into his trap, is it?
The thought has me standing behind the desk, stewing in my own discontent.Wes is over at the booth with the map, talking through possible paths with Billie.John and Jennifer study the keypad near the door like they’re going to absorb the code by osmosis, and Laurie is looking around the coat check as if the phone box may have been missed in our original search.
Spoiler: it’s still missing.
I open the top drawer again and pull out a handful of rubber bands to busy my hands as my mind runs through the best- and worst-case scenarios of our group splitting again.Every scene I imagine ends up aligning with a slasher that I know we don’t want to emulate.
Laurie appears at my shoulder, her voice low as she asks, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”When I look up from fashioning some knots with the rubber bands, she squints down at me and I shrug.“I didn’t mean to—”
“What?”
“Go full…Jamie.With the rules and the films.I’ll—”
“If you say ‘tone it down,’ I will punch you in the tit again,” she warns, inclining her head in the direction of my current critic and adding, “Billie’s a fuckwit.You’re a fucking star, baby girl.I would marry you if providence hadn’t tragically decided to make us both prefer dick.”
I swallow a laugh as she pulls more rubber bands out of the drawer, handing them to me as I start tangling them together.
“The only reason we’ve gotten through tonight is because youknow the formula.You know what happens next.”
I do.And that’s why splitting up again is gnawing at me so badly.We’re getting closer to act 2 now: the confrontation.It’s usually my favorite part of the movie when I’m watching it from my couch, but living it is different.There are a few things that are inevitably going to happen if we keep following the format this killer has set up:
It’s going to escalate.The kills are going to get more inventive, and no amount of rose petals are going to soften the effects of the violence.
We’re going to come face-to-face with him, and if he’s smart, he’s going to wear a mask.
The tensions are going to boil over between us—they already have—and the group is going to fracture… again.
We’re going to lose someone… We might lose a lot more people.
And that’s before we get anywhere close to the third act.Before we figure out who the monster is and why he’s doing this, and before the roles we’re meant to play are fully cemented.
This is playing out exactly as he wants.
