“And for us?”
That’s a more complex question.If I’m right, and he’s trying his hardest to woo one of the women here tonight, there is no way a sane person could appreciate any of these grotesque offerings.And whenhe realizes that… Images of sad, dejected men with wet, wilted hair from any number of romantic comedies pop into my head.In the movies, the guy who doesn’t get the girl bows out gracefully, but I can’t see that happening here.All I see is more blood.
I’m not sure how to word that in a way that won’t send them both screaming down some dark hallway never to be seen again.I don’t want to worry them, and I’m saved from having to make the decision when there’s a sound to our left, and then—
“Jamie?”
The voice is unmistakably male, and my back stiffens against the wall.I’ve only recently become familiar with the deep tone, so it takes a second for relief to cut through the initial, instinctive fear, and when I turn toward the source, I let that relief audibly leave my mouth.
He’s back.
Wes is back.
Billie stands behind him, but he’s the one who captures my attention, standing at the top of the stairs, face grave, his eyes locked on my arm.I’ll admit, it looks worse than it probably is: the bloodstain starts a hand’s width away from the top of my shoulder, spreads wide over my bicep, and then dribbles into trails of red reaching my wrist.Add that to holding a dull corkscrew, and this isn’t exactly how I wanted to look when we reunited.But then my gaze drops to see the blood onhisshirt.New, fresh stains mar the white material, and then of course there’s his missing weapon.Rod?Shaft?
The chair leg is gone.Well, not so much “gone” as upgraded.
Now it’s a blood-tipped knife.
CHAPTER 17
“If you find somebody you can hunt, you can’t let that get away.”
—NotThe Wedding Singer
“What thehellhappened?”
I move toward him but stop short, glance down at the knife hanging from his weapon wristlet, then take two steps back.It was too dark in the corridor to be sure, but the knife in Wes’s hand doesn’tlooklike the one that was used on the guy at the end of the corridor.The one that was able to paint an already red wall a sticky coat of dark crimson.It’s still a knife, though, and there’s still blood on it.There’s blood onhim.
“Why do you have that?”I ask, trying and failing to keep my voice even as he shifts to take the final step up to the mezzanine.
He pauses before his foot hits the floor, a brief look of hurt crossing his face, but then he glances down at my arm again and moves back onto the previous step.Billie presses herself up against the wall to accommodate him, her eyes darting between the corkscrews in our hands.Wes’s gaze shifts behind me to the other women wholook like they’ve been dragged through hell and back, and then he holds him arms up in surrender.The handle of the knife becomes loose in his hand—though the bracelet I made him would make it impossible for any of us to get the weapon out of his grip anyway—and I see he’s holding the small first aid kit and a flashlight in his other hand.
Something moves behind them.Someone.
“Dani?”
She looks like hell, too—her Meg Ryan pixie cut is looking less nineties rom-com cute and more like an eighties slasher heroine who’s seen some shit.She does not look like someone who’d accidentally get a chicken tattoo on a fun night out, and when she squeezes past Wes and Billie, I see her face is gaunt and pale.I crane my neck to look over Wes’s shoulder, hoping to see that familiar pink dress.Because if they’ve found Dani, then—
“Where’s—”
The question dies on my tongue when Wes shakes his head almost imperceptibly, his eyes closing in a “don’t ask” blink, but the word alone is enough to bring Dani to tears.
There’s blood on her hands so she doesn’t try to wipe at them as they fall down her cheeks.
“You were right,” she sniffs.“We shouldn’t have split up.We thought we could check both corridors at the same time, but Colette didn’t come back.She didn’t come back.”
Fuck.
She climbs the final step and joins us on the landing; Billie, too.But even though he’s been with them this whole time, and I’m sure Billie and Dani would tell us if he went AWOL at some point, Wes stays where he is.I have a feeling he won’t take another step closer until we invite him to, like a polite yet cautious vampire.And I appreciate it.He’s not a threat, but he knows we feel threatened.So that’s whyI hold my hands up to mirror his and make my voice soft when I ask again, “What happened?”
“Dani was hiding under the bar,” he says, using the hand holding the knife to gesture to the stains on his shirt.The way they cut across the white material in straight gashes, it’s like he was brushing against wet paint.“It was… messy.”
Not wet paint.Spilled blood.
“When Colette didn’t come back, I didn’t want to go back upstairs alone,” Dani says from behind me.“I thought I could just hide and wait it out.”
Considering I didn’t get to tell her about the rules, those are some good instincts.
