“It was a stupid fucking plan.So we went back to trying to find an exit.”
That wasn’t what we agreed on.They were supposed to come back here, but I’m not going to mention it when Stu is just getting more and more irate.
“We walked past a room, and he jumped out and fucking—two knives right in her neck.Me and Jennifer, we just ran.”
And that’s why Wes and I don’t drop our weapons.Stu left with two of the group and came back with none.This isn’t the first time, either.It’s becoming a pattern.A lethal one.
“So where is she?”I ask, maintaining that same measured tone.Calm and controlled, even though both of those words feel unnaturalat this point.Like I’ve never felt them before.It does nothing, though.Stu’s glare could cut through skin.
“Do you have a disorder?I just told you, Dani is—”
“Not Dani.”And I can tell if Stu wasn’t so riled up Wes would add a “dumbass” for good measure before saying, “Jennifer.”
Stu looks around like he’s only just realized she isn’t there, and if Laurie still had some kind of thing for him, this is the moment where the other shoe would have dropped.This would’ve been the final red flag.The major ick.
“I don’t know.”He shakes his head, redirecting the knife away from us and behind him.“We ran in opposite directions.I guess I was faster.I hid in another room, I waited and then I…” He stops, looks between the knife Wes holds just above his hip and the stake I’m overtly holding out from my chest.“You don’t believe me?”
“No,” Wes and I say in unison, and Stu looks genuinely shocked at the answer.
“What the hell?Why not?”
“I don’t know, Stu, maybe it’s the fact people keep going missing around you.”
It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself, and as expected, he doesn’t like the inference.He takes a step forward until he’s right in front of the doorframe of the VIP room.Which is where we need to go to set the detector off.Where we were going to put our plan in place and finally get out of here.And now he’s blocking it.
“That’s bullshit,” he snarls, stabbing the knife in the space between us.It does a lot for emphasizing his point, but not so much for convincing anyone he isn’t a psycho.“You know I’m not the killer.And you wanna know why?Becauseyou’rethe reason this is all happening, Jamie, and I’m at the bottom of the fucking list of people who would do shit for you.”
He’s not wrong.We’ve been snapping at each other all night, butwhen the others were around there was a little bit of restraint.Now that it’s just him and his two least favorite people, though, he’s like a dog gone rabid.Wes goes to move forward, but I grab his sleeve and pull him back because Stu is too far gone.I can see too much of the whites of his eyes, and there’s not a single shred of rationality going through that bearded head right now.
“You need to calm down.”Wes’s tone is low, a warning, but it doesn’t stop Stu’s head from jerking toward him, his stare sharp and cold.
“Fuck you,” he spits.“If anything,you’rethe one who’s doing this shit.And if you aren’t?Then your hours are fucking numbered, buddy, because once he finds out about you two,you’regoing to be next.So you need to figure out whether her know-it-all fucking snatch is worth dying for.”
I flinch.Wes does, too.The silence that follows Stu’s statement is deafening, because even among the rage, he’s hit on something that we know is true.Or at leastIknow it’s true.
It never ends well for the love interest.
Stu’s stare drops to where I’m gripping Wes’s sleeve before he lets out a cold scoff, his arms opening wide, the boning knife still held firmly in his hand.“But, no, go ahead.If you guys think it’s me, then maybe I should jus—”
We don’t get to find out what Stu plans to do because before he can enlighten us, there’s movement just inside the doorframe.The darkness is pierced by a glint of silver, and then an ax swings down into his skull.
CHAPTER 32
“If for some reason, underneath all that strength and confidence, you still don’t trust that you are killable enough, I’m living proof… that you’re wrong.”
—NotBros
It’s like watching one of those Hot Lumberjack TikToks where they don’t manage to chop the wood all the way through on the first go.
Stu lets out a groan similar to those made by the frustrated, shirtless, bearded men Laurie follows across her socials and drops to his knees.The ax is still lodged in his head, blood pouring onto his plaid shirt and wiping out the white stripes when he falls facedown to the ground.
It’s a regular “Here’s Johnny” moment, but in lieu of Jack Nicholson peeking through the splintered remains of a door, Heart Eyes practically floats into the hallway to look at his handiwork.The gray oversized dinner jacket he’s been wearing all night is stained, drenched in burgundy blood that blends in perfectly with the dark red of the wallpaper.It glistens on the black coveralls, too, like an oil spill, the fabric visible between the V of the jacket as it stretches across hischest.He steps over Stu’s back, leans down, and wraps his gloved hand around the throat of the ax.The sound of the blade being jostled out of Stu’s skull is loud enough to reach us, and I taste digested espresso martini.
When he finally gets the ax out and straightens, he looks between us, his head tilting down to where I’m holding Wes’s arm and can’t make myself let go.He looks up and I see those two heart-shaped holes head-on, staring straight at me, and even though I can’t distinguish anything but black within them, I know.I know what he must think.So when Wes turns, using his body to push me back the way we came, I yank his shirt and pull him along with me.Because Heart Eyes isn’t going to lodge that ax into his Leading Lady.Not yet anyway.But Wes?Wes is his rival.Another obstacle he needs to cut through to get to me.And that’s why I make sure my strides are a little shorter than his, let him get ahead of me, as we haul ass out of there.
I don’t look back to see if he’s following us.Not when my shoulder smacks against the corner of the hallway and not when pain throbs heavily down my arm as I push away from the wall, spying blood that isn’t my own on my collarbone.Wes slows down enough to bring his right arm around my back, pulling me into line with him as we head for the darkness and the debris we avoided earlier.It’s the only option we have.Even if we were able to make it back to the janitor’s closet, there isn’t anything there to help us, and that ax will get through a wooden door a lot easier than Stu’s skull.The beam of Wes’s flashlight illuminates a few feet ahead of us, granting just slightly better visibility than the rest of the club, but even then I still miss the first piece of glass that slices the side of my foot.
“Ah!”
