Stu
Jennifer
Billie
Then there’s the woman we found next to Drew.The guy at the end of the corridor.
Eleven people.
Then there’s the “others.”The ones I haven’t seen since the speed dates, the ones who, I hope, are hiding if they’re not the two bodies we found.
Lee, Michael, Jason, Ari, Nia, Niamh, Ellen, and Shelley.
Not to mention the host, the two bartenders, and the coat check attendant.If I get out of here I’ll learn their names, I’ll commit them all to memory, because they deserve more than being an unnamed victim at the end of the call sheet.
I move past Laurie’s name when I catch it under my own on the match card.I can’t think about her right now unless it’s the mantra I’ve been repeating over and over since I watched her slide through that vent: she’s okay.She’s outside.She’s getting help and soon we’ll be back together relinquishing last cans of sparkling water and arguing over my dissertation.
God, my dissertation.To think that was the biggest concern in my life a few hours ago, and now I’m using those years of research to work my way through a real-life slasher.If I get out of here—whenI get out of here—I will just write the damn thing.I’m not going to doubt my ability to write about genre theory ever again.That’s for damn sure.
Slipping the male date card back on top, I see Wes’s name.I brush my thumb across the ink and tears pool at the edges of my eyes when I think of the way he kissed me, touched me.How even after I ran away from him, I can’t fully convince myself he’s the one who’s doing this.I can’t even begin to comprehend how stupid it isthat I’m crying over aboywhile there’s a killer on the loose.Especially if the boy and the killer are the same damn person.But now that the panic frenzy has passed, now that I’ve had a moment to breathe and I can push the image of Billie’s body splayed across the bar out of my head…
I release a breath.
There is a pretty good chance I might’ve fucked up.
Wes was right next to me when Heart Eyes lodged an ax in Stu’s skull and then wrenched it back out.Billie couldn’t have physically accomplished that.She definitely wasn’t as tall and broad as whoever did.
While the part of me that’s been able to recall so many slasher scenes tonight insists I can’t fully discount Wes until the killer is unmasked, I can’t ignore the feeling in my gut that tells me it’snothim.Not when my brain brings other images of Wes to the forefront of my mind; pleasant, rose-colored recollections of what he’s said and done tonight that makes the hook in my chest pull.
You’re my type, Jamie.You’re one of a kind and just my type.
What if my complex has led me to believe a man is more likely to murder me than want to be with me?
That’s when I know I must be crazy.Because I’m not just afraid he could be the one who’s committed all these murders tonight; I’m afraid that if my intuition and my eye-fucking preferences are correct, I might have just messed up my chances at that real date if we get out of here.And right now, I can’t tell which would be worse.
So instead, I focus on trying to figure out how many men are still left.
Because I’m certain Billie would only be doing this with a man—fora man.That, I would stake my life on.She proved time and again tonight that she wasn’t a girl’s girl, and she said it herself: after she killed me,shewas going to be the One.
It’s a concept I’m more than familiar with, and when I think about the way Billie called me a means to an end, a disappointment waiting to happen, I know Wes and I were right.Billie thought—the other killerthinks—they’re in a rom-com.I just don’t think Billie was happy with her role.
That makes two of us, I think, but before I can keep feeling sorry for myself, movement at the bottom of the stairs pulls my eyes from the card, draws my heart up into my throat.A shadowy figure blends in with the darkness.An abstract silhouette that wouldn’t be out of place inLights Out, and I can’t help but think it would be the cherry on top of the never-ending shit sundae of this night if I have to start dealing with a goddamn haunting as well as a killer.The shape moves up the stairs, becomes more human, and I have to stop thinking this shit into existence because as the shadow ascends each step I realize…
It’s John.
CHAPTER 35
“I wanted to kill you.I wanted to kill you so badly.”
—NotYou’ve Got Mail
John.
Last seen running chest first into who I now suspect was a machete-wielding Billie in a commendable act of self-sacrifice.
I am dumbstruck as he stumbles up the stairs toward me, the neckline of his shirt gaping.The material over his left shoulder, the whole sleeve, has turned cherry red from the wound I’d tried to stanch earlier.Even if he could manage to get the stain out, he’ll never be able to wear this shirt again because there’s a long slash down the torso.
It’s the artful kind of tear I wished I’d seen across Wes’s shirt before Billie actually gave him one.The exposed skin beneath reveals John is… more than lean.He’s strong.Muscular.So much so the word “misleading” comes to mind when I think about how he looked at the beginning of the night.Everything that’s happened so far has taken away any desire to be horny in this kind of situation, but I do reconsider the “belongs in a lecture hall” category I placed him in.Especially since I realize after quite a delay that he’salive.
