All of it was wrong. Horribly wrong.
“There are people here who shouldn’t be,” was all she could manage.
Brian scrutinized the great room. What was there to see? The drunks danced with dizzying delight, blithely unaware of something she couldn’t put into words.
“We never know who most of these people are,” he laughed, but the humor dissipated as Amelia gently nudged him away.
“I need to find my mom and get out of here. You should leave too.”
“Leave? Amelia, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer. Her legs compelled her forward, and she sprinted up the stairs. The lights flicked out, and the crowd gasped but broke into whooping applause when they powered on again.
Amelia rushed along the third-floor corridor and rounded a corner to another hall. Loud thuds and a pained scream sounded from the room next to the service staircase. Behind the closed door, angry shouts punctuated scuffling, as if two people struggled against one another.
She tiptoed to the end of the hall and ducked out of view a few steps down the service stairs. Behind the door, Richard pled on strained heaves. Amelia leaned in close to listen. The step beneath her groaned. The shouting stopped.
She silently slipped down the stairs, out of sight to the second floor just as the door above flew open and footfalls pounded down the steps. Amelia closed her eyes and crushed herself against the wall. The stomps stopped halfway down.
After a few seconds of agonizing silence, a man shouted, “No one’s out here, Chief!”
She relished a sigh and sunk against the wall as the man retreated. A few moments later, the door above slammed open again and someone hurried down the steps. Her limbs locked as Richard rounded the newel post and barreled toward her, his face red and swollen and blood staining his dress shirt.
“Move! Let’s go!”
Hot bursts of his breath hit her cheek, and his fingers cinched her arm. Amelia squealed and dug her heels into the runner rug as he dragged her down the second-floor hall.
“Stop! You’re hurting me!”
“They’re here for you,” Richard said through clenched teeth, his eyes frenzied and unfocused. “You wanna die tonight?”
Wrenching her arm away, Amelia crumpled to her knees. Richard abandoned her and limped down the hall. She ran in the other direction, down the service stairs and to the great room where the music had stopped, but not from the storm. Soft confusion rippled through the party with excited murmurs and exchanged smiles.
“A surprise guest?” someone speculated.
With her heart beating out of her chest, Amelia opened her mouth to tell everyone to run, go, get out.
But it was too late. Gunfire erupted in the great room followed by blood-curdling screams.
SIX
AMELIA
Gunfire ripped through the crowd, and white-hot flames licked up the walls. Amelia choked on plumes of smoke as the petrified throng swallowed her up.
A palm sticky with blood collided with her cheek. An elbow cracked into her back. She screamed, one voice lost amongst the cacophony.
“God, help me!” a woman howled, half her face a bloody ruin and the skin sloughing from her skull.
Someone lurched forward.
Then another.
Three more.
Then four.
A stampede ensued. Amelia crashed to her knees. Her throat burned as she shouted for help like all the others. Her eyes stung and welled with tears. She couldn’t see and tried to stand, but a man hurled into her, his knee slamming into her ribs.
