When I look up, the mirror is fogged over.
I rear back, startled, breath shaky. My reflection was completely clear seconds ago, and now it looks like it did earlier after my shower. A sour taste floods my mouth as I remember the dripping pipe and the shape in the mirror.
This time, there’s no movement behind me. Instead, the steamed mirror reveals three words traced on its surface, lines of clarity among the fog:
Elena didn’t leave.
Who the hell is Elena?
The name is familiar, but it takes me a minute to place her: Elena, the girl I replaced. The one Viv said quit theEmpressgig.
Cold water sinks into my stomach. The foreboding feeling, the one that gradually went away as I talked to Rachel and drank at the party, is now back in full-force.
Who wrote this? And how did they manage to fog up my mirror?
Blood thrums throughout my body, and I become very aware of the shower at my back, a hollow empty space that suddenly feels full and heavy, waiting for me to turn around.
I can’t rip my eyes from the words on the mirror, but my feet are turning all the same, drawn to the shower behind me. My breath comes stilted and scraped as shadows twitch in my peripheral vision.
“Fuck!” I gasp.
The shower is empty. The clear glass door displays the showerhead and the bottles ofEmpress-provided soap and conditioner. Nothing else.
Why did I expect someone to be standing there?
Swallowing noisily, I glance over my shoulder, back at the mirror.
The foggy surface is wiped clean. The words are gone. My reflection suspiciously stares back at me, face drawn and narrow.
“Am I being hazed or something?” I mutter.Or am I losing it?
I need a good night’s sleep. A lot has happened today. This is the first time I’ve been confronted by Sage and her book in months; maybe all this is a trauma response.
Elena is not my problem, and whatever weirdness is going on in this bathroom will be solved tomorrow, after I can be certain this isn’t sleep deprivation combined with too much alcohol.
As I crawl into bed, eyelids already heavy, the last thing I hear is a gentle dripping, coming from behind the closed bathroom door.
Chapter 9
My sleep is fractured, splintered by dreams of thrashing waves and the sound of dripping water, and I wake the next morning at dawn, unable to rest any longer.
Grabbing my phone, I pull the one sweater I brought with me over my head and slink out into the hallway in blue pajama shorts and bare feet.
As expected, the yacht is silent. No sounds come from the billiards room, but I can’t forget what I saw there last night. I tiptoe to the main level, the air-conditioning chilling my exposed legs.
When I pad across the floor, I note the cleanliness. The line of glasses on the counter is gone. The trash is empty. Sometime during the night, the stews came and worked their magic. It looks like there was never a party at all.
My head is fuzzy from the gin drinks and the lack of sleep, so I head directly to the fridge, opening one of the doors and grabbing a bottle of water as my stomach lurches. A combination of hangover and hunger hits me hard.
“Shit, I need to eat something.”
For the first time, I realize we didn’t have dinner last night. There were small plates and cheese boards at the party, but I haven’t had anything substantial to eat in over a day. I scan the fridge, blinking in surprise. The shelves are basically empty. There are leftover cheese plates covered in plastic wrap, various condiments, a glass pitcher of fresh orange juice, and several cartons of berries. That’s it. No eggs, no produce, no boxes of takeout. Besides the orange juice and water bottles, the only other beverages are beer and hard seltzers.
When I check the freezer, there’s only vodka and ice. I’d kill for pizza bagels right now.
“No groceries…” I mutter.
My skin prickles underneath my oversized sweater, and not from the air-conditioning. The overwhelming apprehension returns.
