Page 27 of Escape

I pressed my ear against the door, doing my best to hold my breath and listen. There was no sound but the dull thump of my heart, so I gently pushed the door open.

The room was dimly lit with a single lamp sitting on the large, solid wood desk. Right next to it sat the intercom microphone hooked up to some kind of box with tons of tiny, different-colored flashing lights. I didn’t know what the hell it was, but I guessed it allowed Kel to make announcements through the intercom from anywhere in the building.

I inched closer, peering around the desk to the chair that sat partially backwards. There was definitely something or someone in it. Swallowing my remaining fear, my arm shot out to turn it around. The body in the chair shifted and I jumped back with a gasp.

Luckily, it was only a life-sized dummy. But it was dressed just like Ariana used to. A picture of her was plastered to the doll’s head with a giant kitchen knife stabbed through its mouth. Blood dripped from the weapon and down the dummy’s chest, where I could just make out the curve of letters. Carefully unzipping the jacket of the pink, cropped jacket, I slowly made out the jagged letters.

Liar.

I recoiled, taking in the message. Ariana? A liar? All the years I’d known her, she’d been harsh and with that…brutally honest. She wasn’t the type to ever bite her tongue or soften a blow. Liar was arguably the complete opposite of what Ariana was.

Then again, there was the note she wrote in Kel’s yearbook that made absolutely no sense. But I guess she technically never lied about knowing Kel, she just never mentioned it.

In front of me, on the wall, a giant mirror that I hadn’t noticed before flickered. I jolted, slamming into the wall behind me as my reflection disappeared and the glass transformed into a window. The masked demon’s towering form stood right up to the glass, head tilted and staring at me.

I looked around for a door that led to the other side, but there was nothing. No way the demon could move from the room they were in to the room I was in directly.

Feeling a slight bit of comfort, I peeled myself from the far wall and approached the glass. If she moved, I would just run…or lock myself in the principal’s office. Someone would have to find me eventually.

I stood right in front of her, studying her. It seemed like she’d grown at least two whole feet since I saw her last. I had to crane my neck up to look at her masked face. She stood solid, immovable and eerily still as my gaze wandered.

The only part of her that moved was the slow, steady fall and rise of her chest. Memories of lying on that chest, letting the rhythmic movement and beat of her heart lull me to sleep after a late night, played in my mind. I used to hold my palm over it, focusing on how each thud would thump my cheek and hand at the same time.

Instinctively, I raised my arm and pressed my fingers to the glass where her chest hovered. Seconds later, large, tattooed hands pressed into mine over the barrier. I gasped, jumping but not jerking away. I flattened my hand more, she followed suit before meeting my eyes and I could’ve sworn I saw tears gathering.

After a few seconds, she turned away, her head shaking rapidly. She crossed the room she was in and grabbed something from the small table in the corner. It was only then that I noticed something behind her. Whatever it was was covered with a black sheet and connected to a rope attached to a device secured on the roof.

I took a few steps back as Kel approached the window again, skewing my view. She drew a series of lines on the glass. It took me a moment to realize what she was doing.

Another game.

I swallowed hard, counting the number of dashes and slashes indicating letters and spaces. Never in my life had a game of Hangman made me feel like I would actually lose my life if I lost. But I didn’t have a choice. There was no way out of this hellhole but fucking through. Always through. So I proceeded to play her fucked up game.

“Um…A.”

She tilted her head and pointed to her ear, indicating she couldn’t hear me. I mouthed the letter and made the shape with my fingers. She shook her head and proceeded to draw a circle for the head.

Then, she pulled a small remote from her pocket and pressed a button. The mass behind her moved. The black sheet slipped to the floor and a blindfolded woman was revealed, a rope tied like a noose around her neck.

The rope was slowly retreating into the device on the roof, pulling the girl from the chair and up to her feet by her neck.

“What the fuck?!” I screamed, my eyes shooting between Kel and the girl as I banged on the glass. “Who is that? What is going on?”

Kel shrugged, pointing to her ear again. Then she pointed at me, then turned her finger to her temple. Repeating the motion twice.

“Of course,” I hissed. “You want me to figure that out, too?”

She didn’t answer, so I studied the girl. Her blonde hair, her nose and mouth that I could see. It didn’t snap into place until my eyes wandered lower, catching on a small stick-and-poke heart tattoo on her hip that matched my own. I looked at the stabbed dummy in the desk chair and back at Kel.

“It’s Ariana, isn’t it?” My voice shook, a chill shooting through my bones.

But Kel still didn’t answer. She remained still, waiting for my next guess. In a way, her silence was the only confirmation I needed.

“Shit,” I hissed. “Uhh…fuck, E?” I moved and made another shape with my hands. My glare shot to Ariana. Her arms were secured behind her back, her legs shook and her lips flapped frantically, but the rope stayed in place.

As Kel filled in one space with an E, her smile almost made my knees buckle.

Get it the fuck together, Jasmine. She has you trapped in your high school, going through a death trial and she’s about to hang your best friend, for fuck’s sake.