Hide Seek Kill - A Thriller Novel || Draft One

Twenty-Three: Amelia

Now that is a peculiar thought.

How long were they dating? Was it the same time he was with Mia? Or did Ben find her after Mia finally escaped him?

"He's Emilie's ex." It wasn't a question.

Felix nods grimly. "The bastard deserves to rot for the things he did to her...and you."

Felix eyes her wrists, noticing the scars.

"He did that to you too, huh?" he asks softly.

Amelia tries to shake away the horrid thoughts and decides that Felix isn't helping.

"Don't speak of it please," she begs softly. He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable being the one to bring it up.

"Now I feel bad for kissing London," Mia confesses.

Oh, she doesn't feel bad at all. But Felix won't need to know that.

"Why?" he asks.

Amelia eyes Felix seriously.

"Because Emilie likes him. You can't mistake the way they're looking at each other."

She sees Felix clenching his fists and tries not to smile. If Emilie is indeed onto her, then Amelia needs to fight back. And what better way to fight back than to make her brother go Papa Bear on her?

"They are so cute together, whispering on the couch in the drawing room, don't you think?" Mia asks innocently. "I'm glad she is able to get over all this quicker than I am."

Felix stands there, staring off into the distance and gritting his teeth.

Oh mama, this is going to be good.

"I'm meeting the others," she calls over her shoulder. "You can join me if you'd like."

"Oh, you bet I will."

***

Amelia looks in the observatory to find the others are no longer there and kicks Felix when he mentions he saw them walking to the library.

"Didn't know that's who you were looking for," he claims.

Once they reach the room, the two stop outside the door.

"Thanks for telling me about London," Felix says. "I wasn't aware how smitten Emilie is with him. Much appreciated." He reaches for the doorknob just as Amelia did and their hands touch.

"Sorry!" They say in unison.

Felix quickly opens the door and waves Mia to go in first. She politely smiles in return.

What a gentleman.

"Oh, hey Mia!" James greets. "Did you find the bathroom?"

Shoot! She still has to pee!

"Uh...I kinda got side tracked."

Emilie walks up to her and eyes her brother up and down. "We can tell. Where'd you come from, Felix?"

"I was searching for you guys when I ran into Mia in the teaching room," he explains. "She was rather..."

Mia hurries to step on his foot.

"Er—she was looking at something on the board."

Amelia doesn't bother to hide her frustration and tosses her hands in the air before walking over to James to help him search the shelf. She knows better than to hang around London.

Especially now that Felix is suspicious of him and Emilie.

Amelia shakes all those thoughts out of her mind and focuses on finding a second map to compare the one she found in the observatory. There's got to be more than one map of this place.

Felix and Emilie disperse and look around the library as well.

There is a blissful silence, the only noise being the sound of pages flipping and spines bending. Oh, and James' coughs every time he opens a book too quickly, causing dust to float into the air and his lungs.

While searching the shelves, a title catches her eye.

Second Chances: A Guide to Being Good.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Mia mumbles. Luckily, no one seems to have heard her. She pulls the leatherbound book off the shelf and to her surprise, it's a handwritten journal.

She thumbs through the pages and reads the dates at the top of the pages to find that it's from almost a hundred and fifty years ago!

Amelia turns to the last page written in and nearly drops the book.

It's dated two weeks before she ended up in this wretched place.

Knowing this must have some useful information, she tucks it under her shirt and pretends to observe a chair on the other side of the room. She makes sure the others aren't looking before slipping the book underneath the cushioning of the chair so she can read it later.

"Find anything?" Felix asks.

Everyone shakes their heads.

Then Emilie pulls something off one of the shelves and smiles. Another scroll tied with the same red string as the one they found in the observatory is in her hands and she carefully unrolls it on the large table.

"Quick! Where's the other scroll?"

London spreads the second parchment next to the other and steps back.

"Bingo," Emilie murmurs.

Mia turns her head to find that they are two parts of a whole.

The second map.

If only she had a camera she could use to take a picture! Now she'll either have to pull the map out now or wait for a chance to look at them alone.

Like she's going to let these fools know what she's found!

"That's it!" Felix says, his voice actually sounding excited for once. "The solution to the clue is a map, remember? This is it!"

He looks at Mia and she internally groans.

Felix knows what she had found, as she was stupid enough to have dropped it in the teaching room not long before he found her. The turd must've picked it up because Mia doesn't have it and she is sure that she didn't see anything on the floor when she left.

"Wait, put them together." Mia pushes the two scrolls together and a message becomes clear.

The next clue.