𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄

ᴏɴᴇ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-ꜰᴏᴜʀ

Rueben had given him an earful—had bitched him out in more than one language—over the last few weeks because of his pitiable desire to ditch life when it got hard. Because he had shown Rueben that he was a man crafted out of brick and not the play-dough he really was.

He deserved the anger.

The pain.

The rage and mistrust—all of it.

Matteo smacked the side of his head, bit down on his tongue, squeezed his eyes until his emotions ran rivers in the rain, and listened. Lights danced over the outside of his eyelids, sending him to forbidden lands of color and mockery—preaching delicacies that he would never be worthy of understanding.

He took a few blind steps.

One, then two.

Until the music he'd heard earlier pierced his eardrums with a different—higher—tune.

Matteo's eyes tore open as he dug his foot in the ground and darted halfway across the open land. He ignored the machinery and sudden brightness of carnival rides and focused on the only place around here that would make sense. Until the rubber of his boots graced the bottom step of the haunted Mirror Maze—the only ride with an interior.

Bright, white lights lip up the exterior, but there was no EXIT, only an ENTER.

The information flew to the back of his mind as the sound of Rayne's terror penetrated him straight through the heart. Splashing water and muck up the back and front of his pants, he ran up the three, fake metal steps and headed inside, only stalling once the atmosphere captured him.

Blacklight coated him in semi-darkness.

His reflection bore at him from all angles.

The melancholy dullness of his sister's former yell slowly exited his mind as he began to spin in circles, taking a good look at the man he had become. Sunken in cheekbones. Eyes swollen with tears and age. Unhealed bruises. One of his ears hung limply with a cut straight through the bottom where he used to wear one of his gifted earrings.

He hadn't even noticed that Evelyn had ripped it out.

Matteo didn't have time to look further—to notice that the gash on his head had yet to slow down despite the fact that he was no longer in the rain. He didn't have time to realize that he'd been stripped and left unarmed in Evelyn's presence—and that even if he found Niccolió, all he had to protect his twin were the two fists he was born with.

He hurried ahead, catching bits and pieces of his sister's racing body in the reflections. Unable to tell if she was getting closer or further away from him, Matteo picked up the pace, calling after her, tearing, begging her to stall for time so he could reach her.

His fingers barely registered the graze of solid air before Matteo ran smack-first into a mirror. He toppled backward, caught off guard by the dizzying maze of the Mirror Maze, and fell to the ground. The darkness of the black light only amplified the stars behind his eyes.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Rayne screamed.

Matteo turned his head in time to catch sight of her—right before a dull thud echoed around the room. He scrambled to his feet, turning the other way and beginning to run again, chasing the minor pieces of her reflection that were allotted to him at this angle.

"Rayne!" he called after her.

But it was no use.

Matteo halted in place, feeling all of the blood pour out of his body in uninvited drains. Rayne's eyes were shut, her fingers folded in her palms, her lips flat without emotion. His knees wobbled as her body was pulled by the ankles to an unknown destination—as he noted the red streak following the trail from under the locks of their identical, auburn hair.