WARNING: A little bit of violence and gore :)
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It was all at once. The feeling of things being kicked off into motion. The sense of the whirring sound like the most silent tornado just entered a room. When the lights turned back on.
"Hey beautiful."
I looked up in dismay to see eyebrow piercings smiling down at me.
"Hey." I plastered on a smile.
The skin smiles but the flesh doesn't. An old Chinese proverb I never understood as a kid.
"Thanks for the second chance?" Bryce smirked.
It isn't the second Bryce. Nor the third. I stopped counting after five.
But I nodded and gave him a small smile.
Bryce was wearing a simple black mask with a red rose painted on, matching the one in his pocket. My fingers flew to the rose, inspecting its petals.
"Is is this artificial?"
"Yeah, I'm not spending money for a real one." he says as if its the most obvious thing ever.
I dance mindlessly, deep in though for when Blake would send the signal as Bryce nods to several people who hollered at him.
"Come on lets join them."
Bryce holds my hand as he leads me to the others.
Liv's flaming red hair was tied in a huge neat princess bun that sat atop of her head. I wouldn't have recognised her if it weren't for the colour.
"Hey girl!" Abby gives me a half hug. No mask could hide her amazing half-shaved hairstyle.
Killian, whom I recognised from the blue hair peeking from his mask, had his eyes widened as if he saw a ghost. . I decided to enjoy this moment as I smirked at him.
"You alright Killian?" I asked with the most innocent voice I could muster without strangling him on the spot.
"Y-y-yeah." He hesitated before stepping back. "Hey Abby, where's-"
"Hey." Reese's voice emerged when his two arms wrapped around Abby's thin waist.
He looked up at me and I smiled and waved mirroring my mustered innocence from before.
Unlike Killian, his black full face mask managed to hide his expression.
"The ballroom has a back room." Reese's voice was slightly muffled by the mask.
"What. Why?" asked Anderson skeptically.
"Probably for weddings." Reese said hesitantly already pulling Abby by the hand.
There was a subtle frown on our faces at Reese's behaviour.
As we entered the room, a musky scent filled the air. The loud thud of a slammed door brought us all into a pitch black silence.
"What the fuck?!" Bryce yelled instantly letting go of my hand leaving me alone in the darkness.
Instantly, my other hand was grabbed by a familiar one. Only one person that could make electrical sparks in a room completely devoid of it.
The only sounds were muffled screams, metal on cement and lastly, the click of a lock that silenced us all.
The lights flashed on revealing Reece, Killian, Abby, Bryce, Anderson and Liv all tied up in metal chairs in a circle. Liv's wild hair was strung up in curls, her bun obviously undone. Abby, blinking from the shock of the light, had a fierce expression on out of reflex, her teeth bared and her brows in a deep frown. Reese seemed to be the only one who was calm, then again, he was the only one who wasn't yet unmasked. I squinted before noticing two extra chairs in a corner, two guys who seemed to be sleeping (probably drugged) in them with bags over their heads.
I looked to my right to see Brad's tough facial expression glowering across them, along with Dylan beside him. Lynn and Justin stood hand in hand on the other side, Justin's free hand behind his back as if still a gentleman in a circumstance like this. My eyes darted around the room to spot four phantom of the opera masks. Four.
"Where's Bl-" Brad silenced me with a squeeze of my hand.
Reece, still masked, tilted his chin up to me and even with the mask on, my knees shook at his death stare. The phantom masked men grabbed the two chairs in the corner, bringing the slowly stirring people in the middle of the circle.
"Everyone here," one of the voices from the Phantom masks emerged.
"Has a hand" Another continued.
"In murdering" Said another.
"Travis Sam" The last finished.
Killian and Anderson shared a glance of realisation at their capture. Bryce jutted out his chin and looked up as if someone had merely told him a pop quiz was to come. Liv had her jaw clenched.
Abby had the audacity to slowly tilt her head in my direction. She looked me straight in the eyes from where she sat. Her cruel lips curled into a smirk.
"Taylor" she muttered.
My breath hitched as my name rolled off the demon's tongue. I wasn't scared of this bitch.
Clicks emerged as I walked towards her direction, my hand already forming a fist. I grabbed her half shaved head in one hand and punched her square in the jaw. The feeling of my knuckles against her bone was enough to keep me satisfied for now. Hisses emerged She groaned as they connected before spitting out a wad of blood in the other direction, retaining her smirk.
I looked over to Brad who had his eyebrows raised in pride, a small smile across his lips before he nodded.
My fingers reached into the black strap against my thigh where a gun holster stood. The identity of the two people in the middle of the circle, I did not know. But I took a deep breathe letting the musty air of the bridal room fill my lungs relaxing me all over. Images flashed in my head of a blonde Travis and a brunette Taylor. Children. Innocence. Innocence at a funeral. A funeral that happened way too soon.
With no hesitation at all, my arm raised up and pointed straight on the masked forehead of Reece. My thumb slowly pushed down the cock of the gun.
"Tay, don't!"
The masked Reece's voice called out. Before his apparent wrist ties were loose enough for him to stripped the mask revealing Blake. My breath hitched before my brows furrowed into a frown.
Instantly, he stood up, wriggling away the rope 'binding' his feet.
Brad's face was the only thing in front of me, before his hands were on top of mine and directed the pistol to the ground in one swift movement. The sound of his heartbeat filled the air as he fell in slow motion. My eyes widened at the sight of him as he landed the cold hard ground with a thud. My vocal chords froze. The last breath I had escaped my lips and my lungs burned from the lack of air. The bones in my hands shattered before my entire body followed suit.
In that moment. everything slowed. My scalp was dipped in ice before the rest of me plunged. And just like it is, completely submerged in ice cold water, I became deaf. Everyone was inaudible. I couldn't even hear the bloodcurdling scream that left my lips.
"I DIDN'T MEAN TO" My voice was inaudible. The words themselves hurt as it gauged its way out of my throat, clawing its way out as its meaning suddenly made sense to me.
"You just killed Brad you fucking psycho!" Liv yelled amusingly at my face, her eyes wide and her lips coiled into a smile as she emitted the sentence stifling a giggle.
Blake's mouth open wide with a deep frown etched atop his fearful eyes would always be engraved in my mind.
He unmasked the two in the middle. Reece. and. Raymond.
It was a blend of adrenaline and mourning. Surge and shock. Before I knew it my fingers were around the hilt of a dagger while my legs propelled me forward. My hand grabber fistful of Raymond's ashy blonde hair while my other placed the blade directly on his throat before slitting it apart. I relished as gashes of blood oozed out of his veins, spilling all over his clothes and on the ground. His eyes and mouth opened wide in shock while my wrath was the last thing he saw in his eyes.
"I get this one."
Despite the massive wave of inaudible heavy silence over my head I could hear Blake's rage slicing through it. It was as if loss and emptiness have transformed into this cloud above me that blocks anything out except more evil. More loss and more deadly instructions.
Blake's scarred hand snatched Reece's auburn hair, roughly forcing him to look at Raymond's slit throat. The blade tinted with his blood shining proudly in my fist. Reece's face twisted in a way of which I would never forget. His eyes drooped as well as widened as he saw his last brother dead. His lips twisted in a way of which no other torture could cause as he saw each drop of crimson slowly fall from his brother's throat.
His face relaxed but his eyes were fixed directly on Raymond's wide open ones. For the first time ever, I saw Reece at peace. As if all his burdens and all his worries were gone. Raymond was his only worry. And now he was free.
recumbentibus (n.) the knockout or ending blow, physical or verbal. (n.) the final, winning argument.
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with love,
CreXenT