Chapter 27
Now it was time to say goodbye.
I knocked softly on the door, letting myself into Daddy's study. My hands shook slightly as I let the doorknob free. "Daddy?"
Daddy swivelled around to face me, stopping whatever he had been doing. His expression was one of curiosity and affection. "Come in, Poppy. Shouldn't you be getting ready?"
That's exactly what I should have been doing, seeing as the party was in 2 hours. I tugged at my bathrobe and adjusted it tighter, before heading straight to him. As I had done so many times when I was a little girl, I perched on his lap and hugged him as tightly as I dared, closing my eyes and savouring one of the last moments I would ever spend with him.
Daddy hugged me back just as enthusiastically. "Happy Birthday, love."
Indeed. Daddy had given me my present just hours ago – a sleek, sexy red sports car with my name on the license plate, a gift so utterly useless that I wanted to weep. My sports car would stay behind, too.
Daddy had always brought a comfort to me that only a father could. When that bunny had laid dead on my feet, the mutilation being my first taste of life and what it was really like, I had run straight into Daddy's arms, hoping and praying that he would never, ever, ever put the pieces together. Being bailed out of jail and having to come home to him – having to come home to the disgust in his face, the shame in his eyes – was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever witnessed. And it was for that exact reason that Daddy would never be allowed to see me again.
Just as if I were a kid again, Daddy rocked me back and forth, back and forth until I felt sleepy. It hadn't always been me taking comfort from him. It seemed a lifetime ago, but Daddy had relied on me for strength when the woman he had been dating – Susan? Suzanna? – tumbled and crashed into oncoming traffic one afternoon. Little did he know that I had caused the crash.
Little did he know anything at all.
"It's gonna be great, Poppy." I felt rather than saw Daddy's smile. He knew how much effort I'd put in in order to make my night spectacular. "You deserve it all. I'm so proud of you."
I tightened my hold on him, just as a lump appeared in my throat. "You've always called me Poppy. Why?" My voice cracked, but I was unashamed.
He hummed softly, thinking for a moment. The clean, laundry soap smell I had associated with him filled my senses, and I was almost lulled to sleep, knowing that I would wake up in my bed and tucked in beneath the sheets just as Daddy used to do. Sometimes he would even read a story, though I always felt that fairytales lacked an aspect of violence.
"You really want to know?" he asked lightly, rubbing my back in that comforting way of his. "It's pretty stupid."
"No, I do," I insisted, pulling back a little to see his face. I went so far as to command him. "Tell me."
He smiled a smile that was uniquely his – green eyes crinkling, mouth relaxed and grinning unabashed. Only the crow's feet around his eyes differed. Daddy was slowly aging, yet he seemed as strong and otherworldly as he'd always been. No matter how many atrocious things I did, no many how much blood I had spilled, I would always be his little girl.
"Bossy as always," he teased, poking me in the ribs.
I squirmed impatiently. "Tell me!"
"Okay, okay!" he laughed. "There was a poem I read in med school. One that I really, really liked."
"A poem?" Daddy had never spoken of poems before. I didn't even know he liked poetry.
He breathed out slowly, trying to remember something. "Well, I've completely forgotten how it went now. Put it was a poem about war."
"And this poem inspired you to create a baby?"
He smiled indulgently, shaking his head. "No, no. Your mother inspired me to do that."
I slapped his chest. "Daddy!"
He laughed once more. "Alright, I'll explain it properly. The poem was basically about the devastation of war, and how soldiers had been buried in poppy fields at the time. The bodies of the decomposing soldiers brought life to the poppies, giving them the nourishment to bloom and thrive. It's a metaphor of how even death and decay can bring wonderful things. It can bring life." He grew very sad by the end of his sentence.
I watched him closely. "You always said that poppies were your favourite flower."
"They are," he agreed, looking as if his next words would be hard to get out. "What your mother went through in order to bring you into the world was fundamentally a small-scale war. She fought long and hard, for days and days, against complication after complication. You can't imagine what it was like, Poppy. Her body wasn't made for childbirth. And in the end, it cost her life." His green eyes, always so wise and in control, shone with unshed grief. "I thought I'd lost it all. But there you were, shrieking and bloody and tiny, and I couldn't abandon you even if a hundred Rhea's had died."
"I'm the poppy," I stated.
"Yes. It was through death that life had formed, do you see? You were the tiny little poppy that had blossomed amongst the chaos and destruction. And now you're my little chaos and destruction," he teased, yet his heart wasn't it in.
The joke flew way over my head. My attempt to laugh quickly turned into sobbing.
I didn't know what came over me. I was never the sentimental type, nor would I ever be, and Daddy's story should not have brought out the reaction it did. I sobbed and sobbed until Daddy's shoulder was coated in tears. For once I didn't berate myself for being weak – this was far from weakness. This was an emotional outlet. I forgot about Nathan and Eli and Aurora and Chloe. I forgot about lies and bloodshed and deceit. In that split second, I was merely a girl curled up in her father's lap, crying and shivering and terrified of saying goodbye to the only person I had ever truly loved in an unconditional scale.
From now on, I would be on my own. Daddy would no longer be hovering over my shoulder, doing everything he could to make me happy and keep me safe. I would no longer rely on him to sweep everything under the rug. What ever I did wrong, it would fall on me.
Through all the bluff and pretenses and masks, never have I felt so empty.
Perhaps it was for the best.
***
The entire house had been transformed.
Hiring a crew was the best decision I ever made. Sticking to the theatre theme, red velvet drape hung over the railing of the staircase, which spiralled into the grand room. Smoke machines and stage lights were cleverly hidden at certain vantage points, and crewmen tested them as I walked past, filtering my path with fog. Everything had been cleared to make a dance floor that stretched to the living room, where setting up his state-of-the-art equipment was Avicii himself. The man had flown all the way from Sweden to be here for just one night. Daddy had paid him handsomely for his troubles. Laser lights had been attached to the walls, flashing and buzzing and creating dizzying effects inside the darkened room. UV party paint had been set up at certain stations, which would make party-goers glow underneath the laser and fog.
I studied the finger food in the kitchen, loving how delicate they were. Three giant geometric caskets of punch, each an electrifying display of colours, sat in the middle of the room where party-goers could fill up whenever they wanted. Every single one had been laced with alcohol, thought that should come as no surprise to anyone. I added a few drops of GHB just for sake keepings. A cooler, cleverly designed to look like an ancient treasure chest, kept brand alcohol ranging from weak beer to imported double-strength Russian vodka.
It would be a fun night, that's for sure.
Despite the use of contemporary speakers, high-powered lasers and glow-in-the-dark paint, everything managed to stay Victorian-esque. Glimpses of red velvet and golden designs adorned the hallway and the upper rooms, and from the chandelier hung a golden version of the twin theatre masks – one happy to resemble comedy, and one sad to resemble tragedy. Many more masks decorated the rooms, each one more elaborate than the other. It all blended in seamlessly, and my excitement grew.
It felt as if I were in theatre, playing a character of my own invention. I was ready. I was prepared. And it would only be a matter of time before the show started.
I took my time getting ready, and stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. The girl who stared back was a complete stranger compared to the girl who had come into this town just six months ago. The dark golden waves that ran down my back were now a blinding silvery blonde, stick-straight and limp from lack of volume. My eyes were as black as ever, and yet even they looked different. They looked more arrogant. Sinister.
They were the eyes of an experienced predator.
I calmly applied my makeup, spreading more of that red lipstick I loved so much. The picture of Nathan I had found hidden in his book stared back at me, attachment to the crevice of my mirror. I couldn't resist plucking it off and pressing a kiss to his perfect, perfect face.
This would be my last night in Alistair. Our last night.
The plan Eli and I had set was so complex, so very delicate, that I had to take extra precautions with every step. Though most of the pre-planning had been done last week, I still had a variety of things on hand – hair extensions, a big roll of cash, colour spray, and a tiny bottle of chloroform. They were things that might have seemed like random junk to Daddy when he had walked in, but they were as important as anything. I checked and double-checked my suitcase so much that I could knew its contents and where to find them by heart.
Still, that did not stop me from being a little twitchy.
Pulling on my dress was a slow effort. It was a piece from Zuhair Murad's summer collection, and it looked devastating on me in ways that would make both Eli and Nathan burn and ache. Paired with painfully high heels, it was an intricate design of lace, mesh, and sheer. It covered me from shoulder to knee, elegant and refined, yet it showed more skin than any skimpy outfit could. I pulled my feathery mask on, making my way down the stairs.
Daddy would have a heart attack.
Suddenly, my waiting game was over. The clock struck ten, and guest began to pour in, slowly at first, then faster and faster until I couldn't distinguish who was who. All the lights were dimmed, and all the fog machines were on full force.
I greeted as much people as I could by the door, trying to tell apart whom where my friends, and whom were complete strangers. They came dressed exactly as the invitation said, and their masks looked eerily daunting in the darkness. First there was Lacey, our cheer captain, and her boyfriend John. She smiled through her purple mask and wished me happy birthday, and together we mingled until more guests arrived. A group of chattering freshmen entered the doors, then came six girls from my English class, four more from P.E, Jack with his girlfriend, Seb with the whole football team, my cheerleading crew, Becca Johnson and her two sisters, Yuri and Sal along with their cousins, a group of strangers who claimed to have met me before, everyone in the basketball and hockey teams, boys from neighbouring schools, girls from neighbouring schools, and some of Daddy's younger colleagues.
Soon it became madness.
It was a form of madness that only parties of this magnitude could create – there was dancing, so much dancing, Venetian mask after Venetian mask, the deafening bass of the music, heavy fog, alcohol. I even let loose a little and downed three shots, and danced with five boys I'd never met before. I kept a steady eye on the door as I watched more and more masked strangers pile in, dumping their presents on the table and joining the celebration. I had been wished happy birthday so many times I was sick of the phrase.
This was it. This was the way I wanted everything to end.
The party, it seemed, hadn't even started yet. The noise grew overwhelming, and it took a very long time for me to spot Eli, who was using the shadows to keep himself hidden. I smiled indulgently and walked over him, spinning in a circle. "What do you think?" I shouted over the music.
His eyes gave nothing away, even through his white mask. "I think I want it off."
I laughed. "We've talked about that already, Eli."
"Doesn't mean I agree." I laughed again.
He moved closer, so close that our bodies brushed against each other. "Happy Birthday."
"Thank you."
"Have you spotted her yet?"
I knew immediately what he was talking about. My mood sobered at once, and I suddenly remember that this was more than a party. This was an operation. "No. But she'll come. I know it."
"So do I," he said enigmatically. "And has your Nathan arrived?"
That made me smirk. "Trust me – I would know if he has. The party's barely started." When he didn't move, I smiled seductively and pulled him to me, rubbing our bodies together. "Come on. Let's have fun."
And we did. Eli was an extraordinary dancer, and I was transported back to the club where we had first met. Even back then he what I was capable of. We really were a great match.
The spotlight above us wandered from person to person, and a little game was played, where a spotted person would have to stand up on a nearby platform and dance. The anonymity of it all drove everybody wild. Soon they were all getting into it, drinking and laughing and getting lost in the sea of masks. I closed my eyes and did the same, letting my body do what it wanted under Eli's capable grip, feeling as if my feet could take flight on the very grou-
There she was.
Her hair remained as fiery red as always, but now it reached down to her waist. It was her this time. I knew it. I could see it from the way she took slow steps and stole sideway glances, thinking that she was safe and hidden behind her mask. A rage so hot and dangerous spread through me, faster than I could comprehend.
I wanted her dead. I needed her dead.
"Stop," Eli demanded, harsh and cold, locking his arms around my waist to stop me from launching myself across the room. I fought him off as best as I dared, too blindsided by my rage.
The music and dancing and loud laughter went on as normal, but it was I who had changed. I was ready to throw everything away in that split second. "Don't you remember anything?" Eli hissed into my ear. "Don't be stupid. This part of the deal is mine. Walk away now. Go find your Ericson."
It took everything within me to listen to his words, yet I couldn't keep my eyes off of the only remaining threat in my life. She, in her plain white dress and bejewelled mask, slinked off to the shadows, trying to avoid any sort of attention. I wanted her head on a spike.
"Go." He pushed me hard into the opposite direction, gathering stares from a couple of people. Before a fight could break off, I clenched my fists and never turned back for fear of losing it all.
My rage would be the end of me some day.
I trusted Eli – I trusted him and his brilliant but skewed judgement, and I knew that he would have her dead by the end of the night. He would give me the signal. The only thing that felt wrong was the fact that I wasn't the one to do it. I felt as if I had to do it myself.
But there were grander things to do.
"Renee!" I heard a booming voice, before a massive hand clapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Seb, drunk and dopey and glowing in the dark from all the UV paint he had slathered across his face. "Happy Birthday, you little thing!"
I managed a big, bright, fake smile. "Thank you. So glad you came."
He reached over me and grabbed a red velvet cupcake, stuffing it whole into his mouth. "You look wow."
I laughed. "You look wow."
He stretched his arms to the ceiling, his shirt riding up to show his stomach. "Yeah, I know."
"Not wearing a mask?" I asked, my head cocked to the side as I secretly watched the opening and closing doors from my spot in the kitchen.
"What? Wait, nope. No I'm not," he threw his hands in the air. "Lost it."
I gasped in faux surprise. "Oh no."
I noticed Jessabel before I noticed Nathan, recognising her deep blue dress from a mile away. She looked just as good as I feared, and yet she and Nathan kept a respectable distance. I wondered if they were fighting again.
Good. That would make my job so much easier.
"See you later?" I asked, putting a hand on Seb's chest to stop him from blabbering.
He saluted me, going over to the table where he could fill up his cup. "Yep."
Nathan could not have looked any better with a mask – it brought an element of mystery to him that made me weak to the knees. It took a while for me reassemble my thoughts, too focused on him, him, him and what was about to happen and what we were going to do. Putting on a brave face, I embraced both of them with open arms, squealing my excitement at the fact that they had made it.
Jess's eyes were skittish as she looked around her, noticing the thick, dramatic fog and laser lights. "We're not staying for long," she replied weakly, despite Nathan's look of protest. "I've got a paper to hand in."
"Happy Birthday," Nathan smiled, and suddenly those two words didn't seem so annoying anymore. I was too speechless to respond.
Now is too early. Wait for the signal.
"Would you like something to eat?" I asked, steering the both of them into the kitchen. For a brief moment I saw a flash of wariness in Jessabel's blue eyes, but it was gone in a blink. Still, I couldn't let it go. One little thing could have a dozen interpretations.
Nathan had taught me that.
Dodging the sea of bodies, we made our way to the kitchen. Most of the food had already disappeared, but there were lots more inside the fridge. Catering did not seem like a good idea in an event like this. Forcing myself not to check where Eli had gone, I poured some water for Jessabel and let Nathan pick from the collection we had. She thanked me politely, and took one sip at a time. Next I poured a drink for myself, picking something with a dark amber colour.
"I like your dress," she complimented, aiming for small talk. I could feel the awkward tension between us.
"Oh, this old thing? Yours looks incredible." I turned to Nathan, watching the way he curiously scanned the sweaty, dancing crowd. The mask he wore covered half of his face, making it almost impossible to figure out what he was thinking.
All the while, I stood with baited breath. It was exactly eleven. Any time now, Eli would release the signal. I felt the pressure of the world rest on my shoulders.
"What do you think you're going to name it?" I aimed, gesturing to her flat stomach.
Almost on instinct, she curled her arm around it protectively. "We don't know yet. It's too early to tell."
"Aw, come on," I give her a cheeky smile. "You know you've at least been thinking about it."
A barely-there smile touched her lips. "Well... it's hard not to."
"What about Eric?" Nathan suggested.
Jessabel laughed. "Eric Ericson? Our child will hate you."
BOOM!
A loud bang startled the party-goers, halting their dancing to glance up at the source of the sound. But to their immense delight, hundreds upon hundreds of neon balloons came pouring out of the attached contraption in the ceiling, glistening with the reflection of laser lights. Everyone roared their approval as the music picked up faster, and the balloons were tossed around among the gaining crowd. Pleasure traveled through me, and I had never felt so elated.
There it was. Eli's signal.
On cue, I pretended to reach over and grab a balloon, and ended up spilling my drink all over Jessabel's lace dress.
I gasped. "Oh my God! I'm so sorry-"
Jessabel grabbed a nearby napkin and dapped at the spot furiously. It only made the stain worse. She swore under her breath, putting the napkin down and throwing her hands up in defeat.
"We have stain remover in the bathroom," I offered enthusiastically. I grabbed her hand, leaving a concerned Nathan with his bottle of beer. "Come on. It shouldn't be hard to take off."
I dragged her up the stairs by her wrist, feeling the anticipation mount the nearer we got to one of the bathrooms upstairs. Unsurprisingly, people with varying stages of undress had made their way upstairs, too. Some were even on the floor, making out and undressing, still in their masks.
The drug had done its job, weakening their inhibitions. By the next morning, nobody would remember a thing.
I locked the door behind us, and it was as if I had locked away the world, too. The music was almost drowned out completely, and I no longer had to speak loudly.
Now my body was practically buzzing with electricity.
"Here." I opened the medicine cabinet and fumbled around, before finding the stain remover. I handed it to her, along with a handful of tissues. I waited a couple of seconds before she took it from my hands.
I gave her a concerned look. "Is something wrong?"
Her heart rate had picked up – that much I could tell from the pooling sweat on her brow. She peeled the mask off of her face and smiled convincingly. "No, no – nothing's wrong."
Good.
I watched her try to remove the whisky stain in an almost serene manner, my head tilting whenever hers did. I cannot describe the feeling that came over me. My emotions had been wiped clean, and I stared at her with an almost burning hunger, yet I remained as calm and poised as anything.
She scrubbed at her dress as much as she could, shredding the tissues in her hands. There was something definitely wrong now, Jess could tell. Yet she didn't want to look up. She knew something horrible would happen if she did.
My voice was softer than silk when I decided to break the silence. "You know, when I first came here I thought you and I were going to be best friends."
She said nothing, did nothing, expect scrub at the dress until the tissues shredded completely and fell to her feet. She was heavily sweating now.
I continued, calmly watching her face. "I planned it all out, you know. We were supposed to meet, then we were supposed to get along, then we would end up sharing our deepest, darkest secrets." A frightening smiled curled my lips upwards. "But I guess it never happened."
She scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed until the skin of her fist became raw. Her breathing picked up alarmingly.
I couldn't stop myself. I didn't want to. "I wanted to know everything about you. Everything. I searched your room high and low for anything that might tell me something about you. I read every single letter that you had hidden in the back of your closet." I leaned in closer still, whispering my next words onto her quivering cheek. "I even asked Gwen a couple of questions. What was her favourite colour? Her favourite horror movie? How did she want to die?"
Jessabel Griffin, the woman who had it all, broke down into angry, bitter tears. She stopped her scrubbing and clenched her fist into her ruined dress. There was no way she would leave this room alive, and she knew it. I could taste it. She looked up, and I felt a shiver of pleasure at the sight of her – panicked, bloodshot, and looking at her wits end.
"Stop it," she ordered through clenched teeth.
I chuckled lowly, trailing the tip on my nail down her cheek.
"What do you want from me?!" she cried. "What do you want?!"
Her lunge towards the door didn't quite cut it - she never made it to the door handle. The monster had been unleashed. Grinning with glee, I pulled at her hair and made her scream, wrapping my hands around her throat. She kicked and struggled, and I smashed her head against the door, then the mirror, over and over. She begged for mercy, and I gave her none. I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, her pain giving me strength, and I squeezed until her face became as blue as her dress. I squeezed until she collapsed.
"I want what's mine," I hissed, kicking her down with the toe of my heel.
***
Eleven thirty. The second signal must be released.
"Ernie!" I yelled through the ear splitting music. Beneath us the crowd went wild. The man in his thirties looked up, having been expecting her. "Open the other drop box – NOW!"
That he did. With a sharp bang as loud as the first one, silver glitter ran like raindrops down to the screaming, sweaty, and very drunk mass of people. They only roared for more. The mood of the party had changed significantly – strangers grabbed strangers and did what they wanted to them, not giving a damn whom was behind the mask. It was longer a crowd so much as a gyrating throng of bodies, their inhibitions stripping down inch by inch until there was nothing left. I even walked into Yuri and a blonde-haired girl from school, giggling and half-naked. More and more strangers entered the doors, some even maskless and with no authorisation to be here.
Nobody – and I mean nobody – would forget this night. Expect that's exactly what they would do.
I laughed.
Just as we had planned, Eli and I met halfway in the middle of the staircase. One look from him said that he had succeeded – Chloe was now dead. After one last meaningful glace, we separated paths and went on to finish the final stages of the abduction.
That's what this was. An abduction.
Nathan was very easy to spot. Tieless and maskless, he headed straight towards me.
"Where's Jessabel? You guys have been missing for ages," he cried, shaking my shoulders.
I pulled the most convincingly frightened face I could. "I don't know any more than you do!"
"What?" he gasped. "But you went with her-"
"-and she disappeared. I thought she was following, but when I turned around she was gone."
I watched as panic completely gripped him, and I watched with satisfaction. Finally, I pretended to soothe him. "Shh, don't worry about it, I'm sure she's here somewhere. Have you checked the crowd?"
He viciously raked his fingers through his hair. "No." I barely caught the word, before he vanished.
Now was the fun part.
I picked up the mask he had dropped on the ground and pulled out the tiny bottle I kept hidden inside my bra. Making sure that the people around me were too engrossed in themselves, I uncapped the wand and trickled one tiny drop of chloroform inside where his nose would sit. The soft fabric inside the mask soaked it all up.
I found Nathan once more, lost in a sea of people.
"NATHAN!" I had to scream. I squeezed through the bodies of strangers. When I finally reached him, he looked overwhelmed. I stuffed his mask back into his hand. "Look, you're going to have to wear this if you want to go up. The guys upstairs will otherwise think you're a gatecrasher." This part was a lie. The security I'd hired couldn't give a single shit if there were gatecrashers or not. "Go and check," I urged.
He did.
And I followed him.
I guided him to a set of rooms that would keep him busy for a while, but were otherwise empty. This would have to be as quick as a blink. I unlocked my own room using a spare key and stormed back inside, fighting to get my heels off. I changed as fast as I could into the exact replica of Jessabel's dress – the dress I had bought while she had been too busy changing. Putting on her exact mask, I fumbled with the hair extensions on my dresser and clipped them on, wiping off my red lipstick as I did so. With the added help of fog and darkness, Nathan wouldn't be able to tell the difference at all.
When I discovered him inside one of our spare bedrooms, he was clutching the doorframe for support.
I adopted Jessabel's soft voice. "Nate?"
He jumped and turned to face me, the effects of the chemical evident on his face. His eyes were as dreamy as they had been at that pub. As relief flooded through him, he barely even noticed that I was an entire foot too short to be the future mother of his child. "There... there you are."
"You okay?" I asked, getting Jessabel's mannerisms down to a T, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders. "Come on. You're drunk."
He laughed disjointedly, nuzzling the side of my neck. I closed my eyes briefly. "Drunk on you."
"You're definitely drunk," I muttered.
When I had him at the foot of my bed, I pushed him down and watched him bounce into position. The lazy smile he gave was almost too sexy to be real, and a flash of heat ran through me. "You seriously want to do this now? Okay. Must be all the hormones."
I laughed, crawling up to straddle him. Being in this position was what I had wanted for so long, and I took sweet advantage of it, covering his neck with sensual kisses. He moaned, and the sound jolted something primal within me.
I trailed right up to his ear, panting as heavily as him. "As much as I could do this all day, we have a little trip to go on."
"Trip?" he muttered weakly, lifting his arms when I gestured him to. "No, I wanna stay here. Keep... keep doing that thing you're doing."
"I will," I pecked his mouth, feeling as if I had drugged myself rather than him. He smelled like chocolate, and I never wanted to stop. I got rid of shirt easily and quickly, spreading my fingers across taut muscle. "Later."
He frowned slightly. "Your hands feel different."
"How so?" I grabbed the Hawaiian shirt above him and pulled it over his head, buttoning it up.
"They're smaller. And not as... not as... what's the word that you use when you use it?"
I chuckled, grabbing the can of temporary hair colour beside me and spraying his hair pitch black. I stained the bed sheets in the process. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"No?" He pouted, sounding like a toddler. He was so adorable.
"No." His pants stayed on, unfortunately, though it wasn't through his pants that the police would be identifying him. I placed the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, making him laugh.
"Now I can't see," he complained.
I grinned, pulling him up and seeing a completely different man to the one I had dragged in. The tacky shirt and black hair made him look like a stranger – a stranger with no name, to town, and no identity.
I smiled. "Good."
***