Page 26 of House of Hearts
I step back toward the path and pick up the flashlight left behind in the grass. It’s not very strong, and I have no idea how I’ll navigate my way out of this mess, let alone go on a scavenger hunt in the dark.
The light rain dampens my exposed shoulders as I walk, and my heels drown in the mud with every step forward. I hate to stick my feet in this mud, but I’d rather be shoeless and out of this maze than trapped here in heels.
The feel of the cool earth beneath my feet is familiar anyway. It whisks me back to childhoods spent running around, bruised, barefoot, and braver than I should’ve been. I remember the trees we’d climb and the old tires we’d swing on. Summers with Em were fireflies and tall grass and secret spots.
My thoughts break with a rush of movement to my left. It happens so quickly, I can hardly process what’s going on. Seized by pure flight-or-flight instinct, I swivel on my feet, shoe poised like a weapon in my trembling hand.
It’s a rabbit.
I smother a hysterical giggle. Here I am, clutching a kitten heel for dear life, and it’s only a bunny. “Hey, buddy, you spooked me.”
I bend down, but it rushes through the greenery, escaping quickly,out of sight. There and gone in a blink. Unfortunately, I can’t follow it through the hedges, so I’m forced to stare down at the fork in front of me and make a choice. God, which way did I come in with Calvin?
Calvin.
A shiver courses through me. He recognized me even in a mask, and he chased me out from the ballroom, yanking me back in time for us to wind up tangled together in the rain. He hadn’t seen Emoree, but somehow, some way, I had.
She’d led me out of the ballroom and through the hall, down the corridor and through the shadows, into a desolate room. There’d been the dead fireplace and the brush of her fingers, thoughtfully ghosting over the—
Wait.
She’d shown me the miniature of the maze. I take the heel of my shoe and lower myself to a muddy patch of the ground. I draw what I remember, which admittedly isn’t everything but might be enough. The circular mouth of the central clearing split into a forked road, followed by a sharp right and then a left. Right, left, left, right.
I get up and follow the path as best as I can from memory, retracing my steps all while darting the flashlight left and right to keep an eye out for the heart. I take a sharp right turn, walls of greenery lifting beyond my head on either side of me.
“You can do this,” I whisper to myself, because someone has to say it. I might not have the place completely mapped out, but what I saw in the study is enough to get by, and what I lack in memory, I make up for with muddy footprints in my wake. The storm has slowed enough to leave a path perfectly intact behind me. With each step forward, the hedge walls seem to grow tighter. I could’ve sworn a couple of steps agothat I could spread my fingers out on either side of me. Now my shoulders brush the tips of leaves, the space tightening like a clenched fist. It’s like being swallowed alive.
I’m about to make another turn when a voice calls out from the darkness.
“Violet!”It’s everywhere all at once, a disorienting echo in the night. Every part is enunciated,Vi-o-let, pitched like the voice of a windup doll.“Violet, Violet, Violet!”
I can’t tell where it’s coming from, but I know whoever is doing it is going to have a good laugh about it later. All a prank. A sick, twisted prank. Someone must be left behind in the maze to scare me, or maybe it’s another pledge, trying to get in my head. That’s all.
“Funny!” I shout, and the volume of my voice sends a black mass of birds shooting off into the sky. “Really, really funny, you guys. Absolutely hysterical.”
It feels good to yell. So good, in fact, I continue to grumble under my breath as I storm forward.
The maze ahead of me hits a dead end, and I know I made a wrong turn at the last fork. Damn it, I guess I was supposed to go right all along. I let out another groan for good measure. I’d rather them hear me frustrated than terrified.
There’s another rustle from somewhere in the distance. The crunch of soles imprinting in the dirt, the swish of a body twisting through the leaves
“Violet!”Here they go again. I’m getting sick and tired of hearing my own name.“I need your help!”
I freeze mid-step and whip around to search for the source.
Through the glow of my flashlight, I see her. Whoever is in frontof me in the forked path just barely turns the corner before me. Before she disappears into the shadows, I see her hair flying out in an unruly tangle of blood-red curls. Her ivory skin is partially concealed by a stage-costume-esque gown, because of course we have an Anastasia Hart cosplayer in the mix.
If she thinks I’m going to run away, though, she has another thing coming. I charge toward her like a possessed bloodhound. I might be exhausted, but I’m also pissed off, which is currently stronger than a double shot of espresso.
“You’re the only one who can help me.” I don’t see the girl, but I hear her again not far ahead. “I always played the damsel in distress, and you were the knight, remember?”
That makes me pause, remembering the games I used to play with Emoree. They can’t be taunting me with a girl who died on campus a year ago, right? The bar might be in hell, but this is a new low.
“Do you know how long it takes for a body to fall and break into a million pieces?” The stranger’s voice lifts from the gloom, and I see her moving ahead. The ivory shine of her skin in the dark. Like a body dissected, she reveals herself in parts. A flash of a wrist, a kicked-back heel, a strand of cherry-red hair. Her body is never stitched together, no full image for me to latch on to.
“What did you say?” There’s no denying the comparisons now. My chest tightens, questions sloshing around in my brain, drowned by the rising tide of my bad thoughts.
She doesn’t answer. She only keeps running, twisting and turning and leading me deeper. A quick lurch to the left followed by a sharp right. I’m panting trying to keep up with her. Sweat streaks a salty path down to my lips.
