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The problem was, I also knew Nathaniel’s type. He owned lots of things. He was the kind of guy who believed wealth equaled power, and power meant the world could deny him nothing or no one. Panic seized me. Mindy had been knocking back quite a bit of champagne. I made my way to the main foyer in longer strides.
“Excuse me,” I asked one of the statue-like waiters at the door, “have you seen a small blonde in a white dress with a tall guy?”
He nodded down a darkened hall along the front of the house. I hurried along the marble floor, the click-clacking of my shoes sounding hollow on the walls. The hallway wrapped around to the back of the house. Turning the corner, a set of French doors stood ajar.
I pulled off my mask and stepped out onto a patio. Moonlight spilled brightly, casting blue shadows on the pavement and lawn. A damp chill settled in the air. I walked with careful steps over slate stones, around a gurgling fountain, and scanned the shadowed garden. There on the third step was Mindy’s white purse, a lipstick having spilled out.
“Oh, no.”
My heart sank. Then I heard her. A scream, cold and piercing.Mindy!
My breath caught in my throat as I ran, losing my heels in the grass turf. The muffled voices came from the right where a maze of hedges stood tall and black under night’s cloak.
My gaze darted to a small luminescent shape in the grass, white and wispy—Mindy’s mask. Then her stifled cry again. I heard her beg, “Please.”
I ran as fast as possible in my damn dress. Fear and panic spiked an adrenaline rush through my limbs. I drew closer to the sound of a struggle. A thump, then silence. A tearing sound.
I rounded a tall hedge to find Nathaniel on his knees, his jacket tossed aside as he worked on getting his pants open. Underneath him was my unconscious best friend, her hair pulled loose, her white dress ripped up to her navel, and her legs sprawled obscenely.
Not Mindy. Not Mindy. Not Mindy! Red filled my vision. Rage a burning brand on my heart. Not thinking, I launched myself onto him, cuffing him across the head and scratching at his face.
“Get off of her! You bastard!”
He shoved me back and stood quickly, his pants half-open. I lunged at him again. Pure, raw rage spurned me on, but he was a big guy. He hauled his arm back and hit me full across the face, sending me spinning to the grass.
Dazed and seeing spots, I nearly lost consciousness myself, faintly hearing his sinister reply in that condescending tone he used on the dance floor.
“You want me first, baby? I’m more than happy to oblige.”
My head buzzed from the punch across the head. I felt my body being flipped onto my back. Hard, cold hands fumbled up my dress. My instincts launched me out of the stupor.
I struggled, jerking my knee up toward his groin. He narrowly blocked me. This was the worst position to be in for defense—on your back with someone much larger than you clambering on top. I couldn’t punch out, so I grabbed his hair and yanked. He gripped my throat and slammed my head against the ground.
“You wanna play rough? Not a problem.”
He fumbled with his pants with one hand, the other tight on my throat. I bent my leg up so that the slit in my dress opened. A look of confusion crossed his face, flushed hot with anger and lust. He thought I was inviting him to continue.
Panic retreated. Hatred—cold and stealthy clamped down on me with a venomous bite. My fingers slid along my thigh. Nathaniel stared stupidly, starting to grin, feeling triumphant in a sure conquest. I refused to let my gaze shift from his as my right hand found the dagger. Before he could register what I held, I put the ball of my left hand behind the hilt and thrust the dagger hard and deep up into his chest. I stabbed only once, but he slumped forward instantly on top of me.
Trembling with fury and fear, I shifted his weight off, flipping and sliding out from under him. Pulling out the dagger, slick with blood, I put it back into its sheath, my movements robotic, the acrid taste of hatred still bitter on my tongue.
I’d hit him directly in the heart. A pool of crimson spread across his white tuxedo shirt on the left side of his chest. His eyes and mouth gaped wide in a frozen expression of shock, unmoving.
Dead. He was dead. So quick, so fast.
I sat back, staring at my hands in horror, shining wet and near black under the moonlight. An uncontrollable quivering shook me from head to toe. I hadn’t intended to kill him. The thought of what he was going to do had driven me into a madness of fury. My breath came out in quick white breaths, the temperature dropping rapidly.
A billowing, cool mist floated around the body, Mindy, and me. I whimpered, bloody hands in my lap, shaking uncontrollably. It wasn’t a natural mist.
The dread making my heart hammer with violent force inside my ribcage grabbed hold of me with icy fingers.
“No,” I cried, like a child in the dark.
“Mmmmm, my sweet.” A sinister whisper, so horrifyingly familiar, rose from the coalescing shadows in the gloom. “Bloodstained hands. My darling is so wonderfullytainted.”
A wicked laugh I knew from the darkest of nightmares snapped my chin up to see Danté walking sinuously toward me, the supernatural mist curling around his legs in a cold caress.
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