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“Or we could wait for nightfall to break in,” I countered.
“I want to see where she is at and get a lay of the land,” he said, opening his visor looking over at me.
“I think we are going to stick out like a sore thumb,” I said.
“Maybe but if we are quick and—” He stopped talking. “Oh, oh, I just found our ticket in.”
A group of adults and several teenagers got out of a van. Some of the kids were dressed as Goths. I rolled my eyes, but he was right, we had gotten lucky. We took off our helmets and I put up my hood and my gaiter. King looked at me and I knew hewanted to tell me to take it off, but I couldn’t, especially if we ran into her.
“Use this,” he said, pulling out a fabric from his pocket. “Don’t think people will appreciate the skull covering half your face.”
I rolled my eyes. It was a medical mask in black, and while I hated the idea of wearing this, I was happy he didn’t tell me not to wear anything. We didn’t need me having a meltdown, not when we had to find her.
I slipped it on, keeping my hood up, easing my tension even more. We followed the family, purchasing our tickets after them. The teenage girl with the family who looked to be about sixteen, glanced back at us several times and I wanted to tell her I was probably almost double her age.
We stayed close to them, keeping our distance so we looked like we might have been a part of the group. We didn’t get as many looks as I thought we would, easing my anxiety a little more.
The town was just how I had expected, full of joy, bright decorations and laughter in the air. I would never admit it out loud, but I enjoyed the stark contrast to Halloween town. This appealed to my inner child, the one who was robbed of anything remotely happy. It made my skin crawl because I was internally asking “what’s this?” to everything.
The town felt bigger than Halloween, but I’m sure it just appeared bigger because everything was so light. We walked for over an hour, splitting away from the family who decided to eat. King bought me a drink called Eggnog and it was disgusting. Who the fuck drinks that shit? The ginger cookies and spiced nuts made up for it.
We made our way to Santa’s House, it sounded like a pedophile's wet dream. Kids sitting on an old man's lap, telling Santa what they wanted, and then trying not to get put on thenaughty list sounded awfully suspicious. The closer we walked to the house, and we didn’t see our Doll, the more I wondered if she worked behind the scenes. Was she a part of the drug process?
King bought me peppermint bark and hot chocolate with an obscene amount of whipped cream. Eating gave me something to do and King knew I was a sucker for sweets. I was making up for lost time, when I wasn’t allowed to be a kid or do anything that normal kids did.
The house came into view along with an enormous line to take pictures with the old fucker. That’s when I saw bright red hair. I grabbed King's forearm in a death grip, I was stunned because she looked completely different. Her face looked natural without a lot of make-up. Her hair was half pinned up with elf ears sticking out of her hair. She wore a green dress that flared at her hips with bells on the bottom, red leggings and some weird shoes.
King tensed beside me, anger vibrated off of him, and just for a second, I worried for her safety. She was smiling at some children, but the look in her eyes was vacant. This wasn’t the sassy girl who we had chased or the girl we had seen for the last few years, she was different.
We watched her for a few minutes and each minute made my anger fade a little bit more. The longer we watched her, the more my gut told me that we might be wrong about her. It seemed King was having the opposite effect and when she moved out of the area where they took pictures with a box in her hands, King was on her.
I followed, wondering what the hell he was going to do because the last thing we needed was for someone to recognize us and tell the mayor we were here. We pushed through the crowd, they only paid attention to Santa and the kids. She rounded a corner and opened a discreet door. King didn’t evenlook around before he followed her. No one was around, but that didn’t mean there weren't any surveillance cameras.
It was a storage room and as I walked in, she cried out. King had her pinned against the wall. She clawed at his hand, he bared his teeth at her.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growled. “Did you know who we were when you spotted us three years ago? Did they send you to spy on us?”
King was livid and instead of letting her go to answer, he gripped her throat tighter. She stopped clawing at his hand, letting her hands fall to her side. Tears streamed down her face, her face was impassive like she had resigned herself to die.
“King,” I snapped, when her eyes began to droop.
He let go of her, walking away as she fell on the floor, wincing, taking in a deep breath, shaking a little. She looked up at me and then at King.
“I’m going to ask one more fucking time, and I swear if you lie to me, I will fucking kill you,” he snarled. “Who are you and were you sent to spy on us?”
12
Ally
My heart was beating so fast that I swore I was going to have a heart attack. King and Boogie stood before me; I thought I would never see them again. I didn’t know how the hell they had found me, but I knew this wasn’t good. The towns didn’t mix and if we did there were consequences.
“My name is Ally, and I wasn’t sent to spy on you,” I took a deep breath. “I went out of my own volition as an avid Halloween lover, and I just found out who you were that night.”
King walked up to me, and I wanted to cower away. He was menacing. I knew he wasn’t lying when he said he would kill me. Boogie and King were known for their hits and what they were told to do by the Mayor. They even killed the person who ran St. Patrick’s town. They did what no one could.
He squatted in front of me, so we were eye to eye. A pounding on the door startled me and I quickly got up.
“I’m coming! Jay left the batteries in the wrong place again!” I yelled, opening the door, but didn’t open it all the way.
