Page 76 of Kiss Slay Replay

“It’s been a long day.” An understatement. “I’m sorry. I…I had a migraine.”

It’s not the whole truth but it’s not a lie. My head still throbs; it’s like I can feel my brain pulsing inside my skull.

“There she is.” Evan appears in the doorway. He’s also already dressed for the wedding. He gives me a hug. “Why do you smell like Hamburger Helper?”

“Is that me?” I ask, horrified.

“I don’t think so. I think…” Cassie leans over the banister and inhales. “I think it’s out there. Maybe food for the reception?”

“Something to look forward to,” Evan says.

I’d laugh if I weren’t so suspect that the rot smell is some indicator of what could be coming tonight. A bloodthirsty butcher wielding a hatchet. A forest-dwelling cannibal man who will for-fucking-sure love eating eyeballs. A killer in wait.

I check my phone to make sure I have service, then take the margarita from Cass and drink what’s left, leave the empty can on the banister.

“You’re welcome,” she says, as I push past Evan to get inside the cabin.

“Willa the Killa!” Luke says from the couch. He shoots me with finger guns, and I hear the actual ruin of violence in my head. The screaming of people afraid for their lives. I can smell the blood-streaked night. I’m haunted and no one knows, and I can’t explain. I’m alone. I’m alone with all of it.

“No,” I say. “No thanks.”

He mimes holstering his finger guns. “You’re right. Violence is never the answer.”

I slip into my room and close the door behind me, face-plant into bed. I’m so tired I could fall asleep right now. The exhaustion is so heavy. I can’t carry it.

“She’s in a mood,” I hear Cassie say. These thin fucking walls.

“So are you,” Evan says. “To be fair.”

I roll off the bed and drag myself into the shower, try to scrub the day from my skin. Urgent care. Anxiety. The meat smell. I rest my head against the tile and close my eyes. It comes in flashes. Everything that’s happened, or might have happened, or could happen—it all bleeds together. I can’t shut it off, can’t quiet my mind. Something’s coming. Something bad. My brain is broken. Or time is. What if I’ve slid out of reality? Got snagged in the cogs of the universe? What if I’m stuck in another dimension—trapped in the twilight zone? What if I really am dead? What if this isn’t hell, but some other twisted version of the afterlife?

And I’m just standing here in this tiny shower with shitty water pressure doing nothing about any of it. I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m being selfish. Being a coward. I’m the villain. I’m the problem. It’s me. I need to figure my shit out. I need to…I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

The water runs cold. I turn around and shut it off, grab a towel.

The only way out is through.

3

Everyone left for the cocktail welcome party thing without me because I’m still getting ready.

“If you miss the ceremony…” Cass warned through the door.

“I won’t! Two more minutes.”

It’s been fifteen. My hair is still wet, makeup half-done. I braid my hair, flip it up, and adhere it to the back of my head with an excess of bobby pins—a damp, sloppy updo. I blend my foundation, tap on some blush, swipe on some mascara, lip gloss.

Twenty minutes. I need to hurry. I am hurrying. I’m just not going fast enough. My priorities are all wrong. It doesn’t matter what I look like if we’re all going to die, but somehow, I still can’t convince myself not to care about my appearance. My nervous system is on high alert, but it’s been this way long before today.

When everything feels life-or-death, it’s impossible to parse out the actual stakes.

I step into my dress, my heels. It helps that my foot isn’t swollen and bruised. I press down on it anticipating the phantom pain but feel nothing.

Twenty-five minutes.

The more time that passes, the more it feels like last night never happened. Or the night before. They seem like distant memories, the images warped and vague, like staring down at something dropped at the bottom of a pool. There’s no reprieve from the dread churning in my gut, only a sense that whatever horrors I’ve already experienced are further behind me than they actually are. I imagine a final girl running through the woods, turning around to the terrible realization that her killer is right at her heels.

Tick tick tick tick tick.