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"Hang on. We need to think about this."
Ignoring him, I clambered up the ladder, too busy basking in exhilaration and happiness to care about anything. I’d killed the fucker. Nothing else mattered. Once we told the others, we could find the power, shut it off, turn off the fences, and run for the hills. Drake hurried to catch up to me. It was late at night. The others would be in bed, but I’d pound on their doors, wake them up. They had to hear this, it couldn’t wait until morning.
"Dahlia, slow down," Drake called from behind me.
Heedless, I rushed around the corner of the house, and into the front door. I skidded to a stop when I saw Bri, Elise, and Payton sitting in the dining room. Payton was in a shirt and boxer shorts. Bri and Elise both stood in nothing but panties and sports bras.
"Why are you guys up?" I asked dumbly.
Payton pointed up at the speakers. "He woke us up. Set off an alarm, said to get to the dining room asap. We weren’t even allowed to put on clothes."
Drake entered behind me, looking as confused as I had at the sight of the others awake. I waved Payton’s words away, too excited to stop. "I killed Sam."
"I’m sorry?" Elise said with a scowl. "What the fuck does that mean?"
I chuckled, giddiness overwhelming me. "What do you think it means? He’s dead. We found a bunker behind the mansion. He was asleep inside, and I killed him. He’s gone, we can get out of here."
Payton shared a look with Bri and Elise before looking at me again. "When did you kill him?"
They weren’t as happy or excited as I thought they should have been. Were they in shock?
"I don’t know," I said. "Maybe like five minutes ago? Maybe less."
Payton’s brow furrowed. "Well, he was talking to us, like, ten seconds before you came in the door."
"What?" The smile faded from my face. "That’s not possible. It can’t be. He’s dead. I cut his fucking head off."
Almost as though my words had summoned it, all of our devices went off at once, sending agonizing electrical shocks through our arms. I hit my knees, clutching my wrist to my chest.
Bong. "Oh, Ms. Belrose, you have been a very bad girl, indeed."
The voice of Sam echoed through my mind. The real Sam. All my worries and speculation that he had an accomplice or accomplices became real in that moment. The man in the suit had been a ruse, a red herring. A face to put with the voice. Every time I thought we’d figured out the game, Sam showed me that we were children playing against a master. The locked door in the office? Had the actual Sam been hiding in there? Or was there another bunker somewhere else?
"A very very bad girl," he snarled at me through the speakers.
Chapter 14
DAHLIA
The device kept shocking us. The others screamed and moaned in pain as the jolts of electricity surged through us. It was like my arm was on fire. Literally dipped into the bowels of a lightning bolt. We would never get out, never. No matter what we did, he would always be one step ahead of us. Not only that, I’d killed one of his minions. That meant we were dead. All of us.
Existential dread fluttered in my chest even as the pain in my arm tried to wipe out all other thoughts. I was going to die. Was this how he’d do it? With the devices? He would do it. The image flashed before my eyes: all of us writhing on the floor until our hearts stopped.
Blessedly, before any of us died, the shocks ceased. The huge gasp of air I sucked in did little to calm my fried central nervous system. My hands twitched with the memory of the electric current as I tried to get to my feet.
"What the fuck?" Bri hissed. "What happened?"
"I don’t know," I said honestly. "I thought we’d killed him. It must have been someone who worked for him, though. It was the guy who came around in the suit."
Elise’s eyes bulged. "You killed the suit guy?"
"Chopped his head off," I said.
Elise put her hands to the sides of her head trying to hold her skull together. "We’re fucked. Holy shit."
Drake held his hands up, looking toward the speakers built into the ceiling. "Everyone calm down. We aren’t dead yet. Maybe he, uh, I don’t know, needs to keep us alive. Right?"
"Like he did with Liam?" Bri asked, spitting the words out like venom.
