Chapter 24
There’s a knock on the door, making everyone in the room jump and feel uneasy. Mikey gives Eduard and Becca a strange look as they creep back in the direction of the bathroom.
“I told you, there’s no one else here,” he swings the door open, but no one stands there. He leans down and picks something up off the floor, closing the door slowly behind him as he turns around to face Becca and Eduard.
He holds a box. It looks exactly like the one Becca had found in her room.
Her breath catches in her throat as Mikey walks up to her, picking a white piece of paper up off of the top of it.
“It’s for you,” Mikey says, handing her the box and showing her her name on the paper in the all-too-familiar writing.
Becca Reed
Becca takes the box in her hands as they start to shake. The weight settles on her palms as Mikey lets go of it. She looks at the lid, two initials staring back at her. But they aren’t like the other box. They’re her initials.
B. R.
She drops the box in shock and it bounces once before landing upside-down on the ground. The boys stare at her, confused, and she feels her breathing betray her and tear at her throat, clawing away from her lungs. Dark spot appear around her vision and she starts to back up, tripping over the bed and landing on it, bouncing slightly like the box had on the floor.
Becca starts to mumble the word ‘no’ over and over, pressing her back to the wall that’s against the bed. She starts to break down, tears beginning to fall from her eyes and onto her clothes and the comforter below.
She can’t escape it, why can’t she run from all of this? Why her? Why her?
She barely feels the hands around her, trying to comfort her. Her brain is whirring with thoughts and panic. What’s inside the box? Another gun? Or something else?
Becca’s eyes would have burned holes into the box if she had lazar vision. They won’t pull away, no matter how hard she tries to make them. The glossy black outer shell of the box stares back at her, as if it’s waiting for her to turn it over and look inside. But she doesn’t want to look inside… She’s scared of the contents that the box hides.
The boys decide to go to sleep. They take the floor, letting Becca curl up under the covers on the bed. Normally, she would have rejected, but this isn’t normal.
Normal people don’t go around giving guns in boxes to people. Normal people don’t make notes that scare the living daylights out of someone else.
No, the situation she’s in definitely isn’t normal.
The thoughts keep her awake and staring at the box. The boys didn’t move it from its spot. Eduard had tried, but all he got was a string of shouts from Becca not to touch it or go near it.
What if she just doesn’t open it? If she lets everything go back to normal.
Nothing’s normal now, she thinks to herself. Everything has changed. There’s no going back. No going back…
She pulls her knees up to her chest and rocks back and forth in the bed.
This has brought her to the brink of insanity.
. . .
Snow dances all around her. She stands at the top of a steep drop, the whiteness covering everything around her. Trees below her stretch on and on, as far as she can see, the frozen water clinging to their leaves.
The wind is cold against her cheeks and she shivers. She isn’t wearing a jacket. Why isn’t she wearing a jacket? It’s snowing.
There’s a crunch behind her.
She turns around to see Quill, his clothes almost comically dark against the white backdrop. Below his feet, the snow has turned black.
Another crunch.
To Quill’s left stands Banshee, his plain mask on tight. Below his feet, the snow has turned black too.
There’s another crunch, and another, and another.
To Banshee’s left is Victoria, blood seeping from her chest and the snow below her black where her feet are. She wears a mask, split down the center with the colors of black and white.
To Quill’s right stands Twitch, the snow turning black and his mask the same as Victoria’s, only cracked a little on the forehead. There’s a hole in his shirt where the bullet had penetrated, silver glinting from the center of it.
And then, standing directly on Twitch’s right and Becca’s left, is Eduard, in a black and white mask too, only his is at an obscure angle. The snow beneath him doesn't change.
“Hello, Becca,” They all say at the same time, making Becca feel uneasy.
“One,” She hears Quill say.
Victoria lifts up her hand and then flings it down, a knife flying from it and sticking into the ground before Becca, making her jump and take a step backwards.
“You let her die.”
“No, I—”
“Two,” Quill cuts Becca off.
Twitch tosses something down onto the ground, a little further than the knife had gone. The gun goes off with a bang, and Becca feels the bullet whirr by her. She takes another step backwards.
“You killed him.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Banshee! Eduard!” Quill shouts.
The five start making their way toward her, another masked person walking up behind Quill. Nixon.
He walks around the leader, the snow turning black with each step, and then he stands in the middle of the tight horseshoe the other five have made around Becca, the black snow slowly starting to spread its way toward her. She backs up a bit more, feeling the wind pick up speed.
“Three.” Quill says.
Suddenly, they disappear, exploding into thousands of tiny snowflakes. They drift away in the wind. All of them except Eduard.
He stands before her now, staring her down. The black snow is around him, but where he stands, there is a circle of white, as if the black had been cut by a knife, leaving only the color of white behind.
“Calm down,” He says in a soothing tone. “It’s okay.”
“What?” Becca asks.
“You’re not alone. I’ll be your comfort.”
Becca feels a smile spread across her face and she takes a step forward, hearing a sickening crunch beneath her shoe.
She looks down to see the black snow starting to grow over her foot.
“Eduard?” She asks, fear bubbling inside of her.
“Becca—”
There’s a gunshot.
She looks up to see Eduard fall to the ground, the snow below him turning red. Quill stands on the other side of him, the gun he holds smoking.
“Alone,” Quill says, and his mask smirks.
She feels the bullet rip through her shoulder and the black snow makes a sick sucking noise as her foot is ripped from its greedy fingers. The wind surrounds her as the cliffs’ edge slips out from under her. The face of the rock moves by in a blur as she spins around slowly, the ground coming up quicker than she could ever imagine. A scream escapes her throat.
“Becca wake up!”
Becca’s eyes fly open, Eduard above her as she sits up in bed. His hands are around her shoulders and his bright blue eyes search hers as she feels her own are open wide. She remembers she isn’t wearing a mask, and she doesn’t care.
She tries to press against Eduard, tries to calm down. He holds her close and runs his hand over her hair to try and soothe her. Mikey goes downstairs to get her some water.
“Are you alright?” Eduard whispers with his chin on the top of her head. “You were screaming pretty badly.”
Becca shrugs. “I have bad dreams sometimes…”
They sit there for a while, letting the silence take up the space around them as they wait for Mikey’s return. Becca’s mind drifts to Banshee, but she tries to tear it away, to think of something else.
So she chooses Eduard to think about.
“What did you write on that paper?” Becca asks, trying to pull the focus away from her.
Eduard sighs before speaking. ??
?It’s… uh, it’s stupid. I was only thirteen and I suck at writing, but, uh… I wrote ’I must never take the mask off—but what if I did? No matter the scoff—but what if I’d die? No matter the torment, no matter the pain—not even if I wanted to, not even if it was my choice. Taking off the mask will admit that I’m vain—keeping it on would mean I’m ashamed.’ I told you, it’s stupid… I just had this thought or idea or whatever, and I needed to get it out somehow. Writing it was the only way I knew how to.”
“It’s not that bad,” Becca says quietly.
Eduard chuckles. “It’s terrible. But thanks.”
Becca smiles a little bit, feeling better than just a few moments ago.
“But that’s not all,” he says, and Becca can feel the embarrassment as he shifts his weight and clears his throat.
Becca looks at him as he lets go and she sits up straight.
“No one will know who I really am, I wrote. No matter how good I can be, no matter how flawless, how perfect… I’ll be alone. We’ll all be alone. There will be no one to bring me comfort. To bring any of us comfort.”