“Marybeth, Marybeth,” I whispered, climbing down from the toilet. I was terrified, but too busy to be consumed with fear.
I knew I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t drag Marybeth out. What if someone saw us, like those guards at the desk? What if they were coming to investigate the sound? I couldn’t think straight. My head swam. We had to leave, but how? No amount of intellectual smarts, books, competitions, or research could have prepared me for this, and I certainly didn’t know what a cool person would do.
Before panic could overtake me, I stepped over her and hurried to the door to crack it open. By luck, Kira was right there, reaching for the doorknob. When she saw me, she looked in the direction of the receptionist and then motioned for me to come out. I shook my head, opened the door further and grabbed her arm before she could walk away. Her gorgeous, dark red hair fluttered across my face as I pulled her in. The soft scent of shampoo lingered in the air, a stark contrast to the musty smell in the bathroom. I pointed at Marybeth, now sitting, with her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, eyes closed.
“Whew!” escaped my lips. She wasn’t dead. Kira moved toward her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I interrupted. “They could be coming. They might have heard her fall.”
We tried to lift her, but she was too heavy and dead weight at that.
“We need one of the guys,” Kira said as she reached for the door. At the same moment, Rick slipped inside. He took one look at Marybeth rocking back and forth and said, “What the… ?” and moved toward her like he alone was responsible for her safety.
“She fainted,” I whispered. “Rick, we’ve got to get out of here…”
“Fainted? How is that…” He knelt beside her, inspecting her head.
“Shh!” I said, pointing at the vent. “Look, I don’t have time to explain. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Slow down and tell me what happened,” Rick said, as calm as ever. “Could you hand me some paper towels, Kira…and wet a few of them, please.”
Kira, more than happy to help any boy, grabbed some towels and put a few under a stream of water coming from the old fashion looking tap. The door opened, making me jump. The rest of the crew walked in and they didn’t look happy.
“What’s the hold up?” Alex asked, commanding the room.
“Marybeth fainted,” Kira blurted, taking advantage of a chance to have Alex notice her.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Alex said, looking around.
“Why would she faint in here?”
“That’s precisely what I’m trying to figure out,” Rick said, staring hard at me.
All eyes fell on me. “Well, Marybeth and I,” I stuttered, “just saw a guy’s head get chopped off. We’ve got to get out of here and fast. Marybeth made a lot of noise when she fell and…”
“I don’t see anyone with their head chopped off,” Josh interrupted with a laugh, his muscle bound body bumping playfully into Summer, her tiny frame swaying with each push.
“Yeah. Where’s the body?” Summer said, laughing out loud. “Oh, and the head?”
“Shh!” I said, looking up at the vent. “Do you want them to hear us? Oh my gosh, they could be on their way.”
Alex looked up at the vent. “You saw it through that vent?” he asked, walking toward the marble counter by the sink that also gave access to the large vent.
“No, don’t look. Please, let’s just go,” I said, feeling time tick away with every step he took.
“This I’ve got to see,” Alex said, ignoring me and hopping up onto the counter to look through the vent. He ducked right after looking and whispered, “What the....”
I watched as his beautiful face turned serious.
“Get up here Josh, you won’t believe this,” he whispered.
I wondered if the counter could hold his weight.
Josh climbed up next to Alex, the counter creaked (but didn’t give in) and only a mere second after looking through the vent, he jumped back down, his face white as a sheet. Seeing such a big guy get sick at the sight of blood seemed odd. Summer hurried over to him and rubbed his arm.
“Was it bad?” she asked, showing him her best pouty lips. He didn’t answer, instead he leaned over the sink, hands clutching the counter, and took deep breaths.
“No way,” Rick said, and then mumbled, “Could you hold this, Kira?” He handed her the paper towels he held to Marybeth’s head and climbed up next to Alex, who had pulled out his cell and was snapping pictures of the gruesome scene below.
“We better get out of here.” Rick whispered, after his brief look down at the ballroom. He jumped off the counter without a sound and his face paled. He put a hand up to his mouth and heaved a few times.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here!” I moved toward the door.
“Wait,” Alex whispered down to us. “I want to get more pictures. Evidence, ya know.”
The thought of the details of the gruesome incident being frozen in time on his phone gave me some relief. Maybe justice could be served.
Why I did it, I’ll never know, but I walked back into that stall and climbed back up on the back of the toilet. Only the quiet click-click of Alex’s camera phone disturbed the silence.
The Senator still paced, his hands in his blood-soaked hair. The two robed men were still seated and the guards stood as if stone, even though the man’s blood completely surrounded their shoes. They must not have heard.
“Come on, Alex,” Josh said. “I’m outta here.”
“Don’t leave yet,” Eugene said, his voice whiny. “I want to see.” He climbed up next to Alex, pushing him against the stall divider. As he clumsily struggled for position, he bumped Alex and his phone fell over the stall wall and into the toilet below me. My shoes got spattered.
“You idiot!” Alex whispered as he jumped down to get his phone. It sat at the bottom of the toilet, and Alex cursed as he reached in for it. I watched his every move. He shook it hard, trying to get as much water out of it as possible as Summer handed him a bunch of paper towels. Leave it to Eugene to do stuff that reinforced his social awkwardness.
Loud voices drew me back to the horror scene in the ballroom. The two robed men, who had been sitting, stood, talking to the Senator. My heart drummed unevenly listening to the spotty conversation below me.
“Let this be a warning … make it happen, Senator.”
“…mistake!” The Senator cried. “Don’t you see? He will be missed. I thought … not want attention…? Jonathan! No…” The Senator sobbed, his eyes fixed on his beheaded partner.
Jonathan? I thought. His name is Jonathan.
I could hear, somewhere in the back of my mind, others leaving the bathroom, calling to me, but I was frozen somehow. I had to hear the rest—despite the fact that I could feel the time disappearing. The fear that welled up inside me, held me still as a mountain and knowing the dead man had a name made my insides buzz. Surely he had a family. Would they ever know what really happened tonight?
The execution was so swift, so why was it re-playing so slowly in my mind? I imagined each droplet of blood falling like a red snowflake to the ground. Remembering the brief second that I thought the leader had looked up toward the vent and had looked me directly in the eye, haunted me. My fear escalated the longer I watched and yet I just stood there.
Despite my desire to rid myself of the image, the leader’s face was permanently etched into my brain; my photographic memory proving to be a disadvantage in this situation. He hadn’t seen me, I told myself. His voice seemed to trail off as my fear intensified. The pure brutality was weighing heavily on me now.
I started to shake as I witnessed the leader and the Senator slip robes over their blood stained clothes and one of the guards wrapped cloth over his head before they headed for the doors. The Senator looked like one of them now, his body and head wrapped just like theirs. He reached into a pocket, pulled out a handker
chief and wiped the side of his face as he continued to walk.
The guards hadn’t moved an inch. Even the executioner stood stoically, with his sword point stuck into the wood floor as if nothing had happened. Blood puddled around the two guards’ feet—an incredible amount of it. It was nauseating to see a man’s head severed from its body sitting several feet away.
“Burn him,” the robed leader said in a firm voice to his soldiers. And then, the Senator, glancing back with a worried look on his face, slid through the ballroom doors. My mind screamed for me to run, but it was like being trapped in a nightmare.
The four guards, like robots, began to move.
I heard someone speaking behind me, but couldn’t make out any of the words. Everything moved in slow motion. I wished it had all been a dream. Then I could wake up and it would all go away. Why hadn’t I listened to the voice and stayed at our hotel? Were friends worth this?
The words, “Burn him” were burning my brain. It was as if I could no longer see anything but a sword swinging downward, and a pompous man exiting a bloody ballroom saying, “Burn him.”
Someone wrapped his strong arms around me and brought me down from my perch. Rick’s handsome, kind face smiled at me. My feet touched the ground and his grip loosened, but I didn’t want him to let me go, so I grabbed him hard.
“Christy, it’s over. It’s all over. It’ll be okay,” he said, his voice calm and soothing.
I wanted to believe him, but how could I? My mind raced and nothing made any sense.
“Where’s everyone?” I asked, my eyes darting around the room.
“They’re outside, waiting for us. Come on. Let’s join them,” he answered, his firm hand leading me to the door.
“No, they didn’t go out did they?” I said in hysterics, vaguely remembering hearing people leave earlier. I should have stopped them. “They could have been seen! The guards in the lobby! They’ll know we saw what happened.”
“They were very careful. They’re waiting for us outside. Let’s go. We’ve already been here too long. Just keep holding on to me. I’ll help you out. It’s going to be okay,” he said, trying to assure me.
I kept holding onto him, and he led us out the bathroom door. Before reaching the stairs a voice called out to us.
“Can I help you?”
My entire body went ice cold. We’d taken too long. They’d suspect we’d seen or heard something. We’d be killed just like that man in the ballroom.
The raven-black haired receptionist stood only feet from us, her eyes large and dark. The two guards stood by the reception desk glaring at us.
“Oh, no,” Rick said with a completely steady voice. “My friend just feels a bit sick and so we used your bathroom. I hope that’s okay. I just need to get her back to our hotel.” We turned and headed down the stairs. How was he being so calm? My insides were full of frozen butterflies, their wings cutting into my stomach.
“Should I call for an ambulance?” the woman asked, her eyebrows raised and her lips thin and somehow threatening.
“No, thank you. Our friends are waiting for us outside,” he replied.
I felt the piercing glare of the guards. Did they suspect? Rick practically carried me down the stairs.
My thoughts wouldn’t give me any peace, until the cool night air hit my body bringing me back to my senses. The others huddled together at bottom of stairs.
“What happened?” “Did they see you?” “Christy, you don’t look very good.”
“The receptionist saw us. Let’s just get out of here,” Rick urged. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”
“Me, too,” Alex whispered. “Let’s go to a different hotel than our own in case they decide to follow us. Let’s go this way. I know a hotel we can go into.”
Rick tugged at my hand to follow the others, but as terrified as I was of finding those guards behind us, I had to look. No guards-only the receptionist stood just outside the door, arms crossed in front of her chest. I was glad I couldn’t make out the expression on her face.
I grabbed Rick’s arm, “Oh my gosh, that lady’s watching us.”
Rick looked back.
“You sure you don’t want an ambulance?” she called out with a voice that sounded like deep bells chiming.
“No. No,” Rick said. “She’s doing better already. Thanks, though.”
As I turned to follow the others, I thought I did see some black cloth peek out from the corner of the hotel we had just escaped. I quickly turned my head back to take a better look. It was gone, only the receptionist stood there staring after us.
Once we rounded the corner, out of eyeshot of anyone at the hotel, Alex took off running and we all followed, guilt lacing our steps. We hadn’t gone far before he led us into another hotel’s lobby. It was so late that it was easy to get past the TV-watching receptionist. I took note that there were no guards. We slipped into an elevator that took us to the fifth floor and then Alex suggested we take the stairs back to the third floor, just in case someone was watching. The hair on my neck stood straight up. I could feel that someone. I knew he was there, somewhere. Watching. Waiting.
Alex opened the door to the stairs and listened for footsteps. Apparently he didn’t hear anything, because he led us down the stairs and then opened the door to the third floor. We had walked half-way down the hall when he opened a door on our left. The laundry room. A perfect place to hide. Had he been here before?
We crowded in on each other, all finding a place to get as comfortable as we could. I wished I could have been next to Alex, but instead, I was sandwiched between Kira and Marybeth, all three of us sitting up. When Kira made her daring move to wedge herself between Alex and me, hot liquid seemed to filled me. I thought she liked Rick. Josh’s massive muscle bound body lay in front of the door, blocking out the light, keeping anyone from getting inside.
Everyone started whispering about what had happened until I said, “You guys, we should probably be super quiet because when I looked back at the hotel, before we rounded the corner, I thought I saw someone peek around the corner of the hotel entrance.”
Silence prevailed after that. Only seconds later, we heard quiet footsteps that paused at the door. No one dared breathe. Someone tried the door knob. Luckily, we had locked it. The footsteps moved past the door. A long time later, slow, even breathing told me several of the others had fallen asleep.
Even though it was the last thing I thought I could do, I slept, too. Sometime later, I woke to Josh’s foghorn-loud snoring. I was startled at first and wondered where I was. Then the whole awful affair came flooding back. I shivered despite the sweat I felt beading along my hairline. Everyone was dead asleep. The air was stale and I noticed a faint glow a few feet from me and moved toward it. Eugene’s watch read five a.m. and my heart sank. We were in so much trouble!
“Get up you guys,” I said. “It’s five o’clock. We’ve got to get back to our hotel. Mrs. J. will freak if she finds out we’re not there.” Mrs. Jackson was not only our chaperone, but she was also in charge of the larger group of fifty students staying in our hotel. I had thought it would make her the strictest chaperone, but it hadn’t. Maybe it made her the most lenient because she was stretched too thin. She did like her schedules, though. We were always going here or there with no downtime. Ever. And she would definitely notice if we didn’t show up for breakfast.
I could hear people moving about me and even got pushed around a bit as everyone woke up. Once Josh sat up, some light peeked through the bottom crack of the door. I could start to make out some shadows of the people around me. Someone opened the door just a little and peeked out. It was Alex. My heart pounded looking at him all disheveled. He looked awesome even with crazy hair. Would he think the same of me? He left the door cracked open. Light and cool air rushed in.
“Don’t look at me,” Summer said, breaking the silence. “No one look at me. I can’t imagine how I look.”
Everyone looked at her, of course.
She looked perfect. I reached up and felt my hair. I was sure it was a complete mess. I looked around for a mirror, even though I knew there wasn’t one. If only I had perfect, lush blonde hair instead of thin dirty blonde hair. How would it be to be perfect all the time? I sighed.
“What?” she almost hissed. “Don’t sigh at me. It wasn’t my choice to come here. I didn’t want to sleep on a tile floor and have no shower today. Christy, I can’t believe you dragged me into this.”
I surprised myself by saying, “Hey, I didn’t drag you into anything.” My face felt hot. I hated Summer and yet longed to be her. Could I somehow extract her good looks, popularity, and wealth but leave the nasty, snottiness behind?
“Listen up guys,” Alex said, cutting through the thick air. “It doesn’t matter how we got here and it’s no one’s fault. But, we don’t know if anyone’s waiting outside to follow us again.” There was a glint in his eye. A part of him loved this.
An echo of someone trying to open the laundry door last night reminded me that someone probably was waiting.
“But,” he continued, “if they are, maybe they didn’t get a good look at all of us and are just waiting for a large group of kids to leave the hotel. We should split up, leave in at least two different groups, catch cabs, go to two different places and then meet back up at our hotel before Mrs. J., or anyone else for that matter, knows we were gone.”
“That means,” Eugene pointed out while pushing the bridge of his glasses hard against his pointy nose, “we have to be back at the hotel before eight, when we’re supposed to leave.”
He was always right—the man with all the information. It was like looking in a mirror at myself watching and listening to Eugene. No wonder people had tormented or avoided me at home—I had tormented them. It made me cringe to think how similar we were. I always thought I was being helpful having all the answers, but realized now how annoying it must have been. Being the top of my class my whole life had pretty much ended my chances of having a social life.
“That gives us less than three hours to give any possible tracker the slip and be back, ready to go for the day,” Alex said. “Just act like you’re sight-seeing or something. Okay?”
Everyone agreed. For a split second, I thought about having no money for the cab, but then reminded myself that everyone, except Marybeth and I, was loaded. And even Marybeth was a millionaire compared to me. Money was no object for any of them.
The first group would go east in their taxi, and the second would go west.
I was in the second group.
CHAPTER THREE