Page 55 of The Masked King

I open my eyes too quickly and try to bury myself beneath the covers like a mole scuttling underground. But my fingers don’t find my comforter, I must’ve kicked it off the bed in the night, and I have no choice but to open them again and look for it.

Blinding light. What the actual hell!

I shield my eyes with the flat of my hand and peek though cracked-open eyelids. The window comes into view, curtains open to reveal watery blue sky whitewashed with thin clouds. I’m breathing heavily like I was trying to escape the clutches of a psycho serial killer before I woke up, and my brain is still trapped inside the dream.

It’s okay, I tell myself. I’m safe. It’s safe to let go of whatever nightmare was chasing me around an abandoned mountain cabin which is where most of these psychos seem to appear in my subconscious. The Fish is dead, but I can’t seem to let him go. I’ve no idea how Megan sleeps at night; maybe it has something to do with having Giovanni Sabatelli by her side, and her twins in the next room.

And whichever bodyguard they replaced me with.

This is when I notice the spotlights around the room, the kind used by YouTubers and podcasters, on stands with lamps the size of someone’s head. Something icy trickles down my spine, and goose bumps pop all over my body.

I sit up and collapse back onto the bed with my face buried in the pillow to stop myself from being sick. Something hard is pressing into my ribs, a broken mattress spring or metal buttons. I slide a hand between me and the bed and trace the links of a chain from my abdomen up to my breasts.

My brain cells are a couple of beats behind my movements, retracing my steps in private so that they can hit me with the outcome without any foreshadowing.

And there it is. I’m still wearing my Nyx outfit from last night.

Which means this isn’t my apartment. This isn’t my bed. And that isn’t the view from my bedroom window.

I sit up and slide my legs over the side of the bed, covering my mouth with my hand and squeezing my eyes shut so that I can’t see the room spinning around me.

It’s no good. This is how I imagine people living with vertigo must feel: that perpetual lightheadedness that could be from standing at the top of a mountain or being underwater for so long, your lungs are about to explode. I lie back down, roll onto my side with my eyes still shut, and wait for everything to settle.

I need to figure out what happened before I can even think about busting out of here.

Wherever here is.

I must drift back off to sleep at some point. When I resurface, the lights are still unbearably bright, but the spinning room has slowed to a gentle carousel speed, and a hammer has taken up residence inside my skull instead. Hammers I can deal with. All I need is some water.

I roll onto my side and check out the nightstand where I find a full, one liter bottle of water. I unscrew the cap and guzzle the cold liquid, drizzling it down my chin and onto the pillow before I realize that it might be spiked.

Shit!

The seal was already broken, and now that the idea is in my head, I can’t tell if the water tastes different than it should or if it’s regular water wrapped in plastic.

Wiping my chin with the back of my hand, I set the bottle back down on the nightstand and sit with my back propped up against the headboard.

The spotlights are glaring at me, but I blank them out and focus on the events of the previous night. Assuming it was last night and I’ve not been unconscious for multiple days.

My memories are fuzzy around the edges, but I remember the other Nyx and Brian, three of us in the room together. I removed Brian’s mask in the darkness; we were almost out of the door when Nyx got hurt. They knew exactly what they were doing when they hurt her; they knew we wouldn’t leave her behind.

After that point, I can’t be certain of anything else that happened.

I don’t remember leaving the building. I’ve no idea who brought me here or if I fought back, but I understand with complete clarity that the thug with the snake tattoo is behind it all.

Voices reach my ears like gunfire.

I lurch out of bed and cross the room on shaky legs, throwing myself against the door. I want them to hear me. I want them to know that I’m awake. I try the handle, but the door doesn’t budge; of course it’s locked.

“Hey!” I call out, pounding the door with my fists. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Stupid question, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

The voices stop. They heard me.

“Hello! Open the door!” Nothing. “I need to pee.”

The instant the words leave my mouth, I peer around the room and spot the door on the opposite wall, marble floor tiles visible in the gap, clearly an ensuite bathroom.

“Where am I?” I call out, my voice already losing steam.