Page 34 of Kiss Slay Replay

He smiled as I kissed him. Not with teeth. He rarely smiles with teeth. He doesn’t like his teeth, which is stupid because they’re magnificent. Orthodontics would have been a mistake, making ordinary what nature ordained to be special.

“Stop.” His cheeks went red.

His beard was rough against my skin, but I didn’t care.

“Stop what? Complimenting you?”

“Yes. I don’t know what to do with positive feedback.”

“Too bad. You’re the most attractive human being on the planet and you need to know.”

“That’s not true! Stop.”

“Stop what. Kissing you?”

“No,” he said. “Not that. Never that.”

He stands in front of me in the doorway, looking at me like I’m a stranger, the slight wrinkles on his forehead evidence of time gone by. Of memories and change and loss. The innocence of who we were and what we had, tarnished by everything that came after. By where we are now, amid such violence. Cruelty and carnage. Unfathomable tragedy.

I never could have imagined it ending like this, back when I was just learning how it felt to see him up close, exploring the novel topography of his face. I never could have imagined it ending at all.

I can’t move, can’t trust the ground below me not to swallow me up, to prove that every fear I’ve ever had was valid, that actually I wasn’t afraid enough.

Ravi holds the doors open, and the crowd starts to pour out onto the lawn. As predicted, the sight of Vicky’s head and the man’s dead body incites complete pandemonium. Some people turn around and run back inside, others take off across the lawn, others toward the lake, the woods. I see them in streaks. Formal wedding attire ripped. Hair messy. Faces flushed and sweaty and terror warped.

“Stay together!” Ravi calls out, but no one’s listening anymore. A wild-eyed woman in a tattered gown plows past him and knocks him back. I catch the door.

“Ravi!” His name feels heavy in my mouth. Strange and unwelcome.

“I’m fine,” he says, holding his ribs.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for. I move to help him, but he dodges me. The flames gnaw closer, and I can feel the heat at my heels.

He takes a step back, receding into the reception hall. Another step. He turns away from me. He’s going back for her.

Tanya stands rigid on the dance floor with her stilettos in her hands, her makeup and hair somehow still flawless. She’s wide-eyed and ranting, incoherent. “There. It’s out…out there. But I didn’t…No. No. It’s happening. Why is this happening?”

“Willa.” Danny’s at the bottom of the steps. “Willa, come on.”

He reaches out to me. I stare at his outstretched hand. Do I take it?

Smoke fills my lungs, stings my eyes. I look back at Ravi. I know there’s nothing I can do for him. His fate is out of my hands. It’s no longer bound to mine. We never said our vows. Death won’t be what parts us; we’re already parted.

I cough into the crook of my arm, stagger down the steps toward Danny. I take his hand and let him lead me away.

“Where’s the crazy guy?” I hear someone say.

Again, a great fucking question. My eyes are beyond irritated from the smoke, and there are people everywhere—running crawling screaming crying praying—and Danny’s got me sprinting to keep up with him, to keep my hand in his, so I can’t concentrate on the frenzied scene blurring around me.

The string lights on the deck explode from the heat of the fire, and the sound of the glass globes bursting exacerbates the mayhem.

“I don’t see him anywhere. The…the…” I don’t know what else to call him. “The Eyeball Man!”

“We don’t want to,” Danny says. “Let’s go.”

Another guest runs past us. “The cabins! Get to the cabins!”

“Not that one!” Danny shouts.