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“Daaahhliaaa…” Raph growls. “Come out come out wherever you—fuck!”
The thudding sound and subsequent curse tell me Raph’s just walked into the same obstacle I did. I hear him fumbling with something. And then I gasp as red lights flicker on all around us. A shape lunges at me, and I scream as I turn around…
Only to come face-to-face with myself.
What the fuck…
It hits me just as the creepy carnival organ music begins to filter from tinny speakers.
I’m in the mirror maze in the fun house from the fair.
“Daaaahliaaa…”
Raph’s voice echoes around the walls of mirrors, ebbing closer and then farther away the next second. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to panic, refusing to let the fear drag me under. I touch the wall next to me, skimming my hands over the mirror as I make my way down a hallway. Then there’s a turn. But I hit a dead end filled only with my many reflections.
I have to get out of here.
I go back the way I came, but when my eyes land on five men in identical skull masks, I scream and bolt in another direction. All five chase me at the same time, running the same speed, and I realize it’s Raph and the mirrors around him.
Then I round another corner, and he’s gone.
“Going to make me work for it, are you?” he growls. I flinch when I hear the unmistakable clicking sound of a gun being cocked. “You know what I think I’ll do?” He sighs meditatively. “I’m going to make it messy. I’m going to make it look like he hadfunwith you first. So when the evidence inevitably leads back to that fucking psychopath, they’ll lock him up forever and throw away the key.”
I bolt around a corner, gasping and throwing a hand over my mouth to stop the scream when I catch a glimpse of a white skull. I dart back around the corner and run the other way. At the end of that hallway, I spot four more mirror reflections of Raph in his skull mask.
“Got you!”
I scream, turning and slamming into glass so hard that it shatters against my arm. I wince, feeling broken glass cutting through my sleeve and blood leaking down my arm. I shove the pain away, running down another hall of manic mirrors illuminated by blood-red lighting.
Another man in a skull mask pops out in front of me. My throat closes on my scream, but then I realize it’s just a refection as he disappears. My feet zig and zag, taking me down yet one more path beforeagainI catch another glimpse of another mask.
It’s like he’s everywhere and all around me at once. Like he’s closing in. Like he’s cloned himself and there’s all the Raphs in the world chasing me down.
I tumble around a corner, and then scream and instinctively duck away as a shot rings out. The mirror behind me shatters, showering me in glass shards as I fall to the ground. Glass slices into my palms and my knees. I whirl, but the mask is closing in, gun raised.
And now there’s just one of him.
No reflections. No tricks of the eye. Just the man who’s about to kill me, stalking toward me with blood-red light bathing us both.
“Trick or treat, Dahlia,” Raph sighs, levelling his gun at me. “And unfortunately, I’m fresh out of treats.”
He draws the hammer back. I shrink in on myself, thinking of my mom. Of Celeste and Adrian. Of my friends.
But mostly, I think of Deimos, and how much I love him.
“Any last words?”
“Yeah.Boo.”
I jolt when the reflection of a skull next to Raph suddenly lunges at him, slamming the gun away from him as it goes off, shattering yet another wall of glass. The second man smashes Raph to the ground with a fury that sucks my breath away.
A fury that’s very familiar.
He roars as he grabs Raph by the throat and slams the back of his head onto the ground, over and over. Raph’s mask falls off, and Raph looks up at his assailant with a terrified look on his face, his hands trying to push the other man’s mask away. But the more he claws at the mask, the more I realize it’s not a mask at all. It’s face paint.
And I’ve seen the design before.
Deimos snarls, his biceps and forearms bulging and rippling as he tightens his grip around Raph’s throat. He slams him down over and over and over into the shards of glass on the floor until Raph goes limp.
