In the center of the tabletop was a folded over card with a logo of sorts on the front of it—a crying eye above a strange triangular pattern. I think I’d seen this somewhere before, but I couldn’t pinpoint where or when.
I lifted the stylus off the record that was playing, and then grabbed the card to get a better look at it. The outside was blank other than the strange symbol, but inside held an embossed inscription.
All bets are in.
Dress in the clothing provided, and then proceed to the trail ahead.
“More of this crap? Great,” I muttered, flipping the card back onto the table.
I finished off the water, scanning over every inch of the room trying to spot any cameras that may have been hidden. Now knowing we’d been being watched this entire time, I doubted that had changed.
Whatever. Let em watch.
I went to the dresser and started pulling open the drawers. All were empty save for the one on the bottom right. Inside was a neatly folded pile of clothes and a pair of boots resting beside a silver picture frame. I grabbed the photo first, raising it up so that I could get a better look.
“What is this?”
I expected it to be a clue--another riddle.
It was an actual photograph of Me, Mel, and Grace. We were standing amongst a group of people, side by side and smiling. That alone wasn’t anything strange. I had thousands of pictures with them, no exaggeration. The problem was that I didn’t remember taking this.
Based on our outfits I assumed we were at a party or something. I wasn’t entirely sure. I couldn’t use the people surrounding us as clues because most of their faces had been scratched out.
As I continued to study the photo it became clear someone hadn’t just mutilated a few people. The background had been darkened. Whatever was behind us was nearly impossible to see. I searched for a recognizable face amongst the ones that were left unscathed, finding two. Troy Sainte—a guy I’d partied with eons ago, and unless I was tripping out, the redhead off to the far right was Selena.
She wasn’t smiling like we were. It almost looked as if she were scared. This didn’t make any sense. I was a one hundred percent sure I’d never met her before, and she didn’t behave like she knew me, Mel, or Grace either.
Was this another riddle of some sort? Maybe I was reading too deeply into this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole photo were faux. Frustrated, I tossed the silver frame back into the drawer and took out the clothes.
I needed to figure out where I was and then go find the girls. I’d deal with everything else later. They had to be my priority right now. My dysfunctional ass family could go screw themselves. Ciaran too, that deviously psychotic dickhead.
I know I had to shoulder some of the blame. Believing in him even a little was a result of my own stupidity.
I was a Serpine.
He was a Belair.
We were fire and ice.
Tragic and twisted.
We shouldn’t have fallen together when we could only ever fall apart.
With such logic it was ridiculous to accuse him of betraying me. So why did I feel as if he had? The real betrayal was from my family, which was an even harder pill to swallow. It wasn’t something I could easily accept no matter how much sense it made.
It’s always the ones closest to us that bury the hatchet in our spines.
I pulled on the clothes quickly, feeling like time was already getting away from me. Everything was a perfect fit apart from the shorts being a little too snug. I looked at myself in the mirror attached to the back of the dresser, bringing a hand to my throat.
My necklace was gone.
How was I just now noticing this? Someone had to of removed it when they did my clothes. Now that I realized it was missing, I felt naked all over again. Why would someone take that? I guess it could be because it was worth money, but these people’s pockets weren’t hurting any so that didn’t make a lot of sense.
I pulled my long hair back and twisted it around until the wavy strands were in a messy bun of sorts, noting that the same logo embossed on the notecard was imprinted on the corner of the T-shirt.
Once I finished lacing my boots, I did one last search of the cabin before heading for the only other door there was.
It opened directly to the outside.
I stepped out into a thin layer of fog and got an acute a sense of deJa’vu. It reminded me of the tunnel the shuttle bus had gone through but this time I was somewhere in the woods.
I think...
Trees that stood so high I couldn’t see the tops of them surrounded the cabin in a crescent shaped pattern. Straight ahead was an all-white sign sticking out of the ground with the word TRAIL scrawled across it. An arrow pointed to the obvious.