Page 78 of Off the Rails

I’ve heard more than enough.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved my phone into the pocket of my sweats and stood from the couch. Investing wasn’t enough of a distraction. And maybe if I could get some space from the living room windows, I’d get a reprieve from the noise.

The exhaustion of being here was starting to get to me. I wasn’t thinking strategically enough. With the Freaks indisposed outside, I had the perfect opportunity to snoop through their shit and find some sort of advantage for Fright Night.

I padded down the hall, keeping my footsteps light despite the fact that I was completely alone. Still curious about her arts and crafts project, I tried Nash’s room first. But no dice; she’d kept her door locked.

Probably for this exact reason.

Farther down the hall, Cyrus’ door was the same. But that was less of a shock. Her door was locked even when she was home. Sometimes, it felt as much like a way to keep her in as it was to keep us out.

Kind of bullshit that mine is the only room that doesn’t have its own lock.

What else did I expect from my keepers, though? They thought they owned everything in Feverpoint, including me.

On my way to sulk in my own room, I half-heartedly tried Blade’s doorknob, certain that it was no use. But to my surprise, the door eased open at the lightest touch, inviting me in with a soft creak.

I blinked hard, trying to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. Certainly, she hadn’t forgotten — Blade was erratic, but she wasn’t that careless.

Maybe… she wants me to look?

Taking a step forward, I pushed the door open and peeked in. The lights were out, but it looked exactly how I pictured the inside of her brain — scrawled marker and spray paint across the walls, tools scattered across a work desk, ropes strung from hard points all around the room.

At the center of it all was a minimalist, metal bed frame with a cushy king mattress. Stepping past the threshold, I could see that the bedframe had the same kind of metal loops built into the head and footboards.

The room smelled like her — earthy musk filled with a sweet sweat — and I was surprised to find that despite the general chaos of her mind, there was a certain degree of order here. Her bed was neat, her scatter of tools was confined to her desk, and even the ropes that hung from the walls seemed to be sorted.

There was a method to her madness, even if I couldn’t quite parse the specifics.

I hadn’t realized how far I’d ventured into her den until my fingers brushed over the soft linen of her dark gray sheets. I peered down at the bed with a furrowed brow. Blade was always so full of energy, it was hard to imagine her peacefully sleeping.

Peace. I took a deep breath, enjoying a moment of that for myself. The amusement park rides had grown quiet, the tinny speakers finally taking their reprieve. And the screaming — I was finally free of the fucking screaming.

Fuck.

It only took a moment for me to realize what that silence meant. I scrambled for the door, careful not to disrupt any of Blade’s belongings.

I’d barely made it into the hall when the front door swung open. I’d tried to close Blade’s bedroom door quietly but just missed the latch. And as the Freaks trudged into the apartment, Blade’s door creaked its soft protest, threatening to betray me.

But I couldn’t reach for it now. Not without confirming where I’d been poking around.

It didn’t matter, anyway. The clowns were clearly preoccupied with other matters.

Even from down the hall, I could see the mess they trailed in through the door. Blood coated their boots, their masks, their weapons — and now, our freshly polished floors.

They hadn’t been playing out there. They’d been hunting.

And whatever they’d killed wasn’t enough to sate their appetites.

Under the cover of their masks, the hunger in their eyes was apparent. And my heart thundered in my chest as their ravenous gazes turned to me.

45

TESS

I stumbled down the hall, trying to put some distance between myself, Blade’s room, and the insatiable hunters standing at the front door.

What I was doing should have been fairly obvious. Yet to my surprise, none of them said a word. Maybe they didn’t care. Or maybe they were waiting to see how I would react to the massacre they’d just unleashed.