Page 5
“Go on, your one first?” Max steps forward, ready to protest.
“Whoa, why me first?
“Because I’m not doing it first,” I say, and he doesn’t look impressed at all. There is no way I’m about to try out my own idea, knowing I was scrolling on Google at two am this morning for ways to make these masks, so I could fuck up my pretty face. I don’t have time to fuck up.
“Because I have a nice face that I don’t want ruined.” He crosses his arms, disgusted by my words.
“And I don’t?” he questions. I mean, yes, he has a nice face, but not as much as I do. I can’t deny all the money I’ve put into my eyebrows, the lip filler, and even the lip blush I’ve had done; that shit ain’t cheap.
He waves me off with his middle finger in the air as he closes the door. These masks should have been done weeks ago, but I had spent too much time trying to plan if I wanted the mask to be a scary bunny full of blood. You would think I would calm down with the whole scare fest, but nope, no break for the wicked; more people seem to be acting stupid and testing my patience, and that’s a really fucking bad idea.
CHAPTER 3
MAX
Inever signed up for this.
That thought keeps circling in my head like a fly that refuses to die, no matter how many times you swing at it. It just keeps coming back, angrier and more annoying than before. I never signed up for any of this. Not the glue that’s already skimming over at the top, forming a tacky skin. Not the paper pulp soaking and slumping in mixing bowls like something half-digested. Not the suffocating stink of flour and water turning sour, fermenting into a smell that lodges at the back of my throat and refuses to leave. It smells like old kitchens, damp cupboards, and something else entirely.
It smells like regret.
And definitely not the masks.
The table between us is a crime scene of its own—bowls, strips of greyed newspaper, brushes glued stiff, blobs of paste hardened like scars on the wood. Emma’s forearms are flecked in dried glue, pale against her skin, like someone has splattered her with chalk. She’s humming under her breath, completely in her own world, fingers working methodically as she tears more newspapers into long, satisfying strips.
We could’ve just gone into town. There’s a shop near the high street that sells all that seasonal garbage: Purge masks, cheap plastic skulls, rabbit masks with eyes too big and glossy. We could’ve grabbed something off a rack, thrown cash on the counter, and walked out. Anonymous and boring. We could even have brought canned spray paint if we really wanted to put our own spin on them.
But no.
Instead, I’m standing here, hovering over Emma while she rips apart old newspapers, and the words on each strip start to register. At first, it’s just fragments, little flashes of black ink.
Missing father of two…
Witnesses say…
Last seen leaving…
Then she tears off a longer piece, and the layout is familiar enough to snag my attention. I lean closer. The strip in her hand is still folded just enough for the text to line up.
Danny
44
Tall, slim build
Last seen in a dark blue suit at his hotel
Disappeared 11/04/2020
Body found three hours away at the River Mercy
My gaze tracks each line more slowly than the last, like my brain is deliberately stalling. It takes a second for it to click, like when you hear a song you haven’t listened to in years and only recognize it on the second chorus.
And then it hits.
Every single newspaper on this table is about someone we killed.
We did this.
