I pushed through the next partition and entered a dome shaped room that had a few other entrances. I think I caught a glimpse of Grace and Dion amongst a few others mere seconds before a whooshing sound came from behind me.
All the lights went out along with the music, plunging us into blinding darkness and almost total silence. There were people still moving around, I could hear them.
I moved forward a few paces, freezing in when something hard pressed against the center of my back. Someone had come up right behind me.
“Well done!” Kink’s voice called out to us.
She began to clap, and the lights came back on, revealing her standing in the center of the room on a small dais like stage. If there was one thing Kink’s was going to do, it was put on a show. Behind me, holding what I now knew was a gun to my back was one of the pandas.
I scanned over everyone in the room, seeing Grace on the far side with another guy and girl. I couldn’t look for Mel or Dion yet. I didn’t want to take my eyes off crazy too long. She was looking around with a wide smile on her perfectly made-up face.
This girl either had a setting spray made to hold up through warfare, or someone was on standby with an elite brand of makeup. She stared towards Grace for a few extraneous seconds, her gaze intensely scrutinizing.
When she was done her eyes landed on me and she tilted her head a little. If possible, she smiled bigger.
“There’s our lucky lady,” she cooed, hopping off her dais.
“I’ll keep this safe for ya,” she admonished, coming right up to me, and grabbing the sledgehammer.
If not for the gun and room full of her masked goons, she and I would be brawling right now.
“Smile, cupcake. You get to meet the hellraiser himself.”
That didn’t sound like anyone I wanted to see, but I wasn’t at liberty to object.
“Take her to him. And be gentle, you know how he gets.”
Two masked clowns suddenly appeared on either side of me, silently urging me to start walking.
“Where are you taking her?” I heard Gracelyn’s voice question behind us.
“You should worry more about who you’re going to be meant for,” came Kink’s reply.
I furrowed my brow, wondering what she meant by that, momentarily shelving the thought when a loud bout of cheering erupted as I exited the fun house. A crowd stood on either side of a fenced walkway that led to a massive black and white tent.
There was a pop and fizzle overhead, flashy confetti rained down on me and another set of fireworks began. This must have been the cause of them the first time. That was seriously insane. I wondered how many of us had succumbed to Kink’s pandemonium and who else managed to survive.
As we drew closer to the tent’s entrance, my stomach became alight with nerves. Why did I have to be the lucky one going to meet whoever this hellraiser person was?
The clown on the left moved ahead and pulled back the heavy flap on the tent, revealing a makeshift door of a wooden structure.
“Go,” a gruff voice commanded.
When I didn’t move fast enough to appease them, I was given a not too gentle shove forward.
Now fully inside, the door slammed shut and the flap fell over its tiny window, entrapping me with the three masked figures standing on the other side of the room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I should’ve known it was going to be him. Of the three masked figures, Ciaran stood in between the guy that kept watching us from the rooftops and the same person who’d accompanied him down the alley.
“Scared yet?”
I scoffed and reached for my mask.
“Leave it on,” he ordered coolly.
“Why? You already know who I am.”
There was a pause before he replied. “You’re right. I do know who you are.”
I had a feeling he was referring to something else. I shifted my weight, wondering what happened now. I could still hear the various sounds of the carnival intermingling with the fireworks still going off overhead.
“Do you wanna tie yourself up? Or do you need help?”
Tie myself up?
He answered my silent question with a slight nod. I looked at the left side of the room, seeing a heavy piece of plywood with makeshift restraints drilled into it. There were loose pieces of rope that had noose like ends, just big enough for my wrists. Blood—some old and some fresh covered the board and the dirt floor around the plywood. Only the ropes appeared be unused.
If I thought I was fucked before, I was royally fucked now. There didn’t appear to be any way out of this tent aside from the door I’d just come through.
Plus, there were three on one. Ciaran was a force to reckon with all on his own.