And that’s when I saw it.
Someone had drilled two holes in the cement.
And a pair of eyes was staring back at me.
Someone had been watching us the whole time.
“Charlotte,” Noah said. “What’s wrong?”
He followed my line of sight and I watched as understanding dawned on his face.
“Stay there,” he said.
A second later, he was rushing out of the room.
There was no way I was staying here without him.
I followed him back out into the main area of the club, just as a masked figure ran out of the room next door. The figure rushed toward the back of the club, weaving in and out of the dense throng of club goers that populated in the main room.
Noah chased after the figure, and I chased after Noah.
The masked man was moving toward the back of the club, to a corridor that snaked off to one side.
He ran into the hallway, and Noah ran after him.
I struggled to keep up with them as Noah chased the man down the winding corridors, taking turn after turn. I had that same feeling I’d had last time I was here, like I was being led underground. But while before it had felt like I was going down stairs or descending in an elevator, this felt more like we were really going underground, deep into a basement or a dungeon.
The musty smell intensified.
My breath was coming in short gasps, and I realized I had no shoes on. The roughness of the cement floor was gritty under my feet as I forced my legs to keep moving.
Eventually, we reached the end of the hallway. At the end was a large set of double doors with a sign on them that read NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS -- DUNGEON MASTERS ONLY.
But the masked man pushed right through the door.
A second later, Noah followed him.
So I followed him, too.
“Charlotte,” Noah said, when he realized I was behind him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I had to,” I gasped. “I can’t… I couldn’t stay there without you.”
“Jesus, Charlotte,” he said. “You are being incredibly stupid right now.”
He was a few feet ahead of me and he turned a corner.
As he did, a door on the corridor opened right in front of me, blocking my way and stopping me in my tracks.
A woman skittered out into the hallway. She was down on the floor, holding onto the doorknob, her body half in and half out of the room. I looked down, startled and confused. She gazed up at me. She was naked, her skin that same bronze I’d seen earlier on the waitress.
It was the waitress. I recognized her sparkling blue eyes, her high sculpted cheekbones.
“Help me,” she said, grabbing at my ankles. Her long nails scratched my skin. “Please, you have to get me out of there. They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me, they want to use me for – ”
But before she could finish, a pair of gloved hands grabbed her ankles and pulled her back into the room. A second later, the door shut and the sound of a bolt turning echoed through the hallway.
I kept moving, following Noah, my heart beating in fear.
When I found him again, he’d caught up to the masked man. Noah had wrestled him to the ground, pinning him by the arms as the man struggled.
But Noah overpowered him.
I watched in terror as Noah reached down and grabbed the bottom of the man’s leather mask, pulling it over his face, exposing the man who’d been watching us, the man who’d said he was going to cut me and gut me, the man who’d said he’d been excited to watch me die.
As the mask moved up over his skin, revealing his face, I gasped in horror, my hand flying to my mouth.