Page 35 of Cruel Pleasures

But the bathroom I’ve searched for is the door to my left.

Blinking, questioning my sanity, I glance around and realize I really am alone.

I must’ve been seeing what I want to see. Not what was really there.

Inside the bathroom, I run a wash towel under cool water until it’s damp enough to dab on my face.

Relief from the sick sensation trickles in. I draw a fresh breath into my lungs and pat the damp towel some more along my neck.

Calm the fuck down, Mani. You’re not going to let yourself go crazy here.

I leave the bathroom hardly feeling any better than when I entered it. The rest of the manor feels eerily vacant.

Everyone else really is packed into the theater. I slip through the back entrance of the shadowy room and find my seat next to Archer.

The round’s finishing up. The others are engaged in chatter about what they’ve just witnessed. Mr. Vanderson and the portly man I’d sat next to during dinner last night squabble over player stats. Mrs. Vanderson clutches her shawl and scolds her husband for his crass words.

Archer’s lips twitch as he surveys me. “Have you survived the traumatic ordeal, minx? Are you able to stand on your own two feet or do I have to carry you?”

I’m unamused. “People just died. How can you be so cavalier about it?”

“Simple. Everyone’s born. And everyone dies. These people, they just so happened to sign a waiver agreeing to the possibility in these games.”

“They… they sign a waiver?”

Archer stands from his seat as the others in the theater wander toward the exit. “Of course they do. You didn’t think they were innocents off the street, did you? Everyone who dies here knows what they signed up for.”

A shrill scream rings through the theater and drowns out all other sound. The many different conversations happening at once drop off as everyone glances around for the commotion. It’s instantly apparent the source is coming from outside the theater.

Once again Archer’s clutching my hand and leading me somewhere. This time it’s toward the theater doors, wedging ourselves between the other members. We push our way to what’s the front of a crowd that’s quickly gathered in the hall.

My eyes widen as they fall on the ground and see what everyone else is gaping at.

Talia Weinberg lays in a pool of thickening blood, her throat slashed. Her eyes already dimmed of any signs of life.

9. Ryu

Midnight & Angel - Matte Blvck

Imani Makune descends the grand staircase. Hope shines in her eyes from behind the mask she wears. She pauses at the last stair, subtly searching the crowd. A photographer could snap a photo of her, and it would come out perfect.

Some cover of a magazine.

A photograph of a beautiful woman in a beautiful gown. Hardly special considering the atmosphere.

The atrium is full of women in gowns and the arrogant men in tuxedos they mingle with. The entire club is rife with overindulgence and uncontrolled greed.

Beautiful, rich, prestigious people that happen to be ugly on the inside. Every last one of them.

You can expect nothing else from the Midnight Society. The club was founded on money. It was created decades ago on the idea that money could truly buy everything.

Anything the top one percent of the one percent could ever want.

Imani Makune attempts to blend in with these people. She wears the mask of Sasha Newton, granddaughter to real estate tycoon Clive Newton. She walks, talks, behaves like she believes Sasha Newton would behave. She’s trained herself to be a different person entirely.

And yet it couldn’t be more obvious she doesn’t belong.

She searches the crowds for him.