Chapter 830
She tapped a tablet. The screen split.
It showed feeds from security cameras all over the hotel. The ballroom was a slaughterhouse. People were cowering under tables.
Then the camera switched to a hallway view.
The 15th floor.
A man in a wolf mask was walking slowly down the corridor. He was dragging a fire axe. The metal scraped against the wall, shredding the wallpaper.
𝘚𝘁𝗈𝗋𝗂е𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘶 𝘄оո’t р𝗎t 𝗱𝘰wn 𝗼n 𝗀𝘢𝘭𝗇𝘰𝘃е𝗹𝘴.𝘤om
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
He stopped in front of a door.
Our door.
My blood ran cold.
“She knows where we are,” I whispered. “She’s guiding them.”
I shut off the phone. “Victoria. Get up.”
“What?” She looked up, eyes red and swollen.
“He’s outside.”
I grabbed the bedsheet and ripped a long strip with my teeth.
“Stand up!”
She scrambled up.
I pressed the boning knife against her thigh. “Hold this.”
I wrapped the fabric around her leg, securing the knife handle against her skin, hidden under her dress.
“That is your last line of defense,” I said, tying the knot tight. “If he touches you, you use it.”
The doorknob turned.
Slowly. Deliberately.
The chair wedged under the handle groaned under the pressure.
Then a voice—low, gravelly, distorted by the mask.
“Little pigs, little pigs…”
He slammed his body against the door.
BOOM.
The wood cracked. The chair screeched across the floor an inch.
“Hide,” I mouthed.
I pointed to the bed. Victoria dove under it, scrambling into the dust bunnies.
I looked at the closet. It was louvered wood. Flimsy. But it was the only other spot.
I slipped inside, pulling the doors shut just as the hotel room door splintered open.
Through the slats of the closet door, I watched.
Heavy boots stepped onto the carpet. The axe head dripped something dark onto the floor.
The Wolf stood in the center of the room. He sniffed the air, turning his head slowly. The rubber mask was grotesque in the dim light, the snout frozen in a permanent snarl.
He walked toward the bed.
He stopped.
He bent down.
I gripped my own knife, my knuckles white. If he looked under there…
“I know you’re in here,” he crooned. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the building. The floor beneath us shook violently, and the glass of the window rattled in its frame. A deep, concussive boom echoed from the stairwell down the hall.
The Wolf froze. He stood up abruptly, his head snapping toward the door. His earpiece crackled with urgent, garbled shouting.
“Breach on the south stairwell! We need backup!” a voice screamed over his radio.
He growled, frustrated. He looked at the bed one last time, then swung his axe onto his shoulder.
“Playtime’s over,” he muttered.
He turned and sprinted out of the room, abandoning the hunt for the greater threat.