The other two elevators arrived and were filled, until the four of us were standing alone. Andy removed his hands from his ears. “Remind me not to piss that girl off,” he said.
“I’m the one you need to worry about,” said Jeff. “I pick all her sheet music.”
“Guys, focus. We need to—Sloane?” She was already starting down the hall, moving slowly at first, but gathering speed with every step. As I said her name, she broke into a run. I swore and ran after her, with Andy and Jeff running close behind me.
Most of the doors were standing open or in the process of swinging closed. Sloane made her way straight to the closed door at the end of the hall. There was a piece of white plastic in her hand. I groped for my pocket as I ran, unsurprised to realize that she had stolen the key card to Elise’s room.
“Sloane!” I shouted. “This isn’t the right way to fix things!”
She didn’t stop running. When she reached Elise’s door, she swiped the key card, shoving the door open in practically the same motion. I caught a glimpse of a shocked face topped by a spray of carroty red hair. Then the door slammed, and Sloane, and our killer, were blocked from view.
“Shit,” I hissed, skidding to a stop just before I would have hit the doorframe. “Sloane!” I pounded on the door. “Let us in! You don’t want to do this!”
“What if she does?” asked Jeff. “What do we do then?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and kept pounding on the door, only to nearly fall forward as it was wrenched abruptly open. Sloane was standing just inside with one hand on the doorknob, and the other wrapped firmly around Elise’s throat. The gun was lying on the bed, too far away for either of them to have grabbed it. That was a mercy.
“She’s not worth getting my hands bloody,” snarled Sloane, and half-shoved, half-threw Elise at Andy. He caught her easily. Elise huddled in his arms, sobbing. Sloane wasn’t done with her diatribe, and continued, eyes on Elise, “She turned herself into a Cinderella. You understand? She killed her own mother, turned herself into an orphan, and then went stalking the story. She hoped it would make her better. All it did was make her worthless.”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” sobbed Elise. “Why does she keep calling me Cinderella? I didn’t do anything …”
I looked at her, trying to feel something other than pity. “You did enough,” I said.
“She’s lying,” said Sloane. “She knew exactly what she’d done, and what she was trying to become. She wanted to be a perfect little princess. All she did was turn herself into a flawed reflection of an ideal she could never achieve. You hear me? Never.”
Elise straightened, her sobs fading as she twisted in Andy’s arms to glare at Sloane. She wasn’t trying to escape. Maybe she knew that it was pointless. “At least I’m better than you, sister,” she spat. “You think I don’t recognize you? At least I tried. I wormed my way into those families and made them my own. I tried to find another story, one where I didn’t have to be the bad guy. You just let our story take you.”
Sloane stood frozen for a moment, looking at the girl she might have been. Then: “I’ll be in the car,” she said, and stalked away toward the elevators.
Jeff watched her go before moving to stand beside me. “Is she okay?”
“No,” I said, and we stood there waiting until the police descended.
To be continued in the next episode. Your book will be automatically updated with Episode 6 and you can continue reading from this page.
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