by K. Weikel
Chapter 10
Becca’s eyes bore into the woman’s as she stares back. Her light skin and blue eyes seem to shine through the harsh lighting of the standard Light Clan bathroom. She has brown hair just like Becca, which is good because Becca will be the one wearing her mask.
“You won’t get away with this,” she says, still hiding her body behind the opaque shower curtain.
“Maybe not,” Becca says, feeling the confidence return. She finds she doesn’t even recognize herself when she has this feeling, this cockiness that stood before Quill. It’s almost as if she’s an entirely different person. “But for now, I will.”
She turns on her heel and steps out the door. She hears the curtain slip open as the woman probably starts to get dressed. Becca doesn’t know if she does or not, and she doesn’t care. She just has to book it out of that building.
Now.
Becca puts her mask back on and ties the woman’s mask under her shirt and around her waist as she slips out into the dark of the night. Victoria and the guy with the polka-dots join her. The other Maskless that had come along start to follow one by one. All are accounted for, which means nothing had gone wrong while Becca had been in there.
A few officers rush past Becca, not giving her a second glance. She probably called the cops on her, but there’s no way the woman could describe Becca’s mask to them. She hadn’t seen it.
Becca smiles underneath her mask as they reach the city limits. They all break out into a sprint as they run across the field, laughing and racing for the trees. When they make it to the little burned circle on the grass, they stop and take off their masks to breathe. Becca’s is the first one off. She doesn’t want a repeat of the day Banshee was shooting at her.
Eduard and the rest of the Maskless walk up and high-five each other.
“Good job on your first mission, Becca,” he says, smiling.
Eduard takes out the ear bud from his ear and puts it in the box he carries. He brings it around the circle as it forms and everyone drops theirs in it.
“Any problems?” Eduard asks. “It was awfully quiet out there. No one was communicating with each other.”
“There was only one, but we were leaving.” Victoria pipes up. “The woman saw Becca.”
Eduard looks at her, alerted. “She didn’t see your mask, did she?”
Becca shakes her head. “I was turned around. But she saw my face.”
“Okay, that’s fine then. No one knows faces anyway because of all of this mask nonsense. Just don’t take it off in public.”
Becca’s last nightmare runs through her mind as she nods. Her mask had been off and she had been burning. That wouldn’t happen in real life, but does it mean something?
Everyone leaves and goes home. Becca follows Victoria. It’s her turn to have Becca sleep over there, just in case someone really is looking for her, which is a high possibility. She’s been shuffled between Eduard, Mikey, Nixon, and Victoria since the night Becca had been visited. The mystery still remains of who it was.
“Where should I put it?” Becca asks Victoria, who walks right beside her inside the city. “The mask, I mean?”
Victoria shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you can stick it in my closet and just switch closets until the next mission is in play.”
“Okay,” Becca says as they reach the door to the apartments.
They go up a handful of floors and Victoria unlocks the door at the end of the hallway with her key.
In the center of the room, there hangs a mask from the black fan.
It’s dangling from the ceiling on a thin black wire. Red blood drips down the melted and burned black surface and over the gold sparkles that somehow held onto the disfigured material.
It’s Becca’s old mask.
She stumbles back, Victoria pushing her a little bit behind her to protect her, if it’s needed. Victoria walks in slowly, looking around just in case someone is there. She makes it to the mask and reaches up to touch it, trying to avoid the dripping blood. It’s just above her head and she tries to turn it around so she can untie it from the black string.
The back is sloppily painted white, with four small words written in blood.
I know Becca Reed
Becca looks at Victoria, who turns back around, her eyes wide. There’s a sound to Becca’s right, where the closet sits, and Victoria looks over in that direction. She backs up, her breath shallow and her eyes wide, her head bumping the mask. A knife makes its way across the room, tumbling handle over blade, and cuts through Victoria’s chest with a sickening thunk and the sound of ripping skin.
Becca leaps forward, screaming for Victoria, and looks around the corner.
Standing in front of the closet is a man not wearing a mask. A black cloak hangs from his shoulders and gently brushes the floor and trails a bit behind him. His mouth is cut open to where you can see his teeth, from the left corner of his mouth and back about three inches. It’s bleeding out, and he rubs it with one of his hands, which are covered with gloves. His tan skin makes him glow in the light, and his brown hair sticks up everywhere.
He smiles cruelly at Becca, his ripped cheek making his features even more grotesque and insane beneath the lighting above the mask.
Victoria sputters as she tries to breathe. Becca can’t take her eyes off the man as he starts to walk to the door. She holds Victoria in her arms, feeling her body shudder.
As soon as the man’s back is turned, she pulls the knife out. A cry from the quickly fading Victoria tears through the room.
“Change... the world... Becca...” Victoria whispers. Her body goes limp and Becca hears the man finish leaving the room.
Her heart fills with anger and her mind explodes with rage.
She runs out into the hall, the man turning to head down the stairs.
“Hey!” Becca screams, her voice high and shrill.
The man turns around, his face seeming almost normal until he smiles again. There’s a light in his eyes that tells Becca he isn’t right in the head.
She doesn’t hesitate as she lifts the knife up and throws it. It sticks into his left shoulder. The man doesn’t cry out, doesn’t make a move. His smile just stretches wider as the blood from his cheek drips down his neck and as the blood beneath the knife soaks into the black sleeve covering his shoulder.
Becca takes a step back, coming to her senses.
She’d just tried to kill someone out of rage.
She didn’t even think about it.
Her hands go to her head as she starts to panic. Her breathing goes shallow and her vision is blurry. She feels the wall against her back suddenly, and she finds her way to the cold, hard ground.
She’d just tried to kill somebody. It doesn’t matter what she did, she just tried to kill him…
She looks up to see if he’s still there. She doesn’t know what she’d do if he was—run away maybe? Hide? —But she looks anyway.
And he’s gone.