Rule 35 - Domino

"Oh!" I froze at the door, Koi bumped into my back as I looked around the room. Taped on all the walls were photographs. "What"s this?" My eyes found Swayze, standing with his hands in his pockets, looking bashful.

"Johnny let me take a box back with us. I thought if we can"t take you on the road, why not bring the road to you?"

I went to the wall, pulling a picture loose. This was from that old toy convention. There was a beautiful woman, a bit older than me. Her name was Tanis. She smiled in this photo as I snapped a picture of her with her rare Talking Teddy Bears. She was a celebrity to the other collectors for how large her collection was and the pristine condition she kept them in. I loved how proud she was. I smiled down at the memory, and it wasn"t until a single tear slid down my cheek that I realized how strong an emotion this single photo had elicited.

I looked up and around. All of these photos were my memories. I"d never gotten to see them all laid out like this. And this was just a small fraction of everything I"d captured during my time on the road. I spun around and found Swayze behind me. I threw my arms around him and kissed his chest.

"Thank you so much!"

Koi cleared his throat. "I hate to break this up, but we gotta go. I don"t want to hear it from Marisol or Mattias if we miss that stupid meeting."

I pulled away from Swayze and nodded. He took my hand and I looked at it. I"d spent all day walking hand-in-hand with Koi at the park. We didn"t do much, other than walk around and try not to lose our emotions, but still, people saw us. If I went out holding Swayze"s hand now, people would know I was with both of them. Could I do that?

"We don"t have to do this if you don"t want to," Swayze said, loosening his grip. My concern must have been clear on my face. I shook my head and tightened my grip.

"No, I want to. It"ll be awkward otherwise. Let"s just rip the Band-Aid off."

I walked with both men, holding Swayze"s hand, to the beach. There was a large bonfire going and all the people from the party were there, but I froze when I saw two other guests.

Monica and Carlos. My uncle and former Stepmother sat beside each other, holding hands, and wearing the same matching grim expressions. My heart hammered so hard in my chest that it hurt. Swayze squeezed my hand and bent down to whisper in my ear.

"Are you going to be okay, or should we leave?"

I steadied my breathing. "No, I"m fine. Let"s sit."

Chairs were added to the circle and I sat between Koi and Swayze and across from Fabian and Mattias. Everyone else sat around us, chatting nervously. Most of them looked like they hadn"t slept in days, or had been crying that long.

"Hi, everyone!" Mattias stood to address the circle. "So, we managed to cover our asses. Ruth"s family and the media will never know a murder occurred. I know, everyone is taking this difficultly. Understandably so. We don"t know who did it, but we do know that everyone in this circle has been cleared. If you try to tell someone her death wasn"t from the roller coaster, you will be taking the blame for her death."

Chitra bolted up. "What do you mean? You have no proof, you just said!"

"No, but we"ll make some up," Marisol said from her seat. She looked almost bored to be here. "You don"t think I could frame any one of you for murder?"

The circle grew silent.

"Now," Mattias clapped, bringing the attention back to him. "We have to keep our cool, okay? No more sobbing and talking about Ruth. No more coming to find me to ask questions. I have no answers. If we figure out who did this, we"ll handle it, okay? But everyone trying to play detective is going to make things look super suspicious and we can"t have that. Got it?"

Mumbles of yeses sounded throughout the circle.

"Why are they here?" Beth pointed to my stepmother and uncle.

Uncle Carlos stood and cleared his throat.

"Yes. While we"ve squashed the death itself, we can"t forget that someone did that to her. Someone who may still be here on the Risky property. We don"t know who they are, where they are, or why they did what they did. We want everyone to be safe out there. We know the camp is normally a party palace, but until we find who did this, don"t wander off."

Monica stood. "That means no woods, no after hours at the park, no golf carts after dark. None of it. And don"t go anywhere alone."

"You came all the way down from your mansion on the hill to lay down some stupid rules?"All heads swiveled to Grace, who snickered at the older adults. "Seems a little pointless. If someone wants to kill us, they'll just do it."

Gasps rang out, including one from my own throat. What was she doing? Fabian shot up and stepped in front of Uncle Carlos and his mother.

"It"s fine. They just came because they wanted to give everyone a gift for their silence on this matter."

"A gift?" Mitchell slid his tinted glasses down his nose.

"Yes, we"re adding an extra thousand dollars to everyone"s paycheck for the rest of the season, so long as Ruth"s cause of death stays hidden."

The look on Uncle Carlos"s face told me that they hadn"t agreed to that. Mattias shot Fabian a look.

"I can"t do this." Blane stood abruptly. He looked worse than everyone else here. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, his shoulders slumped and his body trembled. "I quit. I don"t care about the money, my parents are gone and I"m an only child. No one would look for me if I ended up like Ruth. I refuse to die in this place. This is all fucked up." He stormed out of the circle and into the woods, taking the path back to the camp.

Andrew stood. "Bro, hold on!" He started to follow him but froze when a blood-curdling scream came from the forest. It was loud and then cut off a second later. Everyone froze, taking it in. That had been Blane. Chairs fell over as everyone scrambled up. All the men except Mitchell ran into the woods after Blane. There was silence but then they must have found him because there was another scream.

Everyone took off toward the woods, needing to see what had happened to him. He hadn"t been that far in, maybe fifty feet. We found the group of men and collided with them. They opened up the circle and everyone stared down in horror at Blane"s fresh corpse. His face was contorted in utter horror at whatever he"d seen right before he died.

Blood was bursting from his neck, and something pointy protruded from it. I had to look away. I found Koi and wrapped myself against him, closing my eyes and sobbing.

"What the hell happened?" Uncle Carlos asked. People were screaming and scurrying around the crime scene in a panic.

"There"s a note in his hand!" Chitra exclaimed.

"Hold on, no one touch him!" Mattias screamed.

Blane had a piece of notebook paper shoved into his hand. Mattias crouched and took it from him.

"There are four Risky children. Sacrifice yourselves, or someone else will die every four days," he read. His hands shook the paper so hard it tore.

"Four days? What does that mean?" Mitchell asked.

"It means that someone is watching us and wants you all dead." Grace stepped forward.

"You mean, someone who's jealous of the Risky family?" Mattias darkened his gaze as he bore into Grace. "Someone who maybe lost one of their own children here?"

All eyes concentrated on Grace and she pointed to herself. "What, you think my mom wrote that? My mom may have lost Dennis but I"m still alive and well. She wouldn't do this."

"Mothers deep in grief can do a lot of crazy things," Mattias pushed back.

"Blane was killed on the fourth day," Beth said, interrupting the argument. Her words hung in the air as we stared down at the body. "What are we supposed to do?"

Marisol stepped forward. She"d been relatively silent, despite the tears streaming from her eyes. She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"He said it himself. No one will come looking for him. Let"s bury the body and we can figure out the rest later." She stalked off, not saying another word. Everyone stared around the group in utter silence. What did we do now? Someone was actively hunting us. It was Mattias, who spoke, finally.

"Alright, let"s go grab shovels. Unless you want to do the coaster."