Hide Seek Kill - A Thriller Novel || Draft One

Thirteen: Elizabeth

Eliza squints her eyes as she tries to discern whether the painting above the four-posted bed is of Hollywood or Las Vegas. Whichever it is, it seems out-of-place in this Victorian mansion, the same quality as a picture taken from a modern cell phone.

After deciding that they would search for a way out of the mansion, everyone had split up, some of them in small groups, and others on their own.

Elizabeth has held true to her promise and stuck with Zach. You don't know who you can trust, but Eliza knows that she can trust Zach with anything.

Except with her heart.

She isn't ready to trust Zach with her deepest thoughts and emotions. Especially with the secret that she holds close to her heart. It weighs her down, a reminder that everything choice, every decision she makes, has consequences. Both good and bad.

And some of them she can't come back from.

"Did you find anything?" Zach walks into the room from the bedroom he was searching across the hall.

"No, just this strange painting." She sighs and Zach rests his chin on her shoulder from behind. Eliza can't help but smile. This was something that he would do all the time back when they were still together. "I don't know whether it's Hollywood or Vegas."

She suddenly feels him tense up. Zachary lets go of her and she instantly misses his body heat. Eliza watches as he moves closer to the painting, intensely staring at it.

"It's neither," he says softly.

Elizabeth creeps closer to him and snakes her arm around his waist, supposed to be a comforting gesture. But she feels Zach tense up again at her touch and she turns so that she is right in front of him.

Looking into his eyes, she sees a sadness that he had hidden from her for many years, a deep yearning for love that abandonment caused him to have.

"Zachary," Eliza whispers, cupping his cheek with her left hand. "What's wrong?"

He just stands there, not moving, not taking his eyes off the painting.

"Zach?" she pleads. "What is it?"

The man she used to love just shakes his head in disbelief, "Enfer."

Oh, this isn't good, Elizabeth thinks. He's speaking French. Her French is a bit rusty, so it takes a moment for her to recall what he said.

He said hell. "Why?"

Elizabeth never gets an answer because in the distance, she hears a bloodcurdling scream.

This is enough to snap Zachary out of whatever trance he was just in and he looks down at her, putting his mask back on to hide his emotions.

"Jen," they say in unison.

They find themselves running down the grand staircase and rushing through the halls to nearly collide with a near hysterical Jennifer. The poor girl is panting and her face is flushed. Her eyes wildly move back and forth as if she saw a ghost and is expecting it to pop out at her any second.

"What is it? Why did you scream?" Eliza asks, taking Jen's arm.

She points down the hall with a shaky finger, "In the living room." Jen trembles slightly as she leads the two new adults to the scene of the crime.

Eliza doesn't know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't finding a dead body and a moving sack that looks like one of the curtains hanging from the rafts in the closet.