Of Silk and Death.

Chapter 22

Not even ten minutes had passed since Father and the police left when suddenly, we all heard the worked up breathing of someone coming towards us. A figure appeared around the corner of the gallery, and we all turned our heads to see who it was.

It was Isaac. He looked terrible. His left eye was bruised, and he was bleeding from both his mouth and shoulder.

I cursed under my breath, and Mother covered her mouth to muffle a tiny scream. The only one with no idea what was happening was George, who had fallen asleep in his chair.

The officer who stayed with us rushed to his aid, carrying the poor young man to a chair. He then knelt next to the man and asked him what had happened. Isaac couldn't say much as his mouth was constantly bleeding. The copper then investigated his mouth to see what was wrong with it and exclaimed to the front desk clerk to call a doctor as some of his teeth were missing and he could bleed out.

The front office boy then called on the phone to the closest of our in-house doctors. Meanwhile, my mother offered the officer a cotton handkerchief in her pocket, and the copper pressed it against the mouth of the young man to stop the bleeding.

After sending the message, the front desk clerk hung up.

"He'll be arriving in twenty minutes, sir," the young man said.

I skipped to the police officer and shook him on the shoulder. He turned to me, annoyed, and asked me what I wanted.

"Isaac was supposed to look in case something bad happened. Something has happened, and Father and your team are going right towards it!" I shouted in a panic. "You need to do something!"

The officer pushed me away from him, making me trip and fall on my behind.

"What do you want me to do, kid? It's too late!" He shouted back, "And this man is bleeding. I can't leave him here!"

"Call reinforcements, you boob!" I said, getting up. "It's the least you can do!"

"Sarah, don't call the officer that!" Mother exclaimed, horrified.

The officer looked at me, pressing his lips in frustration, but he then turned and told Isaac to keep the handkerchief pressed against his mouth.

He then stood up and walked to the front office desk.

"Give me the phone, I need to call the station," he said.

He knew I was right. If Isaac, who was upstairs, looked like that, something terrible had happened, and the number of police officers inside the hotel was too small to contain it.

All of a sudden, we heard the soft echo of gunfire.

We all looked around, scared, searching for where the sound came from. It certainly wasn't coming from somewhere on the lobby floor. It would sound louder, and the music of the party still echoed, so it had nothing to do with the ballroom.

We then heard it again, a little bit farther away.

Mother walked around the hallway, trying to capture the direction of the sound. I did the same, all while the officer talked to the station about the incident, including the newly heard gunshots.

A sudden suspicion popped into my head as I approached the gallery. I then walked to the service stairs and realized the door was open, clearly letting sounds come from the floors above. I assumed the fifth-floor door had also been left open, and the sound we heard was coming straight from there.

It was happening.

The woman had dropped her facade, and the police had stumbled face-to-face with the monster behind it.