All For You

Twenty-nine

Isla

"We're in." My heels clack against the marble floor as I walk, arm in arm with Harold Kartman, across the banquet hall.

My heart is pumping. I wonder if Kartman can hear it. I wonder if he can tell I'm sweating. I wonder if he can see the doubt in my eyes. I try to step along with my heart's heavy beat, but I can't keep up. I wonder why I feel so nervous.

I glance back at August, his focused frown, and at Warner right beside him. At their well-fitted suits and professional manners. They don't look at me as we walk. They watch everyone around us, searching for threats, searching for Mr. Smith. But I spot him first.

I take him in, from his leather dress-shoes to his greying hair. His desperate attempts to dye it brown don't hide how he's aging. Nobody seemed to know Mr. Smith's age back in nameless, but he can't be younger than fifty.

I get the urge to turn back around. Maybe I would leave. Seeing his laughing face, calm and light, that evilly obnoxious glimmer in his eyes, sends a shock down my spine. What am I doing here? I can't remember. What plan did I think I had? I can't scare Mr. Smith. I've already tried.

I killed his son and left him bare and red on his own bed, and he didn't react. I've run from him. From nameless. I've told him without words that I wasn't done yet. I've spent years surviving against his bladed fists. I've done things to him only dead men have done. And I survived. Which means he failed.

Mr. Smith, a man so cunning, can't be scared. I should know.

"Don't let them win, Isla," Kartman says. I freeze at his side, eyes glued to Mr. Smith's evil, tantalising smirk. "It's your game he's playing now."

The woman Mr. Smith is laughing with taps his arm suggestively, pursing her lips. Mr. Smith tucks hair behind her decorated ear.

He's right. It's my game they're playing now. Mr. Smith doesn't know I'm here. He doesn't know my plans. He's confident in the security of this party, too cocky to realize his enemies are among him. Too sure of himself to see the knife behind his back, held by the men that work alongside him.

Without Mr. Kartman, I wouldn't have made it into this party. How could Mr. Smith possibly know I'm here if he doesn't even know that his own slaves are planning his downfall?

I look to find Mr. Kartmans eyes, tell him it's time, but he's already waltzed off. I watch his retreating back and understand that my games have just begun.

Everyone is a puppet in my play now, and Mr. Smith is my perfect muse.

"See you on the other side," I tell Warner and August without looking back, eyes trained on my target. I'm determined now. Ready to sink my teeth in. With an erratic heart, I wait for the woman by Mr. Smith's side to leave before drawing back the curtains.

I step up onto the stage with my cold, ready gaze. When Mr. Smith turns towards me, expecting the woman he was just seducing, I smile. Not evilly. Not because I'm sure I've scared him out of his wits.

But because my fate is no longer in his hands, and sitting here with him, watching his shock turn to an aggressive scowl, means that I'm finally free from his plans.

I'm not surviving his games anymore. I'm living in my own.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Isla?" He spits, his tone icy cold. It sends a chilling thrill straight to my core. My smile widens and my throat bubbles, like I could almost laugh.

"You haven't changed a bit." I wave the bartender down for a drink I probably shouldn't have. "You're still old."

"I see you have," he tells me, his eyes surveying me from my toes to my head in a judgy manner. No longer am I wearing the red dresses nameless always used to put me in. Tonight I'm wearing a silky deep purple with sparkling divinity and simple jewelery to match. The two slits running up both of my legs narrowly cover the band holding weapons around my thigh.