Mask

MASK 31: PARTY

ATHIRA'S POV.

The hall was alive like a beast with a thousand throats. Laughter clinked against crystal, and the chandeliers threw soft light that made everyone look like polished porcelain. The engagement party smelled of perfume and expensive food; it smelled of people who thought a pretty night could fix everything. It couldn't. Not tonight.

From the corner of the hall, my eyes flicked—unwilling, but instinctive. And there he was.

Cullen Jay.

He didn't smile, didn't wave, didn't even move closer. He just stood there, half-hidden in the shadow of the velvet curtains, a glass of untouched champagne in his hand. His eyes were on me—steady, unreadable, like he was studying the weight of every step I took.

The crowd laughed, clinked glasses, whispered behind jeweled masks. But his silence was louder than all of them. I looked away first. Of course I did. I wasn't about to let him think I cared that he was watching.

Ryan, the MC, worked the crowd like a priest at a show. His voice echoed down the room, warm and practiced. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said with that smooth cheerfulness that hides teeth, "our bride-to-be has something special for her fiancé — a gift. Let's welcome the one and only, Athira Saunders."

The applause rolled like a wave. I heard it and let it wash over me because I wanted them to feel important before I stripped them of that assumption. I walked out under lights that felt bright enough to sterilize secrets. Each click of my heels was deliberate. Each breath measured.

The first song — yes, I picked Sweet but a Psycho. I wanted them to laugh at me first. I wanted them to lower their guard.

I stepped up to the mic with a smile that, if studied, looked slightly unhinged. I tilted my head and let my voice slide into the first line like a blade through velvet.

"Oh, she's sweet but a psycho..."

The room shifted. A couple of eyebrows. A suppressed chuckle. The kind of nervous amusement you give someone who's entertainingly unstable. I danced the part — twirled a little, threw my hair back, batted my eyelashes, flirted with the camera of their attention. My performance was bright, ridiculous, full of faux innocence. I laughed on the chorus, more out of malice than joy, and the crowd clapped politely. They watched, slightly puzzled. They thought it was a cute, edgy thing the heiress did for her fiancé. "How charming," they thought. "How eccentric."

That was the point. I wanted them to think I was a doll with a thin thread for sanity. I wanted their pity, their underestimation. In a room full of predators and liars, I wanted to be mistaken for prey.

When the last glittered note landed, I let the applause grow, louder than I needed. Let them clap for the performance. Let them clap for the lie.

Then I let the mood drop. No more acts. No more games. The first song was an appetizer made to disguise the meal.

I didn't pick up my mother's guitar. Not tonight. That instrument is blood to me now, heavy with all the music she left behind and all the silence that followed the shot. The guitar is a relic on which a promise rests — the promise to break it across the face of the woman who killed her. I have rehearsed that moment in my head so many times that when it comes, there will be no hesitation. Tonight the guitar would be empty. My voice would carry the confession and the verdict.

I breathed in slow. The chords of Sweet but A Psycho started under my ribs, not from strings but from something else — the drum of my heart, a low slow beat that matched the way the room reoriented itself toward me. I let the following line go, and all the theatrics drained out of me like water from a cup.