Unlovable (18 page)

Seth set the food down on our table
and slipped off his fleece, exposing a long-sleeved green shirt
with a white tee shirt underneath. Never saying a word, he draped
the hoodie around me. I tried to give it back, only he assured me
he wasn’t the least bit cold. I slipped in my arms and zipped it up
tight. It smelled just like him, definitely a good
thing!

“
She gets your coat too?”
Hillary looked at him indignantly.

“
Are you cold?” He asked,
his tone, blunt. She picked up her hamburger and took a small bite
without answering.

When I finished, Seth offered to buy
me another piece. I politely refused, though I was tempted to
accept it and take it home for my mom.

Zack had parked himself next to
Hillary, and judging from the expression on his face, felt the
timing was right to make his move. We sat quietly as Hillary and
Zack giggled and picked at their food. My hand went mindlessly to
my hair, and I began twisting a strand.

“
Will you stop doing that,
Maggot?” Zack said, sneering over at me.

Setting his Diet Pepsi can down hard,
Seth cleared his throat. “Her name is Maggie.” Zack shrugged his
shoulders and went back to drooling over Hillary.

“
Which car was your
favorite?” I decided to try small talk to ease the
tension.

“
They didn’t have my
favorite car. I’m an SLR Roadster fan,” Seth said after swallowing
the last of his hot dog.

“
A what?”

“
An SLR McLaren Roadster.
It’s an incredible car.” He practically cooed the words.

“
Have you ever seen one in
person before?” The talk of cars pulled Zack away from his prize,
and she was none too happy about it.

“
I’ve driven one.” The smile
on Seth’s face made me laugh. How could anyone be that excited over
a hunk of metal?

Hillary started fidgeting as the guys
droned on about cars, not that I blamed her, I certainly hadn’t
meant to ignite the whole car-lust thing again. She slipped her arm
around Zack’s shoulders and began toying with his hair. “Let’s go
over to the Funhouse,” she purred in his ear. She got up and tossed
her barely touched hamburger in the trash. I couldn’t believe she
would waste all her food, and my thoughts returned to my poor
mother at home eating nothing more than a dry cheese sandwich
tonight. She and Zack walked off toward the building with the clown
banner.

“
Do you want me to take you
home?” Seth ran his hand over my hair. It felt nice, really nice.
Too nice. “I somehow have the feeling they wouldn’t notice if we
left.”

“
I’ve never been inside a
Funhouse before, and since we’re already here we may as well have
some
fun
.” I
tucked the stuffed fish under my arm, and we walked toward the
funhouse. Once inside, Seth took my hand to help lead me through
the crowd.

“
Seth, here’s your fleece
back. Thanks for letting me borrow it.” I noticed a tight
expression on his face when I handed it to him.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
I’m not sure. All evening
I’ve had this strange feeling we’re being watched.” He reeled
around, searching the crowd.

“
There are a lot of people
here, I’m sure someone is looking at us.” Well, looking at him
anyway.

“
True. My mistake.” He
smiled, putting his hand on the small of my back and aiming us
toward the Mirror Maze.

“
Are you sure you don’t want
to wear this?” Seth asked, holding out the fleece. “You look pretty
in blue.” Seth winked at me and a shiver plummeted down my
spine.

“
That’s dangerously close to
a flirt.” I said, my voice a little wobbly.

He held up his hands, silently
proclaiming his innocence with a shake of his head. Then, without
warning, he grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him as if to
protect me from something.

“
I’m starting to feel a
little paranoid,” I said, looking around to see if there was
anything abnormal going on around us.

“
Sorry.” He laughed. “Guess
I had one too many Diet Pepsi’s today. The caffeine’s gotten me a
little jittery. Come on.”

If this were him a little jittery, I’d
hate to see what he’d be like if he were to ever drink a cup of
coffee. He’d probably have a nervous breakdown.

There was a metal pole with a green
flag to mark the entrance to the Mirror Maze, along with a worker
dressed like the grim reaper. Zack and Hillary entered before
us.

“
You’ll know when… if…
you’ve found the right exit,” the reaper explained in a macabre
voice, “there’ll be a pole just like this one, except the flag will
be red. If you become confused and can’t find your way out, don’t
worry, I’ll find you… eventually. You can’t hide from me.” He
laughed diabolically.

The mirrors were deceptive. More than
once I ran into one or missed openings I thought were mirrors. I
had new sympathy for all those poor mice running through mazes in
search of cheese. Seth had little trouble maneuvering the mirrors,
though he did run into one when he was looking back over his
shoulder.

Before long, the overhead lights began
flickering and an announcement came over the speakers. “The Winter
Festival will be closing in ten minutes. Please exit the park in an
orderly fashion, and thank you for coming to this year’s
festival.”

Somehow, I turned and Seth didn’t. I
couldn’t see him anywhere. A sense of foreboding clutched at me and
panic took control.

“
Don’t be ridiculous, you’re
not a child.” After chastising myself for acting stupidly, I took
several more turns, becoming even more tangled up in the maze. To
make matters worse, no one else was around, and the bizarre silence
felt eerie.

I came around another corner and
stopped dead. The man from the park stood directly in front of me,
this time with a purple disk in his right earlobe. He also wasn’t
alone. Standing next to him stood a slightly smaller, yet
nonetheless menacing, man. They were dressed almost identical in
black polyester pants and shirts, only the smaller one wore white
sneakers instead of black ankle boots. Their heavily blood-shot
eyes lit up, and they each flashed a sickening smile across their
face at the exact same moment. My thoughts flashed to Tammy Byrne,
and my knees went soft. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t run. The
larger of the two stepped toward me and ran into a
mirror.

They
weren’t
in front of me, it was only
an illusion of the mirrors! I found my strength and took off
running. “Seth!”

“
Maggie, Where are you? Is
everything okay?” His voice sounded desperate.

I stopped and looked around. “The
creep from the park is in the maze, and he brought a friend.
Please, help me.” I saw someone out of the corner of my eye and
spun around. It was them, except this time no glass stood between
us. I screamed and took off. I looked back over my shoulder and
could still see them only a few feet behind. I darted around a
couple more corners and ran into Seth, collapsing into his
arms.

“
Are you
alright?”

“
Yes. Let’s get out of here,
hurry!”

“
Wrap your arms around my
waist and hold on tight,” he said. I slid my arms under his jacket
and around his waist, holding on so tight I feared cutting off his
air supply. The rapid rise and fall of his chest drummed against my
cheek as we practically flew through the maze to the
exit.

“
How did you get through so
easily?” I said, flustered.

“
A little trick I picked up
years ago. Don’t look at the mirrors, look at the ground. It’s real
easy to find the openings that way,” he said simply.

“
You couldn’t share that
with me when we went in?”

He bent down and started pulling up
the pant leg of his jeans, then stopped and walked over to the
exit, ripping the metal pole with the red flag out of its stand.
“Wait here.” With that, he headed back into the maze.

“
Seth, NO!” But it was too
late, he was gone. I paced back and forth calling out his name. He
didn’t answer. It felt as if hours had passed, when in reality it
was probably only seconds.

Then I heard it. Several loud crashing
sounds. The mirrors were being destroyed.

“
Seth!” He reappeared with
his cell phone and several small cuts on his hands.

“
Are you
alright?”

“
I’m fine. They got away.”
He actually looked disappointed. Oh, yeah, way too much caffeine
today. “I called the police, they’ll be here soon,” he added,
placing his phone back in his pocket.

“
You’re bleeding.” I took
his hands in mine and wiped the small droplets of blood from off
his knuckles with my fingers.

“
Superficial wounds, that’s
all. I don’t even need a bandage,” he said, brushing off my near
hysterical tone.

“
Maggie.” Seth cupped my
face in his hands. “I’m fine. You, however, look as if you’re about
to faint.” He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs, as his eyes
scanned my face.

I wanted to kiss him. The thought hit
me with undeniable force. Why was I thinking about kissing him at a
time like this? I needed serious help.

“
Maggie?”

“
I’m fine,” I said, snapping
myself back into reality. I glanced over his shoulder and saw the
two men dart out a side door. “There they are,” I pointed, “leaving
through that door!” He turned to follow them.

“
NO! Please don’t leave
me.”

His jaw tightened as he
reluctantly turned back and led me over to a bench to sit down.
Zack and Hillary were standing off to the side. She was flirting
with a muscular-looking college boy with the words
University at Buffalo
tattooed across his left bicep just below the sleeve of his
blue tee shirt
.
Zack’s eyes narrowed as she gave the guy a flirty grin. Man,
the girl was a piece of work.

“
How many mirrors did you
break?” There were people running toward the debris as I sat down
on a bench.

“
Let’s just say they won’t
be using the House of Mirrors anytime soon,” he said with a
sheepish grin. He paced back and forth, never wandering far from my
side. Twenty minutes later, Captain Gatto arrived, along with a
young female cop.

Seth greeted Captain Gatto warmly,
shaking his hand. “How are you doing?”

“
Good thanks. This is
Officer Whelks.” They nodded to each other. “Can you tell us
precisely what went on here?” Seth explained what happened, though
he was somewhat sketchy about how many mirrors he’d broken. When
Officer Whelks pressed for more details, Captain Gatto cut her
off.

“
How many mirrors he broke
is beside the point, Officer Whelks.” Captain Gatto turned his
attention to me. “Are you sure he was the same guy from the park?”
I nodded. “It’s a good thing you had your boyfriend with you. I’d
hate to think what might have happened if you were here
alone.”

I started to deny that Seth was my
boyfriend, but decided it wasn’t important in light of everything
else.

“
There was another murder
day before last over by the park. Of course, this one was drug
related,” Officer Whelks said. “You weren’t trying to buy drugs,
were you? If I’m not mistaken, this is the second time you’ve had a
run in with these guys.” Her eyes fastened on me.

“
I don’t do drugs.” I
couldn’t believe she was trying to turn this around onto
me.

“
Maggie wasn’t trying to buy
drugs. We were walking through the Mirror Maze and got separated
when those two guys appeared,” Seth snapped at her.

“
Whelks, why don’t you talk
to some of the witnesses, I’ll finish up with these two,” said
Captain Gatto. She nodded and left. I watched her walk over toward
Hillary who was still flirting up a storm with the UB college
boy.

“
Sorry, sweetheart, she’s a
rookie, she gets a little excited. No harm intended.”

He asked us a few more questions
before leading Seth away to the broken mirrors. When they’d
finished, Seth came back over to me.

“
We should try and find Zack
and Hillary,” I said. They were no longer in the Funhouse, and
Officer Whelks was now flirting with the
UB
boy.

“
Let’s look outside. Do you
feel alright?”

“
Yes, I’m fine.” He held my
arm as we walked outside. I started to suggest we split up and look
for them, but he shot the idea down before I finished my
sentence.

“
No, we stay together.” He
put his hand gently on the small of my back, and I shivered. I
seriously needed to get my reactions to him in control. He took off
his fleece and slipped it around me once again.

“
No, I’m fine.” He frowned,
daring me with his eyes to remove it. I quietly zipped it up. We
walked through several buildings with no luck, eventually
discovering them next to a small building near the entrance with
their lips glued to each other and their hands all over the
place.