You're Invited(100)

“I’m. Not. Pathetic.” I gasped, heaving him off me. “I am strong. I am brave. And I’m fed up with your bullshit.”

Kaavi was pulling me to my feet but I barely noticed. I aimed a kick at Spencer’s body. It hardly did a thing, but it finally felt like a release. The monster was dead. The monster was dead because I killed it.

I felt a tear slide down my cheek as Kaavi took the gun from my hands and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, holding me close, so close that I could hear her heart pounding.

“You’re okay,” she kept saying, over and over. “You’re okay.”

She moved the dead man she called Mr. Ananda and then she adjusted Spencer’s body as well. I was dizzy. Reeling. About to pass out.

“You’re okay,” she said again, and she held my hand as we made our way down the beach.

The sun was starting to set. I could see people, in the distance, making their way over to us. They’d probably heard the gunshot and figured out where it came from. Mr. Fonseka led the pack of them, followed by Tehani, and the wedding guests and hotel security. They were coming. Everyone was coming. I was about to be caught and put in prison and I didn’t even care. My monster was finally dead. Nothing else mattered.

But Kaavi kept dragging me forward, and just before the crowd got close she leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Just let me handle this, okay? Everything will be all right.”

As soon as everyone caught up to us she collapsed on her knees.

“I’m fine,” she called out, tears gushing down her face. “I’m fine. I’m okay. I was attacked, but Amaya saved me. Amaya saved me.”





34


AMAYA


The Day of the Wedding


KAAVI SAT, WRAPPED in a blanket on her parents’ bed at their suite in the new wing of the hotel. I was on a chair, to her right. Eshanya Padmaraj sat in front of both of us, though she looked uncomfortable as the rest of Kaavi’s family hovered around her, protective and upset.

“Please tell us everything from the start, Kaavi.”

“Okay, yes.” She was speaking in her Instagram voice again. Modulated, low, and alluring. Inviting everyone into her. Pulling us in.

“So, last night was a little, um, shall we say emotional, for me. I was just getting ready to marry Spencer, and while I do love him, it had just struck me that I was about to marry a man that I hardly knew anything about.” Her eyes sought out mine. I knew what she wanted. I stayed quiet.

“I called Amaya. I asked her to come to my room. Just to talk, you know.”

“I thought you and Miss Bloom were no longer friends?” Miss Padmaraj’s interruption brought sighs of annoyance from the rest of the room, but Kaavi gave her a small, tired smile.

“We’ve been friends since we were children, Aunty Eshanya. Yes, we did have a small falling-out, but we spoke about it and have since made up.”

“I see.” Something about Miss Padmaraj’s tone was off, but that didn’t stop Kaavi from going on.

“So, Amaya and I spoke—we had a lot of catching up to do—and then she left. I was feeling much better, of course, but I did still have a tingle of nerves. I thought it would be nice to go for a walk.”

She held up her hands as she heard her mother’s gasp. Her daughter going for a walk alone after sunset was every mother’s worst nightmare.

“I know, Amma. I know. I’m sorry. Oh gosh, you can’t believe how sorry I am. I just thought, you know, this is a five-star hotel, with so much security. And we’d booked out the entire place, right? So I didn’t think it was such a big deal.”

“You went for a walk, and then?” Miss Padmaraj asked, trying to bring the conversation back on track.

“That’s when, I guess that’s when Mr. Ananda grabbed me. He clamped something down on my mouth and put something, it was a hood or a pillowcase maybe, over my head so I couldn’t see. But I knew I hadn’t been dragged out too far. I knew I was still on the beach.

“He locked me up in this dirty little shack—I think it might have been one of the old bathrooms or changing rooms or something that the hotel doesn’t use anymore. And then he left me there. I—I don’t know why. I thought maybe he was speaking to one of you—” She looked over at her father, who shook his head. “I don’t know. He’d been after me for money, you see. I think he’d become quite unhinged after his wife’s death. Blamed it on me for some reason. He showed up at the Poruwa also, you know, but security had escorted him out. And once before as well, at the cocktail party we threw at our house. So he definitely had a lot of issues.”

“And what happened next?”

“Well, I was there for lord knows how long, until Mr. Ananda showed up again. He looked even more deranged than before. He said—” Kaavi’s voice broke a little. “He said he was going to make me realize what it was like to lose someone I loved. Just like I’d done to him. He made me call Spencer and tell him where to come. He wanted me to tell him that he would kill me if Spencer alerted anyone. I didn’t want to, you know—I wanted to keep Spencer safe, but—”

Miss Padmaraj nodded.

“That was probably why he overpowered the guards and left his room.”

“When Spencer got there, Mr. Ananda, he—” Kaavi burst into sobs then, her whole body heaving.