Thanks to enured for giving a recap of Chapter Nineteen that hurts my heart 😅

👏 stuff is going down guys 👏 can't wait to read your reactions to all that is revealed over the next few chapters 😇

The hem of my dress fluttered over the damp, peeling floor, my golden heels landing on crumbs and creaks as I descended my apartment stairs. My fingers—painted a deep red—traced down the banister, and I wondered if anyone would see me. If they did, they might not even recognize Joselyn Preston beneath the glittering mask disguising me against the night.

The parking lot was soaked in rain, and I stifled a shiver as I exited the falling-apart complex. Felix's car was idling nearby. When he saw me, he opened his door and climbed out, his mouth dropping open.

I painted on a red-lipped smile, one that said I didn't care that I was standing in one of the worst suburbs in Oakley.

"Wow," Felix said. My focus shifted to him as I devoured in his well-fitting suit and slicked hair. He opened the door for me.

"Wow, yourself."

"You look... fucking incredible."

I pursed my lips and lowered myself into his car.

"You want to tell me why I'm picking you up from here?" he asked. I could tell by his tone what he thought of it. Like Sebastian, he kept looking over his shoulder, like someone might rob him. He locked the doors as soon as we were both inside.

"Felix," I said, shifting so I was facing him in my seat and taking a deep breath. "I've been lying to you. I don't really live in Candard Heights. There's something I've been—"

He pressed a finger to my lips.

"You don't have to explain everything to me. I get it—"

I brushed his finger from me. "I do, though. You don't understand. I live here."

He was quiet for a moment, looking between me and the complex. Eventually, his hand moved to cup my cheek and he kissed me on the forehead. I wished I wasn't wearing the mask so I could be even closer.

"You don't have to explain anything to me that you don't want to. I trust you."

Fuck, he was making this so hard.

His hand rubbed over my knee in reassurance before moving to pop open the glove compartment, pulling out a black mask, its edges cut sharp like flames. He gave me a wink, slipped it on, and put the car into gear.

I fidgeted with the gold rings layered on my fingers and watched as the suburbs disappeared outside of the window. Penelope was throwing her party at a fancy mansion on the other side of the woods, far inland enough that it'd take almost an hour to get there. Its isolation made me nervous. I didn't know what she'd have planned.

My hopes were that, with masks, maybe I could blend into the background. Maybe, like her relationship with Cole, she'd want to control everything so it went smoothly. In fact, that was likely exactly what she was expecting. To fix things. If she knew Cole was cheating for so long, why didn't she end things?

"You know, I knew you didn't live there," Felix said softly. "Even before I knew the situation with your family and everything... you didn't seem to fit."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I turned down the tunes I'd been blasting to try and distract my racing mind, turning my attention to him.

"You're not like the people who live there," he continued. "I know Penelope lives there, and Cole did too for a while, so that sounds bad, but... It's full of trust-fund babies and cashed-up mistresses. Candard heights is swarming with greedy and corrupt people, but that complex is full of the worst. I suspected that wasn't you, and I was right. I'd noticed you long before you came to steal our seat, remember?"

He'd admitted once that he noticed me at the edge of class before, yeah, but I didn't put two-and-two together that he might have seen through the demeanor I'd put on to do Penelope's bidding. I'd always placed him as suspicious, but maybe for different reasons than I'd thought.

"That sure is a lot of stereotyping," I said. I didn't mean to sound defensive, but I couldn't exactly seem relieved, either.

"You know, I'm usually one to see the best in people. Maybe that's it, that I just believed your heart was too good for that," he said, his eyes creasing. "I still do, for the record."

For a moment I clung to the false hope that maybe he'd understand all this. Even when he did find out the truth.

I noticed the lanterns strung in the trees become more frequent on our approach. Felix's GPS said we were only three minutes away, and what I'd mistaken as random lights were apparently the start of Penelope's decorations.

"Huh," Felix said as the place came into view. It was practically a palace on the top of the pine smothered hill. As we went down the drive I took in the elegance of the front yard, trimmed hedges silhouetted in the dark. A valet.

A suited man took Felix's keys and we stepped up the marble staircase, a bizarre mix of a classical band playing over an electronic beat emanating from inside. Other party-goers were slowly arriving, tulle and silk everywhere I could see. Instead of faces, there were jewels and lace, masks covering the upper half of each.

"Penelope goes overboard, but this is something else."

"This is amazing," I said, letting out a breath. As we entered the house, the lower half transformed into a huge ballroom, my admiration only grew. Felix, with his penchant for interior décor, seemed mesmerized with the chandeliers. A glass of champagne landed in my hand from one of the waiters framing the room.

The back garden led to a hedge maze. A freaking hedge maze. Party-goers giggled, running off with champagne flutes into the fairy-light framed darkness.

"Felix, Josie!"

Poppy's voice came from behind her diamante clad mask, fuchsia lipstick brightening her smile. "We finally recognize someone here!"

"I had no idea Penelope had so many friends," Ella said in a voice low enough for only me to hear as Poppy hugged Felix before coming to me.

It was true, there were so many people here. Most were our age, but some were older. They looked important.

"Come on, I want to do the maze before it gets too cold!"

Poppy and Ella led us outside. I think most people seemed to have the same thought, the backyard a lot more crowded than the slowly arriving guest milling inside. I didn't really like the idea of venturing into a maze in the dark with everyone around me wearing a mask, but I could understand the appeal.

"Let's split up," Poppy suggested. "Me and Ella versus you two."

Felix shrugged, chuckling as Poppy poked out her tongue and disappeared into the leaves. I think I'd recognize him easily even if I didn't already know his mask, from his height and the crazy hair barely tamed within its styling.

"Better hurry," he murmured.

Once we entered the maze, the music disappeared. Our hands linked as we wandered. The hedges were tall, so tall that we couldn't see where we'd come from or where we were going. In fact it, it didn't take long before we couldn't see or hear anyone at all.

"Wait up," Felix said. There was a smirk on his lips. I expected him to tell me something important, but instead he stopped me, his hands grabbing my lower back and pulling me close to him. He kissed me hard.

"I wanted to do that why I had you alone," he said. His voice held so much affection I was temporarily mesmerized.

I wrapped my hand around his neck and kissed him again, moving so close to him that his heat enveloped me. I felt leaves against my back, but ignored the itch as twigs poked me, only wanting to be closer to him. This is what it was always like, the moment Felix captured me like this. I was his from the second his lips touched mine.

"Are you ready?" he murmured against my ear as his hands wandered over my dress, caressing places that he couldn't caress if we weren't completely alone...

"For what?" I asked, my breathing shallow.

"To find me," he said, a flicker of humor in his voice. He kissed my throat, making me yelp in yearning before he let me go.

"You ass!" I yelled after him as he winked and jogged around the corner. By the time I caught up he was out of sight. "Felix!"

I yelled after him again, my breathing quickening from arousal to fear. Did he really just leave me in the maze?

I walked as fast as possible, my heels sinking into the damp grass and my fingertips tracing the leaves as I rounded each corner. In the distance, I could hear people laughing. But I didn't have any idea where I was or which turns to take.

"Felix, this isn't funny!"

I closed my eyes, trying to hear something—anything—that could lead me back to the party. But there was nothing. Taking a deep breath, I told myself that if I just kept walking, I'd have to bump into someone.

I rounded another corner and almost did. Two figures were wrapped in one another—apparently Felix wasn't the only one who thought it was a good opportunity to make out in the bushes. It was a dead-end and I was about to turn around, but after a moment of my eyes adjusting I realized who it was.

Cole's red hair and height tipped me off that it was him. And in front of him, I recognized the black glossy hair as Penelope's. She was wearing a fitting black dress, a golden crescent-moon anklet sparkling beneath a nearby lantern.

I jumped back around the hedge, pressing my back to the leaves. It looked like they'd kissed and made up, I guess. I turned on my heels and headed in the opposite direction, hoping to avoid her for as much of the night as possible.

"Got you!"

I'd barely made it thirty-yards before someone grabbed me around the waist, making me yell in surprise.

"I'm going to kill you!" I said, pushing Felix off me. He was laughing. "That was not funny."

"I'm sorry," he said. He hugged me tightly. "But you were supposed to find me."

"That's what I was doing!"

"Well, I think I won," he said.

"Whatever." I glowered at him. But a smile was breaking through as I admired the smug pull of his lips creasing his cheeks. "It's not like you'll get a prize."

"We'll see," he whispered in my ear, taking my hand. "I found the exit. I think we beat Poppy and Ella."

By the time we returned to the hall, waiters were walking around with finger food. I found a vegetable skewer and stood to the side of the space with Felix as we waited for Poppy and Ella to come back inside.

"I'm sorry," Felix said again. I wasn't giving in. My heart was still racing from his touch, and I was half pondering grabbing his keys back from the valet and disappearing into the woods to make out some more.

"It could have been worse," I said. "In fact, it could have been a real maze. I'm talking Goblet of Fire style deadly maze."

"Maybe it is," Felix said. "That would have been very Penelope-like."

"What would have been very Penelope-like?"

I almost choked on my food.

Penelope was wearing a glittering gold gown that brushed her ankles. Her hair was up in a tight ponytail, showing off huge dangling earrings that brushed her shoulders and a white-crystal mask framing her big brown eyes.

"Just your sociopathic tendencies," Felix said charmingly. He air-kissed Penelope in greeting. "This is Josie. My girlfriend."

I almost choked again at the word girlfriend, but I was too busy trying not to lose it as Penelope leaned forward to air kiss me. "Wonderful to meet you. I have so much in store for you both tonight."

"Wh-what do you mean?" I said.

She laughed elegantly, raising her voice again and gesturing to the maze. "The maze. The dance floor."

A shiver ran down my back. I didn't like her tone.

Her eyes lit up in recognition at the figures behind me. "Cole!"

I watched as Cole and Penelope embraced. Cole wasn't alone, though.

"Of course you guys beat us!" Poppy said. She looked out of breath. "But it's okay, look who we found!"

One hand gestured to her brother, and the other to Jada.

I stared at her with wide eyes, my gaze taking in the tight black dress and sparkling gold anklet, Jada's dark eyes meeting mine carefully behind her lace mask.