Masks, that was one thing Zoe never liked.
She held her breath hiding under the bed, her hand clasped over her mouth as if to catch and silence any possible noise she could be making, as the door in front of her opened.
A figure stood in the doorway, a well-dressed man with blonde hair and a mask. A mask that looked like a face, a human face plastered with a permanent smile. He had a crest on his suit, but she couldn't quite make out what it was.
Her eyes grew wider as he crossed towards the bed, hands poised on the gun, until he was standing directly beside her. One look down and she was toast.
To her relief, there was laughing down the hallway as the man lowered his gun, taking one last scan around the room before exiting, shutting the door behind him.
It was only then that it hit her; she had seen his face, so he must have seen her's too.
So why did he take everyone else, try to kill her family and that stranger too, but not her?
Because she was one of them. He saw it in her eyes that she wasn't scared of death, scared of a little purging. She wasn't like the other people in her family, no matter how much she hated to admit it. She had watched her boyfriend die, not feeling anything at all as she went through the motions of a caring, devoted girlfriend. Zoe watched her father die that night too, which sent a flinch of pain through her chest, but only a small one. She watched as she and her whole family were lined up and encircled by people they trusted, people she grew up with. And for the first time that night, she was actually glad to see another living person-the stranger her little brother had let in.
After it was all over, the cops had come by and sent the Spanish maids to see to the floor, led the paramedics to the bodies strewn across the house, Zoe went to her room and waited for a sleep that wouldn't come.
Sitting up in bed, she found her problem: she didn't feel safe.
Deciding to take a once-over of the house (just one more time wouldn't hurt, right?), it was in the front foyer that she stepped on something, something the police missed.
The mask of a man, a polite, well-dressed man. A man she had killed no more than twenty-four hours earlier.
Zoe always hated masks, the kind facade that people wear every day now, to hide the ugly things they'll do on the night of Purge.
Tonight, though, it was she who put on the mask, who played the role of the polite stranger, the well-dressed murderer.
When she walked up to the house, though, they had their security system on. It made Zoe laugh, that these people who were so ready to kill her family were still continuing to use the protection her father built on the night of Purge.
That was okay though, home team advantage huh? She knew the system, how it worked and where it's weaknesses were. Besides, she had waited a whole year for her revenge, she could wait a little while longer.
"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Ferrin, i'd like to make a proposition with you."
Oh yes, revenge would be very, very sweet indeed, because she was one of them all along.