Page 35 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
And he’s going to put me there, isn’t he?
He steps forward again, pushing and pulling me along both, the way he’s holding me from behind, hand over my mouth so I can’t scream. Not that it would help, this far underground.
I kick my feet, push back against his shin with one sole, but it doesn’t seem to faze him.
Then there’s a loud thud, and I realize he’s slammed the door closed with his back as he jerks me a step in that direction, pulling me this time while he rests against the door.
I try to open my mouth but my lips only glide along his palm and he bends low, his breath ghosting over the tip of my ear.
“Shh,” he whispers, and I freeze in his arms.
He makes me wait one second. Another.
I wonder if he can hear my heartbeat becauseI can.
Then he slides his palm down my throat, curls his fingers over my neck as he holds me, and I know he can feel my rabid pulse beating through my skin.
I think of the guard on the floor.
I stare at the chair, tears building behind my eyes.
I have never been tortured before.
“Is this what you want?” I gasp out. “To…strap me down here?”
His breath fans the skin between my ear and my shoulder.
My chest is rising and falling painfully fast as he grips me tighter.
Then he only says,“Yes.”
“Why?” It comes out a broken gasp. I remember how he touched my teeth. The way he spoke of extraction. I imagine myself spattered with blood, nothing inside my mouth, all of my molars and canines and incisors scattered on the grimy floor.
Does he want to make me like him?
I’ve seen the fact he’s missing teeth. I can only imagine he lost them so unnaturally.
He is still stunning, though, but I don’t want him to remove my teeth. I don’t want surgery. I just want to talk.
“I just want to understand you.”It sounds jagged and weak and stupid, but I can’t hold it in as he holds me.
“I think we could play a game, to make it happen,” he whispers over the side of my neck.
“What game, Sullen?” I blink away the tears in my eyes as I focus on the rusted metal at the base of the chair. “What do you mean?”
He bows his head then, pressing his temple to my shoulder.
I feel his body tense. It is vibrating, the way he is so rigid.
My breath is loud and shaky. I am gripping his forearm around my waist as I feel my heartbeat in my neck, where he holds me tightly.
“Talk to me,”I beg.“Please.”
He is silent.
It frightens me.
Then, he shoves me away, toward the chair, and I spin to face him, holding my hands up, dizzy with his sudden movements and release.
