Page 53 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
She is lagging now.
Her steps slow.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice weak. “I’m so sorry. You can go. Please do. Leave me here.They won’t hurt me. Don’t stay for me. Please go.”
I don’t stop moving.
I don’t listen to her.
In a fluid motion, I release her hand, crouch down, and pick her up. Her body is warm and weightless in my arms.
She tries to push me away, hand on my chest, but I barely feel it with the sedative meant for me coursing through her system.
I keep running.
My hand comes to her head, pressing her skull down softly, her cheek on my shoulder, her legs wrapped around my body. I hear steps, voices.
I run faster, holding her tightly.
She whispers my name against my ear.“Sullen.”
It’s the motivation I need to keep going.
And when I hear the sound of a bullet explode from a barrel, I don’t stop. I just run faster.
It doesn’t hit me.
Nor her.
Another bullet.
My heart races.
She trembles in my arms. “I can’t stay awake,” she says, her breath soft on my skin. “I’m sorry I can’t stay away.”
I don’t know if she meant to say that, or if she’s simply drifting too quickly to speak what it is she truly means.
“I never would have left you down there, just so you know. I never would have left…you.”
Another gunshot. The sound rips through my eardrums as it echoes in the tunnel.
But the fork is here.
I turn left.
We are protected by walls now, and clearly, they couldn’t see us, the beam of the light wasn’t strong enough to reach between the distance we gained.
I pray they go right.
I pray I never see them again.
I pray I get to hold her for so much longer than this night, even though I know that is the prayer I will never be granted.
Chapter22
Sullen
My back feels heavy; the ache is along my low spine. I don’t know the root cause of that particular pain. It’s not as if Stein often gave me medical checkups for problems he directly or indirectly caused and the doctor we did have only made me… worse. But it feels as if I need to bend low, hands to the floor to relieve some of the stabbing along my lumbar. I can’t, though, because Karia is in my arms, motionless as I hold her to my chest. She’s not aware enough to hold onto me, and so her arms dangle along my back.
