Page 9 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7

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It will house pieces of her.

There are many properties my father owns, but only one I have enjoyed seeing her inside. A few times, but there was a moment she doesn’t know exists; stolen and snatched like any slivers of melancholic joy are for me.

I watched her with Cosmo inside Hotel No. 7.

She did not move.

She did not speak.

Her arms dangled by her sides.

He did anything he wanted to her.

I pretended so well, to be inside of his skin and feel hers through his fingertips.

I did not kill him either, when it was all over, and that is a job well done.

I need it again.

I need it with her.

And this time, maybe far in the future when I come for her again, when I am no longer content to watch,it will have to be real.

Chapter7

Karia

The room is green. It glows with the color.

“I know what you like,”he whispers against my ear, my head in that woozy space between sleep and wake.

Nothing makes sense.

The color is lit up around me. And the scent of something in the air that is sharp, strong; like apples but…wrong.

“You think I left without knowing? Without watching? You think I didn't see what you let boys do to you in the dark?”

A cold hand splays over my low belly, fingertips pressing lightly against my bare skin.

Bare.

A hand.

That voice.

“Sullen.” I mumble his name as I lie on my back, but my eyelids are so heavy, fluttering weakly to see verdant, lime, poison. So muchgreen.And in between each blink, there are jars and bottles and vases and beakers.

This cannot be my reality.

Because Sullen Rule disappeared two years ago and he has never come back. Even if he did, why would he ever findme?

“You’re the only one who ever spoke to me when we were children. I had to know why, you see.”

My heart pounds loud and strong but I’m not anymore awake than I was.

So many poisons. So many drugs. My eyes fall closed.I do not see, Sullen.

The green burns behind my lids.

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