Page 109 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
“Pick one,” Sullen whispers quietly behind me, and I can feel his gaze still on my body, like fingertips crawling along the back of my neck.
As if compelled to do what he says, I pluck one up at random, my heart thrumming fast in my chest.
I don’t know why the decision feels monumental, but it does. I close my hand around the cold key, noting it’s more rusted than the rest, silver turning into reddish brown along the pin.
And when I unfurl my fingers and see the number, I almost want to throw it back and choose again, but I take a steady breath and keep my decision.
Even if it is room 234.
Chapter40
Karia
Isit gingerly on the edge of the queen bed in 234, listening to the shower running from beyond the closed bathroom door behind me. The air in here is thick with humidity and the scent of cloistered rooms and unread pages of a book.
In fact, on the wall beside the locked entrance door that my skeleton key opened, there’s a small bookshelf sagging with the weight of leatherbound volumes I have yet to open up.
I’m not quite sure I want to know what they say.
In fact, all I really want is to lie back on the cream-colored duvet in this surprisingly large room, close my eyes, and sleep.
It’s a little hard to do though, knowing Sullen is naked only a few feet at my back.
I glance over my shoulder, seeing the glowing yellow light from beneath the crack under the white door, warmth pooling in my low belly. I tear my focus away to the dark curtains collecting dust over the windows adjacent the bathroom, noting slivers of gray-blue sky beyond.
This room has a view of the side of the hotel, revealing only thick forest around the grounds. I already looked, trying to resist the temptation to peek at something else much more appealing. A boy I desperately want but can’t quite have.
Sighing, I run my fingers through the damp ends of my own hair.
Sullen told me to shower first and he stood guard here, barely giving me a cursory glance when I emerged from the bathroom, steam billowing around me, before he went in himself, closing the door sharply behind him.
It doesn’t have a lock on it, though. So there’s that.
I smile to myself and turn toward the ornately carved nightstand beside the mounds of pillows on this springy bed. It’s devoid of anything but a lamp, turned off, and the skeleton key to this room.
How long has it been since someone has stepped foot in here?
Logically, I know it can’t be that long. The tub basin was yellowed, the shower curtain the same, but there was no mold, no bugs. Everything seemed relatively clean, if unused. The power works, and the water too. So someone is caring for this place. Someone has been here.
At the thought, I swear I hear a creak outside, in the hall.
Flinching, I wrap my arms around myself and sit up straighter in the bed, staring at the sliver of space beneath the door, the dim light beyond it.
Little hairs all over my body stand on end. I’m dressed in the only skirt I found in the Attic; black and short, just how I like them, a red, silky bra top, soft against my skin, and white lacy socks, my white Vans pushed off by the door.
And that’s where I keep my focus now, holding my breath, straining my ears.
But I don’t see any shadows or hear anything more beyond the running water behind me.
I shift on the bed, hearing the springs squeak beneath me.
I almost laugh at the sound, but I think that’s just my paranoia causing me to become a little unraveled.
I flick my gaze to the wooden bookcase again, skinny and small, and wonder if I should see if any of these volumes discuss Burbank Gates, or Stein Rule’s plan for this place.
But I hear it again.
Something in the hall.
