Page 22 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I push all of that away from the forefront of my mind and close the heavy, deep blue curtains to the patio overlooking Alexandria, blotting out most of the night. There is a light on though, inset panels in the flooring I have not yet switched off. I know more than most how easy it is for monsters to lurk in the dark, and I do not wish to be caught just yet.
It’s why I had to leave Karia in the bathroom of Septem. The meeting was adjourned—a simple matter of leaving one of Stein’s listening devices in the ballroom helped me glean this information—and I knew they would be up in arms about the princess of Writhe going missing. It would add an urgency to their search that could get me or her injured.
As it is, I know even though she is found, they are now looking for me.
I have to be back tonight to Haunt Muren—twenty or so hours from now; it is three minutes past midnight—and that leaves me little time to hideandfind her. As it is, Stein will know I am here. Mads Bentzen never discovered everything I endured, but I’m not sure even if he did he would give me any leniency whatsoever. He will report to Stein just as he got his name tattooed over his chest for their bizarre initiations and disgusting proof of loyalty.
If only I were able to disfigure myself with a needle and ink to please Stein. He never gave me that courtesy.
As rain blows harder against the glass outside, I walk to the king bed and sink down onto the golden duvet, a commonality of the penthouse suites; so different from the one I watched Cosmo feast upon Karia on.
My mind flickers to her in my makeshift lab; the place I built in secret after the Night of Lies I was forbidden to attend.
I paid for that moment of sneaking out and watching as I did for all the times I was caught staring at her and dreaming when I shouldn’t have.
Blood in my mouth, iron along the back of my throat, it was another day I thought I might die from a bleed in my brain due to Stein’s vicious kicks.
It was worth it, at the time.
Carefully, with her inside my head, I push back my hood. The cool air of the hotel suite grazes the back of my neck. It feels good, being momentarily free. I am so rarely without layers and layers of clothes.
I touched her, at first, with bare hands.
But if she saw the few missing nails on my fingers, the ones that won’t grow back, she would hate me more.
I think of her in my mouth, sucking her pink, tight nipple and flicking my tongue against it. She was so firm and perfect and beautiful and perhaps I crossed a line, but it was really less bad than what I’ve seen Cosmo do to her when she is drunk and her defenses are down. It’s what she likes, I think.
Maybe it’s what everyone enjoys. I don’t know.
Thunder rolls across the sky as I take off the black leather gloves with green stitching that have all but molded to my hands.
I don’t look at my fingers; the lumps in them from bones that did not heal well. I am lucky they are all fully functional; that the worst thing is the deadened nail beds. Regardless, I still don’t like to see the reminders of how I am jarringly different from the other children of Writhe.
But when lightning flashes blue-white through the drapes, I snap my head up on reflex—my body has not learned how to get off this high alert system I was born with—and see my reflection in the glittering-golden framed mirror hanging larger than I am on the wall, directly across from the bed.
It is a bad omen; having a mirror reflecting a bed this way—I read about it once, in a Writhe pamphlet—but it is a worse one when I have to stare at myself now, on accident.
My hair is deep ash brown, cut short and haphazard, another way Stein disgraces me. My eyes are dark, too, and the lines and shadows beneath them sink into hollow skin from growing up with poor nutrition and an extreme lack of sunlight. To this day, the only sun I can tolerate isher.
Sharpened bones along my face, stubble on my jaw—Stein will ensure this is gone as soon as he returns—and a nose which converges on a point. It is a sickening sort of torture, seeing the ways Stein never messed with my face, aside from my teeth. The other types of pamphlets he kept locked away in his study always discussed the importance of leaving the visible intact.
Principles of Poetic Séancewas his favorite series of brochures, created in the 1800s by a mad scientist named Burbank Gates who believed taking a human life—more accurately; convoluting it in such a way it was barely human at all—led to immortality and god-like transcendence.
It became a game we played, Stein and I.
He wouldn’t harm me if I did everything right, but I never knew what waswrong.I learned from the punishment. I think he thought himself merciful for that.
As thunder growls low outside, I can’t help but smile at my reflection in the mirror and let my skin crawl as I study my missing teeth. One front top one, a few from the bottom as well. I am missing two molars and my canines have been filed into sharp points.
Sweat beads along the back of my neck and fury pounds throughout my body as I indulge in a little more self-loathing. Cosmo de Actis has all of his teeth. So does Von Bentzen. The two men she has fucked.
And what am I, compared to them?
As I grow hotter still, I wrap my arms around myself and yank off my hoodie, pulling up my high-collared shirt with it, cold air waltzing upon my spine and the burns and lacerations over my back as my necklace sways along my chest.
The fabric tugs on one of the embedded piercings up my spinal column that I didn’t want, near the middle of my back. I grind what’s left of my teeth as I yank harder, pulling off the top half of my clothes. I throw the shirt and hoodie both upon the marble flooring and lift my head, my hands curled into fists as I stare at my reflection, bare chest heaving. Only it’s not quite bare, but I cannot stand to read the words there, carved with an ecstatic sort of hate.
There are various objects sewn under my skin, including mangled scar tissue Stein simply covered with a patch of flesh from my thigh, right at the top of my throat. He pushed thePrinciplesto their limit in that.
