Page 3 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
But he couldn’t be mine.
And he’s…nice to me.
Kind.
Something may be broken inside my brain, but it makes me want him less. Being ignored by Sullen piqued my interest more. It still does, two years after he left.
“I think you want to explore,” Cosmo says against my ear, then drops his mouth lower, his lips brushing my neck, exposed from the messy bun I threw my light blonde hair up in, strands still wet because I showered before I rode here with Isadora and Von in Isa’s Jeep.
They gave me lingering looks as they left me on the outside. I could have demanded a seat at the table with my friends; my dad might give in. But I don’t want one.
I just want…
“I think you want to find what it is you really desire,” Cosmo speaks against my throat and goosebumps pebble over my arms, across my chest, down my exposed thighs.
His hands follow the path, fingertips gliding down my body before he pauses, picking at a loose thread from my ripped black denim skirt.
I let my eyes flutter closed as Cosmo plays with me. He is familiar. I could sink into him like it’s nothing; lethimsink intomeas I have so many times in the past few months since letting Von go completely when he started dating Isadora. It would be easy, comforting,hot.
“Let’s go to Septem and get a drink.” He bands his arms around me then, pulling me back against his chest and hugging me from behind. “We’re not spending an October Friday standing outside of rooms filled with people who don’t want us inside of them.”
Chapter3
Sullen
Isee her descend the curving staircase with him, his hand on the small of her back, palm pressed to her exposed spine.
They were far too easy to find, even if leaving Haunt Muren was physically laborious.
Writhe needs more discretion, but I suppose they don't count on my unique type of tenacity. And Iammy father's son.
Inside my head, I imagine breaking the bones of Cosmo's fingers, snapping each one beneath his skin and leaving gaping space as they dangle uselessly from his metacarpals.
But despite the violence in my brain,sheis smiling, cheeks lifting upward, her thin, petite nose in the air as white teeth flash and she reaches for a stray lock of blonde hair, paler than the rest, and tucks it behind her round ear. Leggy and lean and tan, she is probably everything Cosmo wants beneath him, and I know she’s been in that exact position many times. I see things, even when I am not around. Haunt Muren is far, but there are grotesque ways for me to be near.
Cosmo hovers behind her like a protector, gray T-shirt over charcoal pants, his eyes lowering to her every few seconds as they head down the stairs together, soon to enter into Hotel No. 7’s foyer.
The building is closed for “maintenance,” so there are no bellhops or cleaning staff; no one mans Septem, the bar in the basement where these two plan to grab a drink together.
I know because I heard them.
She might have always looked for me when we were younger, when Ritual Drive was still home, but she wasn’t the only one looking. She just rarely saw.
Even now, as I stand still and quiet and tucked away in the shadows of a silver gilded hall off the lobby, I am invisible to her while I stare. My hands are in the pockets of my black jeans, hoodie pushed over my head to cover the deep brown wavy strands, and aside from the necklace in silver tucked beneath my T-shirt, everything I’m wearing is the deepest shade of black.
They won’t see me here because they aren’t looking for me.
And as they reach the landing, then head further into the hotel to the out-of-the-way stairwell which will deposit them at Septem, neither flits their gaze to the shadows. Cosmo doesn’t see the way my body stiffens as he slides his hand down her back and over the petite curve of her ass, palming her softly.
But even if he did look, he would have no idea of what’s inside the purple vial pendant of my necklace. He couldn’t know that the stopper forms an edge like a knife, so easy to prick a vein to place the poison that Stein Rule has used on me many times before.
A smile curves my lips, and it feels unusual.
I don’t think I’ve performed the expression in years.
But tonight I’m back in Alexandria and I don’t intend to waste another second staying away from the girl who has begged me in letters to come back to her. To the ghost of a connection we once had.
Will she like it when she sees me in person?
