Page 44 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
“And now?” she asks, her pupils wide and latched onto mine. “Now that he’s around you, does he…try to kill you?” Her chin trembles; I feel it against my fingers.
I want to reassure her, and I do not know why.
I dip my head, running my mouth over hers, then abruptly, I pull back, putting inches between us.
She pities me. She doesn’t want tokissme.
I clear my throat, like I am dusting it of cobwebs. Still, my voice comes out shamefully coarse. “I believe this trip he is on now is supposed to give him answers to the date of my death. He is visiting a prognosticator. But in the past few months, he has slowly begun to sedate me longer, poisoning my food. Sometimes entire days will slip away.”And I grasp onto your letters inside my head. I live in the dream you create with those words.“Not quite attempts on my life, though. Jarring anyway because I was without him for a year and a half.”
“Why did you not run then?” she asks quickly, the question tumbling out of her. “Why did you stay there, waiting for him?” There is an accusation in her words. It cuts to my core.
I slide my hands down her face, to her throat, feeling the strap there. Then lower still, until I have her breasts cupped in my hands, my thumbs gliding over her flesh.
The buckles clank softly as she jerks forward, but she cannot go anywhere. She cannot do anything to stop me.
“I tried a few times to run, but Stein sent his most loyal guards with me to Haunt Muren. After a while, the pain I endured with each failed attempt wasn’t worth trying again. Does this sound real to you?” I flick my eyes to hers, squeezing her softly. “While you were getting fucked by Cosmo, I was being beat by Stein? Strange, isn’t it?”
“You can touch me however you want,” she says, her voice a low hiss. “But you’re going to answer everything I ask of you.”
I smile at that. “Oh, am I?” I brush my thumbs over her hard nipples, then flick them once and I’m rewarded as the buckles clatter again when her body jolts. “What if I don’t, hmm? What will you do then, Karia?”
“When did it start?” she asks, ignoring me. It is remarkable how she compartmentalizes. I have done the very same. “Your—Stein’s beliefs?”
I want to torture her with silence, but again, it as if, despite the fact she is strapped down, I am tied up for her. Maybe all of these things I have been dying to vomit up for years, and she is who, in my subconscious, I wanted to tell.
“Always, but it grew worse shortly before my mother died.” I swallow hard and splay my fingers over her chest, feeling her pulse beat fast. “He was forever meeting with fanatics; partly because of his job and partly because…conspiracies were his hobby. He has a ruthless fascination with serial killers. Then it became something more. A religion, discovered by so few, he believed. He really thinks I amlucky,being his son. That when I die—and hewillkill me—I will earn a special place in heaven for the fact he is my god.”
“He’s not going to kill you.” The words sound fierce.
I cannot listen to nonsense.
I drop my hands from her and step back, reaching for the stool. I grasp the plush leather seat and pull it closer, sinking down onto it once more and closing my eyes for a moment as I bow my head.
I think of seeing Cosmo touch her.
Von, too.
The way she would tilt her head back and moan their names.
How I pretended it was mine; from my hiding place, or later, at Haunt Muren, from video Stein has set up all over the houses in Ritual Drive. Sometimes I think he did that to torture me, knowing I would sneak into his surveillance room and watch her tits bounce, her legs spread, Von or Cosmo driving forcefully into her as her head lolled.
I snap open my eyes and reach for her thigh again, and despite the shakiness in my fingers, I force myself to keep my touch light.
I tap the inside of her leg. “Let’s try this once more. You said I can touch you how I want. I’ll keep answering your questions, but spread these for me, Karia.”
She doesn’t move.
I lift my gaze to hers.
She is staring back, her eyes shiny with something that could be tears. “Sullen.” My name is a rasp from her lips.
A lump forms in my throat. I feel hot and itchy, but I only press my fingertips deeper into the meat of her thigh. “Spread them.”
She half-shakes her head, I can sense the movement in the dark. “I’m so sorry you—”
I grab her then, forcefully as her body jolts, flinching at my touch. “Never mind,” I say quietly. “You’re right. That was a stupid command. I can get better access to your cunt a different way. Bend your knees instead, then let them fall to the side.”
She swallows; it is audible in the quiet room, the way the buckle from the band over her throat clangs softly. I imagine what she would look like wearing my necklace. I’ve seen her in dainty jewelry before, but it would be nice to put a scalpel around her neck. If only I hadn’t used the poison there all on stupid, silly Cosmo. If only it were enough to have killed him.
