Page 48 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
Then a voice I loathe says, “Job well done, Karia Ven.”
Chapter21
Sullen
Stein’s voice is unmistakable. It is quite different from my own: Eloquent, composed, audible. The sound strikes a fire in my nervous system, always. I have lived on high alert my entire life, but for one single, lost moment here with Karia, I was my own version of calm. Even when I grew angry with her. Even when I threw the stool. Those emotions were different from what I feel now as the man who helped create me steps into my sanctuary and my nerves fray again.
There is the sound of footsteps around Stein as my stomach drops and I hold out my hands to my sides to shield Karia. I know what he said to her.Job well done.But I don’t know what he meant, and I think, even if I did, even if she stabbed me so completely in the back, I would still defend her fromhim.
He is an abyss. A darkness you cannot see out of.
And as if to contrast his true nature, a tunnel of light flickers on in the dim room and I squint, staggering back one step and holding up a hand to shield my eyes.
A guard is carrying a flashlight. I know because Constance, Stein’s most loyal, steps to the side so he can pool the light on both myself, and his oh-so-beloved employer. I see Arthur and Rex too, flanking Stein with guns in hand but the barrels are aimed at the floor. Of course Stein cannot kill me yet and I am sure a bullet is not how his subject is meant to go out, for his ascension.
Karia is silent behind me. I desperately wish I could hear her thoughts and I have never wanted such a thing from anyone else before.Do you hate me? Did you betray me? Please don’t do that to me.
Rex, tall and lanky, in his mid-fifties, stares at her with wide eyes and I want to pluck them from his head. In the glow of the flashlight, I can’t see his irises, but I know they are a dull green. He has been inches from my face when Stein ordered him to hold my head while he picked and poked at the dermal piercings along my spine. Another time before, I received those on a Halloween night; Karia has no idea what I endured but I saw her only hours afterward. She was the highlight of my day then. She has always been the only sun for me.
Please don’t rip what is left of my heart out.
Back then, when Stein thought to tug on the piercings he had given to me years earlier, it was Constance who held down the rest of me while Arthur—shorter, broader, blond—manned the front gate to Haunt Muren, on the off chance anyone might hear my screams and come investigate.
No one ever did.
“I see you have found and entertained my wayward son.” Stein sighs, then pushes his hands into the pockets of his tailored black pants. His vivid blue eyes look up at me from beneath heavy black brows, hair of the same color falling artfully over his temple. While he has disgraced and defaced me, he routinely lavishes himself with lengthy grooming appointments in which I am guaranteed an hour or two of solace inside my ugly prison.
He tilts his head as he watches me, slight amusement lifting the edges of his mouth. He is in a white dress shirt, black blazer, dark brogues. Always impeccable in his wardrobe, leaving me to wear the same thing day in and day out in order to keep hidden what he’s done to nearly every inch of my body.
“Well before night fell in B.C., I received word that you left our home, Sully.” He speaks slowly and carefully but with a lightness I know could fool someone good like Karia. She never spent much time around him. It was the only thing about him I didn’t despise. Since he had me to abuse, he didn’t go after her or the others. “I thought leaving Constance with you would be enough to keep you safe, but I’m told you have dug a tunnel far enough out, even the cameras and alarms didn’t catch you?” He glances toward the bright glow of white light, seeking Constance Virgil behind it.
Constance looks similar to Stein. Dark hair, light eyes, fair white skin, lean. Their hands were just as cruel as one another too. I don’t know what Stein did to stitch together loyalty from the three men around him now, but I imagine overtime they simply became frightened of him, too, then morphed themselves into his monstrous shape to keep themselves safe. They have been in my life as long as I can recall.
“Is this true, Sully?” Stein’s gaze flicks neatly back to mine, the glow of light refracting off his right eye, casting the hollows of his face in deep shadow.
Yes.When I wasn’t half-dazed from your poison, I spent the last two years trying to dig my way back toher.
It was the letters. They gave me a strangled hope I should never have entertained. But the tunnel—leading off an underground doomsday shelter Stein created himself but never visited in the many acres around the back of Haunt Muren—led just far enough out that I could slip free from it and run to the heart of the nearest town after his flight to Vancouver with Arthur and Rex, leaving me only Constance to evade.
But I don’t answer him. There is no point.
I see his eyes flash with my silence, but he continues on so smoothly, putting on a show for Karia. If he and I were alone, I would pay for my quiet.
“When I touched down at the airport here, Mads told me he found you. Or rather, a glimpse of you on the hotel cameras. Of course, I knew where you would go, and the guard you strangled left a breadcrumb.” He smiles coldly. “Did it feel good, having the upper hand for once?”
My breath catches. It is as close as he will come to admitting what he has done to me. My heart thunders hard in my chest as I think of his question. Itdidfeel good, but not the violence for violence’s sake. For… protecting Karia. Hurting someone for her. But I press my lips together. I would never tell him that. It would give him too much incentive to torture her, and even the thought of it makes me feel sick. Right now, it is my worst fear.
He lifts his gaze to the exposed ceiling with my silence and sighs. “All those times you took lumpy, oversized backpacks here, making horrible clanking sounds, you didn’t think I knew what you were doing?”
My stomach twists into knots.No. I didn’t.My lab at the house, it was in my mother’s wing. I never knew he discovered it let alone had any idea what I was up tohere,recreating my safe place. Why didn’t he ever ruin it? It doesn’t make sense to me;thisis more shocking than the possibility Karia has betrayed me. I know whatever his reasons, they were not born of compassion.
“And I used to usethischair for suspected hostiles, torturing them in the name of Writhe.” He smiles coldly, then glances past me to Karia, and I stiffen, slowly lowering my hands by my side again. “I’m so sorry he tried to do the same to you, Karia.”
My breath feels tangled in my lungs, like I can’t exhale properly. I don’t know why, what I’m waiting for from her. Logically, it’s best if she says nothing. But her absolute silence is so unnerving, I want to turn to check on her. I’m afraid perhaps Stein will order one of his men to shoot her in the head, force me to watch only the second woman I’ve ever loved die right in front of me.
He looks at me again and there is an expression of sadism on his face. Lifted brows, raised cheekbones from a twisted smile, his hands still in his pockets. I’ve seen this look many times. It usually meant something awful was going to happen to me.
I find my body grows rigid as I brace for the blow.
