Page 62 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
But I am not part of thiswe.
I never was, even though it’s been years since Stein has summoned his followers for this. But I know what he wants now. Mass energy to pray over him, whispered words to ascend him to immortality. He doesn’t take blood from his members; he doesn’t even take it from me. It’s only a side effect. He simply steals loyalty and bites off lives. And as for what he does to my body? Desecrating me is key to his ascension.
My death will mark the end. My corpse isn’t even necessary, he told me once. There is nothing needed the moment I take my last breath. The end of my life is sacrifice enough.
He seemed to relish those words to me, about how useless I really am.
“Sullen?”
I look up as lightning cracks across the sky, sharply visible in the glass atrium, trees spiraling to dizzying heights above my head. And as I watch the rain beat down on the peaked, transparent roof, I think I imagined her voice.
Of course she’s here. And I assume she’s with her friends. And I am not supposed to be seen so—
“Do you want to help me decorate?”
Frowning, I lower my gaze and turn in the direction of her voice, expecting to see nothing. Sometimes, nonsensical words from her dance inside my head and keep me company in the midst of Stein’s worst torture.
But…there she is.
Standing beneath bending limbs and hanging branches of the copse of trees behind her, she is really here.
Black lace dress with pink nails, a pink bow tied tightly around her throat. Her hair is pulled up in a braided bun, and the style accentuates her cheekbones, dazzling with some sort of sparkle I assume is in her makeup. There are very few lights here—lamp posts scattered through the square atrium—and with the night and the storm, she is the brightest thing in the dark.
I blink once, pushing my gloved hands into the pocket of my hoodie, careful not to pull down on the fabric so it doesn’t snag along my piercings.
I should be upstairs, hidden away in one of the unoccupied rooms Stein directed me to stay put in. But I couldn’t help but venture down here, to the main floor. Everyone else is on the second, inside the ballroom, but I stupidly hoped I would see her, even knowing it was impossible.
Yet here she is. A dream.
“Do you?” she presses, tilting her head a little, the bow along her neck crinkling slightly with the movement. “Want to help me?”
Decorate, she said. I flick my gaze to her hands and note the piles of what looks like ribbons in them, black and soft, pastel pink in color, matching her nails.
“Decorate what?” I ask, my voice breaking. I swear I can hear the ghost of my sobs inside of it, while Stein ripped shirt after shirt on and off of my body to hurt me more.
But she doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe she just doesn’t care. “The trees.” She nods toward the ones at my back. We are standing on a cobblestone pathway, and it winds throughout the high-ceilinged room, trees and flowers and a bench or two scattered around the space.
I do not love it here. It’s usually very warm and too bright and I don’t want to hide among the shrubbery to avoid guests on the occasions the hotel is actually operating like one.
But now, Halloween night, it is dark and dreary, and rain beats along the skylights above us, thunder rolling and sporadic lightning cracking.
“Stein only thought of making the ballroom spooky, but he left the rest of this place pretty lame, don’t you think?” Her blue eyes gleam as she glances up and at that exact moment, lightning forks brilliantly across the sky, illuminating the perfect roundness of her face.
She flinches at the sound, but doesn’t stop looking up, her fingers tightening around the heaps of bows in her hands, some pressed to her chest so they don’t spill onto the floor.
“This is the best part of the hotel,” she says quietly as the rain picks up, a drumbeat soundtrack to our stolen moment. She slowly lowers her chin, staring at me. “Do you agree?”
“No.” I think of the hidden space beneath the hotel I could use to create my own safe room here. Maybe another lab, a replication of my own at home, stolen in the wing my mother used to occupy in our house. The place Stein will not venture. I think he is afraid of being haunted there, by Mom.
Karia’s eyes narrow. “Then what’s your favorite part?”
I would like to dissect her in my lab. See what makes her scream. It is a delusion, a daydream, a fantasy I have begun to use when I have moments alone, or even when Stein is hurting me.
I say nothing to answer her question. “Why are you using those colors? Halloween isn’t pink.” I have never been trick-or-treating, never worn a costume for the holiday, but I know enough. I have access to limited internet, at 44 Ritual Drive.
“Anything is whatever I say it is,” she says, attempting to look down her nose at me, and it kind of works, with the distance between us. She hugs the ribbons to her chest, the silk or vinyl crinkling as she does. “So do you want to help or not?”
I don’t reply. I cannot imagine a world in which I work side-by-side with the girl of my dreams and nightmares both and place pink ribbons on these cursed trees.
