Page 154 of Feed Your Fiends

“If it’s an emergency, I’m coming with you,” Stassi says, taking a step forward, but I shake my head.

“Look out for him here while I check the bedrooms. If you see him, don’t leave his side. Come find me.”

She looks like she’s about to argue, but then her eyes flicker over my shoulder to the endless hallway, and it’s clear she’s thinking better of it. She doesn’t want to see what he could possibly be up to. She nods, and I head for the hall, but before I can slip between its massive walls, something in a glass display catches my eye.

A ring.

A marques ring with the most beautiful diamond I’ve ever seen.

One fit for a princess. Cinderella, to be exact.

He got back the ring I sold to the Beaumonts? Why?

Then it hits me as I scan the surrounding emeralds and canaries. It was his mother’s diamond…

He gave me his mother’s diamond!

My ring finger itches, and I try to calm my nerves as I slip down the hallway, filled with a few people leaning against the walls or waiting for the powder room. My mind’s a jumble of worry and romantic memories that weren’t real.

My back scraping across the textured wallpaper as Gant caught me, wrapping me in his arms while I wrapped him in my legs.

My fingernails desperately clinging to the paper as if it could stop Gant from dragging me into our, his, bedroom.

Morning walks to the kitchen on his back where he’d scramble eggs, dice peppers, onions and sausage, before we ate on the balcony, the world at our feet. Literally.

I shake my head, refocusing on the present hallway and not the ghostly one. No one’s paying me any mind as I quietly reach for door handle after door handle. They all turn with ease, but I find nothing inside besides a few cuddling couples, women touching up their makeup, or men seemingly talking business in hushed tones.

When I get to Gant’s bedroom, however, I seize up, remembering all the times he’d carried me across the threshold and turned me into his little doll. I don’t know what I expect to find when I turn the handle and peer into the darkness. Nothing’s a miss, and it’s just as I remember it. Of course, it is. I’d been gone two days, not two years. The bed’s neatly made up, but what’s tucked into the centre are two little dolls.

Doll Gant and Doll Elle stare back at me unseeingly.

Why…why would he still have them?

I quickly close the door, blocking them from my view because they’re just an illusion. They must be.

Door after door reveals nothing new until I reach the door furthest from the party. I turn the knob, but it doesn’t budge. I press my ear to the wood, but unlike the other rooms, I don’t hear any activity inside. It’s that lack of noise besides my own pounding heart in my ears that makes my panic bloom again.

“Hale?” I whisper through the door. Then, a bit louder, “Hale?”

Seconds tick on of more nothingness, then I hear it, a soft moan.

Keys! Where the fuck are the keys?They wouldn’t be on the hooks in the foyer where just anyone can grab them…think…and then it comes to me. Rin.

Her number rings twice before she picks up.

“Elle?”

“Where did Gant hide the black key card for the lift?”

“What?”

“The fucking key card, where did he hide it?”

“In the emergency cabinet.”

“The what?”

“The cabinet where he keeps all the first aid supplies. He hid it in the left drawer with all the glass vials with orange tops.”

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