Page 287 of Ominous: Part 1
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Luna rakes a hand through her hair, staring at the cracked mirror above the sink that’s so close to the toilet, you could brush your teeth while you pee.
“Ready?” she asks, her voice breathy from exhaustion. She partook in a lot of the vodka drinking, along with Dom.
Neither Eli nor I had any vodka from the little clear plastic cups that had been covered with plastic wrap beside the TV, presumably for ice, although we couldn’t find the machine and couldn’t be fucked enough to use the ancient phone beside the Bible on the nightstand to call for directions.
I turn to Eli, both of us standing by the wall beside the door.
Our arms are crossed, and I see in the red glow of the lamp, Eli’s dark circles have darkened. I wonder when he last slept. Last night, he held me. He was sitting up. Did he drift off at all?
I nudge my elbow against his arm, admiring the way the white shirt he’s wearing shows off the broadness of his shoulders, the muscles in his chest, and contrasts with his darkened olive skin.
I squeeze my thighs together, still in my skirt. Luna said she’d sleep with Dom, and I’m sure it means nothing more, but I’m grateful Eli and I have the room next door alone tonight. I should’ve gotten three like he said, but it seemed like such a waste of money.
“Ready?” I ask him, echoing Luna’s question.
He smiles, staring at me from the corner of his eye. “Yes.”
“You two are honestly disgusting,” Luna says, but there’s nothing harmful in her words.
Eli’s smile widens. I think of his cool distance from Dominic the past few hours, since we all came up here.
The cold in his demeanor is gone now Dom is asleep.
He drops his arms, offering me his hand.
I glance at it, then take it in mine, my heart jumping in my chest.
Luna unlatches the door, the metallic sound a little eerie in the otherwise quiet room.
The door creaks as she pulls it open, and Eli and I follow her out into the dark, narrow hallway.
It’s quiet here, and I have no idea if thereareother guests. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot besides ours, but they could be staff, or abandoned for all I know. Either way, on the fourth floor, it feels as if the three of us are the only people in the world.
I almost expect it’s the end of it as we head toward the door at the end of the corridor. Like the apocalypse has come, and if we ran down to the lobby, the white-haired girl would be gone, Dom and Janelle and Jasper will have disappeared. I’ll call home but have no signal, and no one would be there to answer anyway.
My skin feels sensitive, and I feel every hair on the back of my neck stand on end as we follow Luna in the dark. She kicked off her strappy heels for seamless beige slip-ons, and she’s in jeans and a beige crop top instead of the dress she was wearing when we first arrived.
I grudgingly realize I like her. Beneath her snappy attitude, I think she really does care about Eli. It’s why she accepted me. And maybe the knife ordeal is why she respects me.
Eli squeezes my hand.
Luna is clutching her phone and she glances over her shoulder at us as we get closer to the door. “Don’t do anything sneaky,” she says, gesturing toward us with one hand, waggling her fingers.
“We won’t,” I tell her, and I mean it.
I think of Dom scaring me at the drop. The way I scared myself too, long before he approached me.
Luna reaches the door first and waits for us to catch up. Then she presses her ear to it, like she’s going to hear the specters beyond.
“Can you hear hell?” I ask her, smiling as she cuts her eyes to mine.
She backs away from the door and wraps her fingers around the silver handle, wrenching it open. It’s a fire escape door, probably seeing little foot traffic. Most people are likely content to use the rickety elevators we took up to the fourth floor.
A gush of cold, stale air rushes out as we peer into the darkened stairwell.
There’s another door directly opposite us, night sky beyond the pane of glass in it.
