Page 100 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I can see the gleam of blue in her irises even here, in the depths of darkness. “Was that what Cosmo was picking at? Insecurities? When you looked as if you were going to cry moments before you nearly let him kiss you?” I am drenched in rain, and I’d like to say it’s discomfort that drags a shiver over my body, but I have lived through so much worse, so often.
“You didn’t care about that,” Karia retorts, her voice rising. “You didn’t care because you left us there and went to Maude. You laughed with her and flirted with her, and I know you wish you could’ve stayed there and—”
I slip my hand up her throat, pressing it across her mouth. “I told you not to touch him.” I wrap my arm tighter around her waist.
“But you let Maude touch you,” she says under my palm over her lips, the words garbled.
“I hated every second of it. And that’s all it was. Seconds.” I dip my chin and glide my nose up her jawline and I tell her the truth. “I wanted to jump across the table and hurt you both for taunting me. When you came to sit in my lap…” I trail off, remembering her pleas to me to kiss her. How very hard it is to keep any self-control when I’m with her. “You are mine, Karia Ven, and she is nothing to me.”
“You didn’t want her instead of me? Or maybe both of them? To kiss you and fuck you and get on their knees for you—”
I pull back and grab her face once more, fingertips splayed along her cheekbones. “Don’t be stupid.” I press my temple to the side of hers. “There is no one I want to hurt instead of you.”
“Then why didn’t you do anything, when you saw him try to kiss me the first time?”
Because Maude was talking to me about something I have wanted to understand my entire life. About Burbank Gates and why Stein hates me so fucking much.
But I don’t say that to her. I can’t say that.
Instead, I whisper against her skin, “I’m going to take you far enough away they will never be able to get near you again. No one else will kiss you. No one else will touch you. No one will hear your screams.”
She makes a wretched snorting sound. “I’m not screaming for you. I’m not afraid of you. And what if the truth of you is something so much simpler than your threats? What if it’s you…” She angles her head back to stare at me. “Who is afraid of me?”
“What did he say?” I press, refusing to entertain her question. “What did he say to you to bring you to the verge of tears?” Maybe I’m envious he did it instead of me. Perhaps I want to know how to cut her that deeply.
She twists her body out of my grip and glares up at me. Vaguely I register there is less thunder, no wind. I don’t hear sirens either.
Writhe won’t look for us in the light because it’ll draw too much attention. They’ve already caused a stir as is. A false police report will have to be issued to explain their presence tonight. It’s a lot of coverup and Writhe will want to tiptoe during the day.
“Nothing,” Karia says, her teeth clenched as she flicks her eyes up and down my body in a way that makes me feel self-conscious. “Nothing but the truth.” Then she starts to twist off the cap for the Jameson with her free hand, but I watch as she winces, her lips pushed into a pout and again, I think of her scream in the basement.
I lean against the brick wall, satisfied she won’t be running from the alley without going past me first. “What did they do to you?” I ask again, my voice quiet.
She brings the bottle up to her mouth, using her teeth to bite down and twist the cap loose. Then she plucks it off with her fingers and drinks straight from the bottle for three entire seconds.
And I see it then.
Blood along her palms.
It’s hardly visible in the low light here with the night and the fading storm around us, but I see it.
I clench my teeth and reach for her hand, the one holding the cap, jerking her wrist to me.
She keeps drinking as she eyes me and I flip her palm, coaxing her fingers softly to unfurl for me. I take the cap from her and push it into the pocket of my hoodie as I see the glass glinting beneath her skin, a small, jagged sliver, blood welling up in other shallow cuts.
She slowly lowers the bottle as my entire body goes rigid, seeing her cut open and not from me.
Catching her breath as I circle her wrist with one hand and keep her fingers spread with my other, she stares up at me with a heart wrenching openness, her in all her own self-destruction, and I don’t mean her blood. She is a fucking mess. Far less polished than I ever thought, and all I want is more of her.
“Is this why you screamed?” I ask quietly, staring at the blood pooling along the lines of her palm. Perhaps she is more delicate than I imagined.
“No,” she says, like I’ve offended her. “He grabbed my shoulder and nearly twisted it out of socket.”
I know that feeling. Literally. Imaginingherexperiencing it…my own hands start to shake.
She shrugs. “But I’m fine.” Then she takes another drink.
“I don’t think you are,” I say quietly. “And if I had known that, I would have broken his fucking arm instead of only hitting him.”
