Page 12 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I hold my breath.
I want to wake up now.
Everything feels worse as I lie here motionless, useless, helpless.
I want to wake up, please.
Then he is closer.
I don't want to die yet.
Gone one heartbeat, there the next.
His mouth is over mine.
His teeth scrape my lips, awkward and detached and animalistic in the brief motion of bright pain.
Then he says, a garbled, eerie hiss,“You.”
Karia,
I don’t know why you write me.
I don’t know why you enjoy torturing us both.
There is nothing for me to say to you.
I only think of you all the time.
I only want to bite you so hard you bleed.
I only want to bracket you in glass, taxidermy of the worst kind.
I only want…
Chapter8
Sullen
Stein is away. We have guards, but they avert their eyes when they see me coming, so long as they know I am simply walking the street. It didn’t used to be that way. Before, they would hurt me, too. Restrain me, hit me; a few were brave enough to land a kick at my head once or twice. I always ended up seeing stars and sometimes, throwing up blood. Never did I make it out of the house, no matter how invisible I tried to be.
I couldn’t collect animals then.
Now, though, I’m eighteen and I can’t leave my room without getting fully dressed or else my seams start to show.
The guards must believe even I have had enough.
I slip out into the night, glancing once over my shoulder as I always do when Stein is allegedly away for business. If he catches me, I might not have legs to leave on anymore. I doubt the guards keep my secret, but by the time he arrives back, he already has a new punishment in mind and anything I did in his absence, I pay for dearly.
For now, the looming, dark bricks, and gleaming, glittering windows—lit by security lighting in the expansive front yard—are all I see. Dark curtains beyond each pane, the circular fountain with a pair of stone gargoyles, they both watch me in silent judgment, but they cannot reach me here. Water pleasantly fills the large gray basin and it’s the only sound in my ears aside from the crickets; the auditory sensations are enough to convince anyone that while this house may look Gothic, everything is beautiful and calm and serene inside.
It could not be further from the truth. But the three garage bays are closed, silent, and the paved driveway stretches ahead of me along with hours of stolen October night, until sunrise.
It doesn’t take long for me to reach Ritual Drive. Our entrance lane is one of the shortest along our street; it is how I can seeherfrom my bedroom tower.
And she is out here now, unless she has skipped inside one of her friends’ homes; I watched her walking beside Cosmo under the light of the full moon.
My heart thumps fast in my chest as I head east, the direction she was going in her short, white shirt and even shorter black skirt.
