Page 19 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I look down then, sliding my hand along my body to push at the waistband of my skirt.
Everything feels cold all over.
My heart pounds too fast inside of my chest.
There’s a commotion along the stairwell, heavy footfalls, fast and hurried.
But I can’t look up, because there’s a purpling bruise as if from a needle, redness around the injection site, there on the flesh of my low abdomen.
I think I’m going to pass out.
“Karia.” Cosmo doesn’t sound so angry. His voice is quiet now. Scared.
More footsteps, coming into the bar.
“What happened to you?” Cosmo finishes.
Silence.
My ears are ringing.
I know everyone is looking at me.
Then Von’s father, Mads Bentzen, the current leader of Writhe, speaks. “Sullen Rule is missing,” he says, his voice brisk. “And we saw him on camera walking into the hotel a few hours ago.” He clears his throat as I stare at the damaged skin, red and swollen and tinged with the start of a bruise.
My heart is in my throat.
It was real.
“He never left the building,” Mads continues. “Now everyone up. We’re going to search for him.”
He came back for me.
Chapter11
Karia
Dear Sullen,
Do you remember the Night of Lies at Hotel No. 7? You weren’t there, or so everyone claimed. Even your dad said you were skipping the annual party. I thought it strange; everyone wore masks for Lies and it seemed you—with your hood and your gloves and your constant disguise—would have a better time at that event than any other.
But then again, you rarely came to anything. The older we got, the more you hid. Initially, I believed it, that you hadn’t shown up for the night.
It was silly, stupid—particularly after that disaster of an invitation I tried to extend to you to walk with Cosmo and I a year before, when you just turned your back on me and left—but I felt a sharp, bitter pang of disappointment at your absence. Mom and Dad were constantly hinting at the fact they wanted me to marry soon, dangling my credit cards and my clothes and my car in my face if I provided the least resistance to the idea. Of course, I’m still unwed, but I think that has more to do with their search for prospects than any change of heart on their part.
Regardless, at the time, nineteen and stubborn and even more spoiled than I am now, I was pouting over their decision and every time I saw them speaking to any man, I worried they would lock me up with him forever.
Von was a possibility, and I might have welcomed him, but everyone knew even then he thought Isadora hung the moon and dragged out the sun. Being second best for the rest of my life was not something I wanted to endure.
That night, I thought to myself, it would have been nice if you came. I would find a way to be alone with you in the towering hotel of Alexandria, maybe we could explore the rumored secret underground passages and climb our way to the roof where there was a pool and perhaps I could get you to do something so out of character for you, like swim with me. Fantasies, delusions, of course. Even if you showed, I knew you would do no such thing.
But that was my mindset that night, and as Mom and Dad got tipsy with Rig, Lora, Stein, Shella, Mads, and the others, I let Cosmo drag me to the thirteenth floor and pull me inside a suite. Wine was zipping through my system then, my head was floating, and I wore a pretty mauve gown by Maria Lucia Hohan, silk, one shoulder, drenched in tulle at the skirt. The mask over only my eyes was pink satin and lace. My hair was up, a few pieces curled around my face, nails in pastel green—the color reminds me of you, and I am never quite sure why—and Cosmo kept on his silver mask, stole all the airplane bottles of liquor from the mini fridge, and dared me to take shot after shot; three in a row. I was laughing then as he slipped off my sandals; strappy, with a heel that looked like a chandelier.
(Please, don’t stop reading yet; I promise this is truly about you)
The white duvet of the queen bed was soft on my shoulder blades and so were Cosmo’s hands as he pushed up my dress, despite all of his callouses. I realized then as I lie on my back, a chandelier glittering blue overhead, his fingers working my thighs, his mouth speaking words about relaxing and letting it happen as one of my arms slipped off the bed and I didn’t care enough to draw it back, that it wasn’t Cosmo inside my head.
The room was dim, night arrived, and in the darkness with the lace framing my eyes, I could imagine you were touching me. Maybe you would take off your gloves for me. Perhaps you would pull back your hood. If I was really lucky, a very good girl, you might take off your hoodie, too.
