Page 21 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I turn, then, and see my mom, Scarletta, lift her deep blue eyes to Mads’s gray ones. He is dressed in a black suit and same color tie, standing at six feet or so tall, hands in the pockets of his slacks. Mom narrows her gaze, one hand tight around a diamond-encrusted clutch that matches the dazzling colors of her dress. It’s not necessary to don outfits likethesefor a meeting, particularly one Mom didn’t initially come to, but the parents often do. Like peacocks, flaunting what they lie, steal, and kill for.
“That’s fantastic,” Mom says smoothly to Mads, never one to hide her true feelings. “But do you realize it’s been two yearstodaysince Sully was last seen?”
I lift my chin, squeezing the heavy, black flashlight in my hand. Beyond Mads and Mom, my dad, Antwine, is speaking in a low voice to Lora, Shella, and Rig. Isadora and Von and a few others of Writhe already ascended the steps from Septem and are hunting down Sullen now.
My heart thuds frantically in my chest as I dart my gaze from Mads to Mom, ready to bolt to find Sullen first. Mads tilts his head, his lips pressed together like Von’s often are. He has dirty blond hair in looping curls; the red of Von came from Lora Bentzen. But otherwise, he looks so similar to Von, I can imagine my friend easily stepping into Mads’s shoes one day, or handing them off to Isa.
“It is?” I ask as Cosmo bristles at my side, waiting for a verdict as far as his presence is concerned.
Mom looks to me; she is where I get my leanness from, but she’s a few inches taller and not just because of her heels. There are little lines around her eyes, and her brows furrow in a way they often do as she studies me. Her blonde hair streaked with white is pulled up into an elegant crown around her head.
She is beautiful and I always stole her clothes and makeup and hair products growing up until she got tired of it and gave me a black card to buy all my own. But sometimes when she looks at me, I see pity across her pretty face, and I don’t know if she thinks I’m stupid, if she wishes I didn’t live the kind of life she does, or if she wants me to be someone else. Someone stronger and sterner and more like Isadora.
Mom is like that. In my parents’ marriage, she is the boss. Dad has his own command; it’s not as if she walks all over him. But she is the queen and it’s been that way since I can remember.
Maybe she wants me to be less of a princess and more like her. She probably doesn’t love my outfit either. Anything ripped, like my skirt, or cropped like my top, is a fashion embarrassment. But she would never say that out loud; it’s just conveyed in thelookshe’ll give, like now.
“Yes,” she says, watching me carefully, her voice strong and high. “Did you know that?” It sounds innocent, her question, but I am sure she saw how I gravitated toward Sullen when we were younger. I’m sure everyone did, even if they never really said anything.
I have always had a soft spot for monsters.Dracula, Frankenstein,even Scar. They are the ones my heart bleeds for.
“No,” I answer her, half a lie as I push my shoulders back and try to be a little more of the daughter she wants.
“I should go with her,” Cosmo says quietly at my side. “This is a big hotel.” He states the obvious. “And you know the power already went out once, before we were…” He trails off because I’m not sure either of us really knowwhatwe were.
I glance at him by my side and see his wrist, veins along his hands but there’s a pretty deep slice there on the base of his arm. Crusted blood has dried around it, and I can’t help but want to smile, thinking of Sullen cutting him in the dark.
I bite it back. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I snap instead, sweeping my eyes up to Cosmo. His green ones look down at me. “I’ve been trained, too, you know?”
“You hated self-defense, Karia.” Mom’s haughty tone makes me clench my free hand into a tight fist, digging my pastel green nails into my skin as I cut my gaze back to her. “But I’m not sure she needs a sitter who isn’t from Writhe.” She glances at Mads with those words.
“I can call Von and Isa back and—”
“No.” I cut off Mads, turning to stare at him. My face grows hot with my own insolence and disrespecting the leader of Writhe, but that’s part of what being a member of this organization is all about. Holding your own. And I want to find Sullen before anyone else does. “Sorry,” I say, not meaning it, “but really. I’ll be fine on my own.”
He lifts a brow, his face void of emotion otherwise. I wonder for a moment if I’ll be punished for cutting him off, but I do seem to get away with a little more than the others if only because they don’t take me as seriously.
He looks to Cosmo, then says in a tone dripping with finality, “Cosmo will accompany you. We’re wasting time here.” As he turns his back to me, Mom, and Cosmo, I want to scream at him, but I take a deep breath in and let Cosmo loop his arm through mine, his body warm as he sidles up next to me.
“Guess you’re stuck with me, huh?”
Mom’s gaze drops to where we’re touching and there is clear disapproval written on her face. It makes me a little giddy but I know my future husband won’t be of my choosing either so I can’t gloat too much.
I allow Cosmo to spin me around as I grip my flashlight tight, and we walk past the gleaming bar toward the stairwell leading up to the rest of the hotel. My mind races as I think of how to get rid of him. How to ensure I find Sullen myself.
Then what?The question laces through my head but I ignore it. One step at a time. Absentmindedly, I press my hand to the spot over my low belly where Sullen bruised me with the needle, covered now from my skirt.
But Cosmo must notice because he stiffens at my side as we walk up the stairwell, and his arm tightens through mine. “When I find him, I’m paying him back for that,” he says in a low voice.
Chapter12
Sullen
October rain begins to fall, lashing against the windowpanes from my stolen patio. I have left the lab behind in that faraway corridor of Septem. It is through a door in the supply closet, then another three after that, all of which require a key. The problem with having so much square footage is no one could possibly examine it all each day.
But here, in the penthouse suite of the seventeenth floor, anyone could find me if they really looked, but I think I have time. The entire hotel is closed for Writhe meetings as it often is; Stein owns majority shares under the guise of a corporation, and he can do with this place what he will. I know he doesn’t handle any of it himself. He has staff for that, particularly considering he is in Vancouver now for business; a different sort than Writhe’s.
I told Karia he wasn’t my father; he is, biologically, and I hate to understand that there are some things even I could not stop taking from his genes. Our love for grotesque curio is one of those, passed down in my tainted blood. It is why I have the lab, the animals, the wings, the disgusting and demented.
