Page 36 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
“Sit on the chair, Little Sun,” he says quietly as he watches me. “And I will give you everything.”
It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.
Frankenstein,Mary Shelley
Chapter18
Sullen
We enter through the back door of the cathedral.Sanctum.This is the playground of the 6, and Writhe only ever gets an invitation when there’s work to be done. I won’t see anyone here but the other “kids” though, as we’re known, despite the fact I’m nearly twenty.
And maybe because of that, none of them will show. Von, Isadora,her.
I should’ve thought of this before.
I am so incredibly stupid.
As the double doors clang closed behind me, I feel hot and itchy beneath all of my clothing.I shouldn’t have come.No one will be in the front lobby where we used to wait together. Those lighter memories are from years ago. It’s been a few since the 6 summoned so many members of Writhe, and I should have known better than to get my hopes up. But when Stein asked if I wanted to get out of the house to come to Sanctum—one of the few times he offered to set me briefly free—all I thought about washer.
But now that I’m thinking clearly instead of holding onto warped dreams, I realize she won’t be here. She’ll have things to do. I’ve seen her with Von before, in his car. And with Cosmo, in hers.
She could be fucking them now and I just rode all this way in the back of Stein’s armored Mercedes for nothing. I should’ve stayed home. I should have—
Stein’s hand comes around my wrist, over my hoodie and the eraser burns he left on my skin, jolting me from my turmoil.
I snap my head up but look down at him. I have grown taller yet no more brave.
His eyes are light, blue and vivid under the chandelier over our heads in the empty back lobby, stone and marble and cold air coating the room. The scent of incense is strong here, but I smell the peach candy he has between his teeth as he tightens his hold on my wrist.
I don’t wince, blink, or flinch.
If I do, this will be worse.
He smooths his other hand down the black tie he’s wearing, and I see his golden wedding band. My mother’s name is carved along the inside of it.Mercy.After she left, I had none.
“How are you feeling, Sully?” Stein smiles as he asks, dimples forming in his ivory skin, a pocket of his cheek pushed out from the candy in his mouth. He has a shock of black hair, darker than my own, and it contrasts sharply with his blue eyes. When I was younger, he used to marvel over how I took after my mother.
Brown hair, brown irises. He made those genes sound divine then.
It doesn’t stop him from trying to rip them—me—apart, now.
“Good,” I manage, holding his gaze as he clenches my wrist. I wish for someone to come through one of the heavy, intricately carved wooden doors spaced far apart at his back and leading into the sanctuary. To interrupt this moment where his undivided attention is once more on me.
But no one comes.
No one ever does.
Night is behind me, past the tinted glass of the exit doors, and it’s this time I usually enjoy most. Even monsters like Stein have to sleep.
Tonight, though, the 6 meeting could prolong my waking misery.
“Great,” Stein says as he digs his fingertips deeper into my skin. The burn from the rectangular, pink erasers flares up with his vicious hold. Then he drags me closer, my shoes skidding over the marble floor.
I look down as he leans in, his mouth over my ear. “If you so much as speak to Karia Ven, you stupid, insolent child, I will show you what a pair of scissors can do to the web of your fingers.” Then he releases me and steps back like I disgust him as he straightens his tie once more while fear presses on my bladder. “Her parents are loyal to me,” he continues in a quiet tone no one could overhear. “But we all know you are repulsive. If you make her uncomfortable, you will cause discord for me, and you will pay for it. No one is interested in someone like you, Sully. No one but me. And if her life becomes a problem, I will ensure her death to solve it.”
Yes, then I will have no reason not to murder you too.
But I know Karia is safe because I will never initiate anything with her. I am not brave enough. So the sentence that rings loudest inside my head is,no one is interested in someone likeyou.
