Page 43 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
She is frozen as I loom over her, my eyes inches from her sickeningly gorgeous ones.
“My mother was beaten in the head with a knife block, trying to stophimfrom lighting my hair on fire to see how close I could let it get to my scalp without screaming. I was restrained then, and I closed my eyes, but I heard it all.”
She goes completely still.
She is not breathing.
She does not struggle beneath me. I feel her pulse thump against her jawline.
I lean closer, the tip of my nose brushing hers. “Her screams grew quiet after a few thuds. When I stopped being a coward and opened my eyes, she was motionless. Then he shot her and claimed…” I loosen my hold on her mouth, slipping my hand down until only my thumb brushes over her parted lips. “Well, you know the rumors.”
She still says nothing.
Does nothing.
Onlylooksat me as I trace the plushness of her mouth.
“Go ahead,” I whisper quietly, still gripping her face tight. “Ask me what else you’d like to know. You may be my experiment, but did you know I am yours too?”
“She didn’t deserve that,” she says, her voice cracking. “And neither did you, Sullen.”
“I think I did. Don’t you see yourself now?” I smile with the teeth I have. “I guess not,” I continue. “But you are at my mercy, and I have never had much of that. This is precisely what I deserve.”
“Why did you disappear?” she asks in an even tone, as if she is switching tactics, taking advantage of my offer, pushing through my spilled secrets. “Two years ago. Why did you leave?”
I circle her mouth again with my thumb as I look into her eyes. Marginally, I decrease the pressure of my hand around her jaw, but I don’t let her go. “Stein sent me away.”
“Why?” she presses, her bones moving as she speaks.
I consider saying nothing. I think again about drugging her. Or setting her free. I don’t know if I can play this game after all.
Instead, as if compelled, I answer her. Who else has ever asked me about my life? Who else has ever been brave enough to know?
“He has a very peculiar…belief system. And part of it entails that he is to hurt me, damage me, although he doesn’t see it that way. Instead, he is shaping me, forming me, deconstructing me as a sort of…” I nudge my nose with hers and speak over her lips.“Means to an end.”
Because of the blue ring of her irises, I see her pupils dilate as I speak, but she says nothing, as if she wants more. As if she is waiting.
You stupid, gorgeous girl.
But I have never spoken of this to someone else before. And it is strange, how Iwantto confess to her. This princess I cannot have.
I am not sure if she is familiar with any of this, but I am fairly certain none of the other children of Writhe experienced what I did. Stein kept his work and his personal beliefs strangely separate, as far as I know. Perhaps he did not want to share the secrets of immortality with the others.
“As I got older and stronger, he became more violent, and he ensured my senses were dulled with everything he fed me. Near the end, he was afraid if I stayed, he would kill me before the appropriate time.”
She blinks but says nothing.
I shift my fingers from her mouth, then cradle her face gently in both hands, smoothing my thumbs over her cheekbones.
“So he sent me away, a home in the mountains. Haunt Muren.” I don’t know why I say it out loud. It is forbidden to give the location away. Most think Stein Rule left the country after he retired. I am supposed to keep that illusion up.
But I don’t want to.
Not with her.
She may not survive the night anyway.
What do secrets matter if they are buried with bones or pushed into jars with formalin?
