Page 76 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
“How dare you?” I whisper, trying to catch my breath as I stare up at him, resisting the compulsion to wipe my own saliva from my face.
I take in the sharp line of his jaw, the lump of flesh beneath his collar, now pulled up to cover him again. His long lashes, that pointed nose, and the bitterness inside his brown eyes.
“Did you do that to yourself?” My voice is thready, and the room has that spinning sensation again, but I focus on the stillness of him. “Did you hurt yourself?”
He continues to trace the shape of my cheek with shaky fingers, over and over, like he is mapping the bones beneath. His gloved hand holds my face, as if he is afraid I will turn away from him.
He cannot see I never would.
There is the faintest trace of red on his bottom lip, where he bit me, and I feel my pulse along the wound over my throat, but it is oddly more intimate than painful. Like a bitten secret I can always keep.
“Tell me,” I whisper, never looking away from him. “Did you write that yourself?” He would’ve had to look into a mirror; the pain would’ve been immense to scar that deeply. Permanently. The letters did not have the pearly pink of a fresh wound. I wonder which year of his life he felt he needed to carve so wickedly with such vicious words. I wonder if I could have ever stopped him in any of our adolescent encounters.Why wouldn’t you let me save you?
He stills his index and middle finger over the ridge of my cheekbone. Then his eyes slowly slide to mine. With the emerald-green hood pulled over his face, casting it in partial shadow inside the dark room, I cannot see all of his hair, but there are thick brown strands of it peeking beneath the fabric, and I want to run my fingers through them. I want to stroke his scalp. Tell him he is so much more thanpathetic.
He looks down at my neck, eyeing the spot where he dug his sharp canines into me. His expression doesn’t change.
“No,” he finally answers me, his voice low, gaze focused on my bite. “That will bruise,” he whispers, slowly spreading his fingers to cover the side of my cheek, two others close to my eyes, his large palm spans the entirety of my face. It is like he is cradling me. “It could get infected.”
“It’s shallow,” I say quietly, my heart hurting at his confession that he didn’t do it to himself. There is a prick of sweetness inside it, though. That he did not get that low. Or, if he did, he did not act on it, at least not there. But so much of his body is always covered, I am almost terrified to know what he could’ve done to the landscape of his precious flesh. “It’ll be fine.”
He swallows hard. I see his jaw work as he does, but he won’t lift his gaze to mine. “You’d be surprised, sometimes. How the most trivial wounds can rot.” He closes his eyes a moment, as if he is in some kind of inner turmoil. “I will clean it for you. I’m…sorry.” Then he starts to move. He was never fully seated on me in a way that would compress my body and constrict my airway, and I find I don’t want his warmth to leave me just yet.
As he lowers his hands from my face, I reach out and grab the bare one, awkwardly gripping his fingers, still wet from my mouth and…something lower.
I feel how taut he becomes with my touch, like a corpse. And he doesn’t look at me, only stares at some space between us. I note the bones of his fingers, jagged and bumpy, but I don’t glance down.
I am not sure I’m ready for everything he has been through, despite the fact I will adore him regardless of his trauma. The story of the wet specimens rolls through my head, but instead of simply grief at his past, I feel oddly proud of him, that he learned to do so much, so young. Even if it was on cruel command. How many teenagers can create such creatures?
“Please don’t be sorry.” The nausea inside of my belly rolls and turns like a strong wave, and the drunkenness is unpleasant, but I still want to try and communicate what is inside my brain for him.I’m obsessed with you, I think.But what comes out instead is, “Don’t leave me here yet.” I don’t know exactly what I mean. Right now, because I feel sick and exhausted from stupidly drinking so much wine after being sedated twice? For the rest of our nights here, because I don’t want to be alone?Ever, because I am enamored by you?
But he doesn’t ask for clarification. Instead, a crease forms between his brows then he lifts his eyes to me. And slowly, carefully, he nods.
Chapter30
Karia
There is the unmistakable sound of a serpent’s slither. I hear it, but when I force my eyes open, I see nothing but darkness. Night has fallen, or perhaps I am buried alive, the way it is as if a ceiling of ink is cloistered around my body.
The snake grows closer, the creeping sensation of its movements transferring to a physical reaction inside me. Little hairs stand up on the end of my neck, along my arms, down my legs.
My limbs are bare. The realization comes to me in an abrupt rush and I try to sit up, drawing in a ragged breath and contracting my core muscles, but I cannot move. As the snake draws closer, the rustling of its belly over the same hard surface I am lying on growing louder, I realize I can only blink up at the gloom over my head. A chill sets in that has nothing to do with the stagnant air of this tomb and my teeth clack together. It is unfair, how my body reacts but my brain is in a prison, unable to unlock any mechanism of its own.
Something is coming.
Someone is after me.
The snake is here.
It doesn’t stop moving when I sense it by my head. I cannot tilt my chin to look up, and even if I could, there is nothing to see in this hell. But the cold scales of its body slide up my bare arm and I open my mouth to scream.
Silence comes out.
The frigid creature curves itself over my eyes and I cannot breathe.
I am trapped inside my own human form.
It crawls lower, along my nose.
