Chapter 8
Karia
Iflinch, my breath caught at the top of my throat, my mind going blank with fear. But my body presses onward and instead of backing away, my fingers circle the lever and yank open the door, ignoring the flare of bright pain in my skin from the healing wounds of the Emporium.
Iciness drifts over me, enveloping me like the rare cold whip of wind North Carolina experiences in the winter. It infects my lungs, the chill invading my chest cavity, but as I stare into the darkness beneath the hotel, I know it will take more than cool temperatures to keep me away from Sullen.
I dart through the door, risking one last glance over my shoulder, but I see nothing in the tangled labyrinth of stairwell above my head.
The laughter is gone, too, and for a brief moment, I think of Sanford Rule and wonder if I am losing my grip on reality.
If I’m no longer… here. Perhaps the cement beneath my white shoes and the prickle of ice along my skin and even this high-collared shirt of Sullen’s drifting along my body is all inside my head.
But if this is a dream or a delusion, then there is no obstacle to finding him. I can make everything what I wish for it to be. I can warp the world to lay eyes on him again.
The door clangs closed behind me, trapping me inside darkness once more, but not before the waning light lays out the space before me.
It’s a corridor leading only one way, framed by burgundy bricks, some missing in places.
The scent of oldness is heavier here, but maybe most importantly, there is no one. The laugh came from nowhere.
It came from inside your head.
The thought invades me like a demonic possession and my knees tremble.
I stagger to the side, my shirt pricking at the brick as I lean my head against it, regaining my bearings, trying to find my composure.
I’m so fucking tired and hungry and delirious and after being sedated twice and drinking too much wine and Jameson and getting truly intoxicated on Sullen, I am not functioning like I should be for something like this.
I think of turning back.
I could beg Isadora and Von. I could ask them to see for themselves how Stein is treating his son. We could’ve done this together.
But they don’t trust me, and they are bound to Writhe.
I have never felt the same affection for my parents’ organization.
I am doing this on my own.
I am not fucking pathetic.
I straighten away from the wall and keep going.
There is only the sound of my own steps, my own heart, and a raspy noise that I realize is my breathing.
I press my lips together, stopping the latter from making the monstrous, cowardly sound, and lift up my hand, to prevent myself from bumping into anything in the dark.
The walls feel as if they are pressing in around me, despite the fact there is plenty of room; my shoulders don’t graze the wall and my head does not bump the low ceiling.
I am fine.
I will find him.
I keep going, the chill slithering deeper, to the bone. It is like a freezer here.
A scurrying, squeaking sound comes from behind me and I tense, but don’t stop moving.
It’s a rat.
Nothing more.
My mind conjures spider legs grazing my scalp, webs strangling my throat, cockroaches scuttling over my face, a snake slithering along my eye, but I push the fear and paranoia back and force myself to keep walking, arm still extended in front of me, my other hand curled into a fist at my side.
The texture beneath my soles changes, my Vans gliding over what feels like sand or pulverized rocks, perhaps crumbling brick.
Something grazes my cheek, soft and sticky, and I flinch away, slapping at my skin, dragging the spider web off with my fingertips.
I wrinkle up my nose, my shoulders hunched, but I don’t stop.
I blink in the dark, trying to see, wondering what I will find at the end of this tunnel and why there are no lights here, but I gain nothing.
What if he isn’t even here?
What if I get trapped underneath this horror hotel for nothing, and I become a rotting corpse, accidentally locked beneath Number Seven for eternity?
I pause, desperately wanting to turn and run back to the light. To find my friends and beg them to be that instead of brainwashed members of Writhe.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight, worried for irrational reasons I won’t be able to throw open the door I just slipped inside of, and I will bang my fists along it and break what’s left of my nails trying to claw my way out of here.
Sullen will be thousands of miles away, never knowing I died trying to find him.
But before I can slip into darker fear, I hear it again.
The laughter.
Cruel and cutting, like a bite from a rabid animal.
I snap open my eyes, realizing the noise is echoing down the tunnel, from somewhere ahead of me.
I keep my hand out and start walking again, the sound dying off, but I heard it.
I am not crazy.
I am not losing it.
Not yet.
I move faster, understanding I am heading straight for danger, but at least someone is here, and in this place, who else would it be but a member of Writhe? Or its former leader?
If I had to assign the grim laughter to someone, it would be Stein fucking Rule.
And Stein will not let Sullen out of his sight, not again.
But in my head, I think of Isa’s question when I said Stein was hurting Sullen. Let me guess. You know all of this because he told you so?
I frown in the dark, but don’t stop.
I saw the scars myself. The wounds. And we all know he covered his body growing up, progressively more and more until only his face peered out from beneath his hood.
The way he spoke of Stein, though, with such a lack of self-pity… I shake my head. No. I know he wasn’t lying to me. Who else would hurt him in that way? But Isadora’s words on Sullen being the one to kill Mercy slide into my brain, too.
Seeds of doubt.
But I don’t let them grow.
I saw for myself how manipulative Stein was beneath the modern hotel. I wasn’t much different, acting to get close to him so I could hurt him or the guards, but there was a sly cruelness to Stein I never had much occasion to look for or notice before.
I step over something that seems to squish beneath my shoe, causing my foot to slide and roll along it and I jump, hurrying along, refusing to think of what it might be, or might have been. The image of a serpent is forcefully brought to life inside my head though, and I want to gag.
I clamp my teeth together.
I keep moving, a light sheen of sweat forming along the back of my neck even in the iciness of the tunnel.
Then I hear the murmur of voices.
Another slip of laughter, but it isn’t nearly as loud, and I don’t think it’s Stein this time.
I slow my steps, but I don’t stop moving.
People are speaking.
It’s muffled, and I can’t make out any words or the characteristics of the voices, but more than one person must be ahead.
The tunnel curves, my arm grazing the brick as I am forced to adjust my path.
It’s hard to breathe, and terror seizes every limb, shaking them violently in its grip, but still, I continue on.
The voices grow louder, but no more distinct.
Then up ahead, following the bend of the corridor, I see faint light.
Flickering, but I don’t think it’s because of the faulty power.
It’s like a flame’s dance.
Yellow and orange, and as I let my eyes adjust, blinking a few times, I realize it’s beneath the crack under a door frame.
I drop my hand to my side, both now in fists.
There are only a few feet between me and the door. Me, and whoever is on the other side.
Sullen.
Please.
I lick my lips, gone dry in the tunnel, and I keep going, afraid if I stop to gather my courage, I will find I have none left.
The voices are more audible, but as I swallow and my ears pop, they seem to fade away.
The conversation is drifting.
Someone may walk through that door at any moment.
I keep going.
I will collide with them if I have to.
I will kill them, if it’s necessary.
I will do whatever it takes to find him.
I narrow my eyes and I don’t stop.
Heat seems to pour from beneath the frame, and for a horrifying moment, I wonder if they will burn this building to the ground, with Sullen inside.
The hotel crashing into ash around my monster boy and I, two lovers whispered about in the lore of Writhe, their bodies never found.
Maybe a more foolish pair will dig in the soot far off into the future, two people star-crossed and damned, and they will discover a sliver of a skull, a ribcage, and my skeletal hand intertwined with Sullen’s.
I push the thought aside.
I replace it with something better.
We run away and we never look back. We find a mountain home. We press on one another’s wounds but no one else ever gives us any.
I am safe with him and he is calm with me.
I reach the door.
The handle is not a lever, simply a small, metallic knob scarred with brown-red rust.
The voices are silent, but I hear a pop that reminds me of a fire pit, something my parents would have in our backyard when members of Writhe came over to get wasted and do lines.
They tried to shield me from the latter, sending me up to my room, but I know what handheld mirrors and bags of off-white are for.
I close my eyes and inhale.
The scent of smoke reaches my lungs.
My legs are shaky, my head woozy. I feel faint.
But I won’t turn around.
Still, maybe it’s best to hear what I can, before I see.
I so slowly press my ear to the door after I turn my head.
It’s hot, the wood of the entrance, lighting up along my cheek and my fingertips as I bring them to the surface to steady myself.
I open my eyes and listen.
The pop of fire again.
The flickering of flames.
A shifting sound, like someone getting comfortable in a chair.
I furrow my brows, straining to hear anything more. Something that will either confirm or dissolve my thought that it is Stein inside the next room.
There is nothing for several moments.
Then there is a raspy scream.