Chapter 13 Sullen
Sullen
Climbing the ladder to emerge from the trickery of a well is agony.
After I throw down the green velvet travel bag my alleged grandfather managed to secure for us and carried through most of our escape onto the forest floor, I dig my fingertips against the cobbled stone and pull myself up.
The ache and ice along my stomach screams, but when I leap over the stone circle of the fount and drop down into the damp, thick grass and dead leaves surrounding it, my gaze finds her, and I swallow all of the pain.
She has her arms crossed over her chest, her body hunched in my shirt, cerulean eyes seeming to glow in the thick, rain-dipped forest surrounding us. A trickle of water drops along my spine and I straighten, clenching my teeth as I remember I am without a shirt.
I don’t dare look down.
I can’t bear to see myself.
My only consolation is the night around us, crickets and other creatures echoing in the darkness. The cool temperature is welcome, after the strange stifling nature of the underground tunnel with its bizarre green lights and, as we made our way deeper, the stench of rotting meat.
I did not ask.
Neither did Karia.
We do not want to know what the monsters have done here.
Thinking of her flinching away from me as I touched her face sends unpleasant bats beating angry wings inside my gut. It was because of Stein; because he almost hurt her.
Did, when the door was still between us.
I could hear her whimpers.
I bite my bottom lip and push back on the fathomless fury inside of my bones as Sanford gingerly scrabbles from the ladder, clawing onto the stone wall of the well and hauling himself over with a wince.
I do not help him.
I do not trust him.
I do not understand why or how he disappeared when Writhe first tore me apart from Karia. Although now that we have taken this underground corridor from the dungeon-like basement, I imagine there are many trap doors within the hotel.
I lift my gaze past him as he leans against the wooden beams supporting the small roof over the false well, and high on the rolling hill above, I see the outline of the building, jutting up toward the sable sky. There are no lights on in the dozens of windows—none that I can see—from the rear view.
I wonder if even now we are wasting time catching our breath.
I would be surprised if Stein didn’t know about this corridor himself; I can only hope the bruises along his throat and the lack of oxygen he needed to recover from were enough to stop him.
Or perhaps he was shot in the fray we left behind. That wouldn’t give me the vengeance I want, though. For that reason alone, I hope he is still alive, dreading me.
“Now what?” Karia asks, her voice high and clipped. She is frightened, but trying to pretend she is not.
I smile to myself, turning to watch her.
She has our bag in both hands, gripping the shorter, deep emerald carrying straps, the duffel knocking softly against her shins. Her gaze is on Sanford, who is still recovering, his chin dipped, hands on his middle, gray streaks of his hair gleaming white in the night.
He is wheezing, but not collapsing. I wonder just how much living beneath the surface of the earth has twisted his human senses, his body’s capabilities.
I find I feel no sorrow or pity.
He claims he tried to protect my mother, me, but clearly, he did not try hard enough. I am still running from my father at the age of twenty fucking three, and I am still not the sort of man Karia Ven could truly fall in love with.
“We can’t stay here long,” Sanford says, staring at the ground. He is tall, lean, and despite his sagging posture now, his limbs belie the sort of sinewy strength expected in a much younger man.
“No shit,” the princess of Writhe snaps back.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I ignore the pain in my gut, the spots starting to crowd my vision once more. It’s like I have been living on adrenaline. On the shoddy work Klein, Stein’s personal doctor and my personal hell, made of me.
I push him to the back of my mind.
We have left him.
He will not touch her.
Still, even I understand I need to find another doctor, and soon. This medical glue will only hold so long, and the risk of infection will grow when it bursts.
I look up from my lashes to find Karia still staring down Sanford.
I wonder if she is avoiding looking at me because she already saw too much.
I wanted to rip down every green goddamn light above our heads as we fled; without a hoodie, the shame of exposure might kill me before the shallow stab wound does so.
I glance at the bag in her hands.
You idiot.
I cross the space between us, my shoes sinking a little in the damp earth, and I reach for the bag, tugging it away from her more rudely than I should.
She half-heartedly tries to keep hold of it, but when her eyes meet mine, she releases it, and I wonder if she wants me to hide my hideousness as much as I do.
I don’t let my gaze linger.
I do not know if I want to see the truth.
If she can’t stand the sight of me, she certainly could never like me.
And why should she wish to be with me at all?
My family, my history, my appearance, my voice, my inexperience, lack of any future whatsoever… I can’t blame her for the moment she will run.
I promise myself I will resist the impulse to kill her when she does it.
I know it’s a promise I likely cannot keep.
Unclasping the bag with one hand, I balance it on my lifted thigh with the other, not wanting to get it more wet than it is, from when Sanford threw it in the grass. I pull out a hoodie and try to jam it over my head, but holding onto the bag and getting dressed proves… frustrating.
Not to mention the wooziness seeping through my bloodstream as I exert myself.
“Fuck.” The angry, twisted word leaves my lips before I can hold it back—all of my frustration, sadness, rage, confusion, it convolutes the sound.
I am immediately embarrassed by it, my cheeks heating beneath the fabric of black piled around my head.
The hoodie I spied on Karia in, the one I was wearing when I strapped her to the dental chair. She gets the last laugh now.
I clench the fabric tightly in one fist, my knees tremble, and I have the sudden, clawing urge to vomit.
But before I can scream at the top of my lungs, there is movement close to me, then Karia’s soft voice says, “Let me help you.”
I freeze, the hoodie only half over my head, the bag in my hand.
My heart thumps violently and I know she can see me—only my face is covered—and I tense, waiting for her to back away, retract her offer, scream herself.
Instead, her fingertips graze my flank and my skin jumps, but she says nothing about the glue holding me together, zero about the blood crusted along my flesh, oozing into my black pants.
She is silent as she glides her fingers along my obliques, as if she cannot resist touching me, then reaches for the hem of the hoodie.
My breath catches in a silent way.
I can’t exhale.
I can’t move.
What do you think of me? Why don’t you run?
“Push your arm through,” she says in the same low, calm manner.
I do as she says, tunneling my hand through one sleeve, feeling the cotton glide along my bare skin.
She tugs the fabric down and I switch the bag to my other hand.
Then she uses her own to pull at the hoodie and give me enough room to push my other arm up and through the remaining sleeve.
She gently glides it over my head. My hair is a mess above my brows, along my forehead, and I can breathe the cool fall air once more, relieving me of the shame burning red on my cheeks.
I’m afraid to look at her.
I stare at Sanford, still half-sitting along the well, but his gaze is on Karia, watching her… take care of me.
There is something there in his expression that looks so much like wistfulness, I want to grab this girl and shield her from his sight.
She is mine, you lost yours. Look elsewhere.
But my body feels shaky, my lungs are tight, and as Karia straightens the hem of my hoodie, then smooths her palms along my chest, standing closer, I can’t resist meeting her eye.
And the look there, it makes breathing impossible once more.
Wide eyes, lifted brows, parted lips, she is pushed up on her toes, her breasts grazing my core, but not where my wound is, as if she memorized the place.
“You are handsome,” she says softly, a stray lock of blonde hair falling across her face, obscuring one half of one eye. “You are…” Her slender throat rolls as she swallows. “Perfect.”
My face flushes once more and an irrational bitterness wells up inside of me, ballooning hot and sharp.
You are a liar.
What is it you really want?
I grip the handle of our bag tighter, and ball my other hand into a fist. I can’t look away from her, I can’t touch her, I can’t speak.
Can’t. She makes doing anything impossible.
“We need to leave,” Sanford says, attempting to break this spell she has on me.
But neither one of us look away from the other.
I am sure she can see my vexation, but her expression of wonder doesn’t change.
“Haunt Muren. We need to get there,” Sanford continues.
At this, Karia drops her hands from me and turns, whip-fast. She takes a step back, into me.
I don’t touch her, but I don’t move away.
My brain is still tangled in the second before this one.
I find it hard to focus.
“No,” she says fiercely, her arms crossed as she faces Sanford. “Absolutely not. We came here, and look what it got us.” She dips her chin, and I can imagine the glare of her gaze locked onto his. “I’m sure there are cameras. Additional security. Do you want us to die?”
“How do you think he escaped?” Sanford asks, referring to my leave from Haunt Muren. His tone is calm, as it should be when he speaks to her. “There are no cameras on the property.”
This is, actually, news to me. But I say nothing, resisting the desire to grab Karia by the back of the neck, only to hold on. Beg her to touch me again. To tell me the sweetest, most heartbreaking lies.
Focus, Sullen. Fucking. Focus.
“It’s the first place they’ll look.” She doesn’t back down, volleying back with Sanford like I should be, but I can’t get my head on straight.
“Why?” Sanford straightens, pushing away from the well. He walks slowly toward her and I can’t stop my impulse.
I grab her cervical spine, gripping her tightly in a warning to him.
She doesn’t flinch, but she turns to look at me, and I see a smile on her pink lips before she faces Sanford once more.
He keeps a couple of feet between us, his hands clasped behind his back. His age doesn’t fool me, nor does his leanness. He tried to get me to leave her with the rats and the snakes. He left my mother with the worst one of all.
I will not let my guard down with him.
Especially not with her.
“Cosmo de Actis found a digital receipt for two flights to Orlando, and he is on the way to this place,” Sanford inclines his head, indicating Hotel Number Seven at his back, “as we speak. So no, they won’t come to Haunt Muren. Not yet.”
“You’ve been speaking to Cosmo?” Karia asks, and I can feel the tension in her neck.
I rub my thumb firmly along the side of it, trying to ease her fear, even if I don’t feel anything but dread either.
“I will speak to anyone, so long as Sullen lives.” Sanford doesn’t look at me as he says it, and I don’t believe him at all.
If he does want me alive, it’s for the same reason Stein needs my heart beating. Some darker, more nefarious purpose.
“I won’t ask how you managed that,” Karia continues, “considering we’re pressed for time. But if we agreed to go along with this stupid idea, why would we go to Haunt Muren? What is there?”
The devil.
I’ve seen him.
I clench my jaw and don’t speak. And maybe it isn’t true, anyway. If Stein stays away like Sanford claims he will, the house could just be a house.
44 Ritual Drive is tainted, because of my mother’s death. And Haunt Muren holds echoes of my abuse, too, but the years of torture on Ritual were far worse.
Still, I want to know the answer to Karia’s question.
If this is our chance to go anywhere in the world, why there? Going to Number Seven was stupid enough as it was, and all because I thought I might get answers for why my own father loathed me my entire life.
Haunt Muren is only proof of that loathing, not an answer for the cause.
But when I blink, I find Sanford looking at me, as if I’m wrong.
“You understand you will have to murder him, if you want any chance of living freely. Here,” Sanford glances around the forest hiding us, “there are no weapons. There…” He holds my gaze again. “You know as well as I do there are plenty.”
But something echoes inside my head. The words Stein spoke to Karia and I before Writhe ambushed us all.
Who do you think let him out?
I flex my fingers around the back of Karia’s neck and draw her closer, taking a shaky breath and ignoring the pain in my stomach. “Which side are you on?” I ask Sanford plainly. He’s suggesting a homicide, but it also wouldn’t take much to murder him.
Yet there is a tangled part of me hesitant to do so. He knows pieces of my history I could never gather from anyone else. And once he is dead, there will be no one to tell me if my mother ever loved me or truly cared for Stein. If there was ever a hope this would turn out differently.
If there was something I could have done to stop everything.
And there will be no one left to remind me I am not completely tainted.
“Neither,” Sanford answers me softly, and it feels like a blow, somehow. “But I don’t want to die, buried.”