58. Cain
Cain
Money is the single most effective skeleton key in the world.
Now, I was standing in the dimly lit hallway of the twelfth floor, leaning back into the deep alcove of my doorway. I watched with silent amusement as a bored-looking teenager in a maroon hotel uniform pushed a silver room service cart down the plush carpet.
He didn’t even wait for her to answer. He simply rapped his knuckles lazily against the door, abandoned the tray on the floor and turned on his heel, pulling his phone out as he headed back to the elevator.
Pathetic work ethic. But incredibly convenient for me.
I stepped out of my alcove, my footsteps making no sound on the thick carpet. I walked over to the tray sitting on the floor. The smell of greasy meat and fried potatoes wafted up from the porcelain plates.
I reached into the inside pocket of my coat, my steady fingers pulling out the familiar small, glass vial.
I uncorked it with my thumb and carefully lifted the top bun of the cheeseburger and let three clear, tasteless drops fall directly into the centre of the meat. It absorbed instantly, leaving absolutely no trace. I replaced the bun perfectly, ensuring the plate looked untouched.
I reached out and delivered a sharp, authoritative knock to the wood of her door, making sure she knew her food was waiting.
In a fraction of a second, I melted back into Room 1204, pulling my own door shut with a soft, barely audible click.
I walked over to the adjoining wall—the thin layer of drywall and insulation separating my world from hers—and sat down in the velvet armchair pressed right up against it.
I leaned my head back, closing my eyes. With my immortal hearing, the wall might as well have been made of paper.
I heard the scrape of the heavy chair she had dragged in front of her door. I heard the frantic, paranoid clicking of the deadbolt and the chain lock being undone. A brief pause as she pulled the tray inside, and then the satisfying sound of every single lock being shoved back into place.
Good girl, I thought, a dark, wicked smile curving my lips. Lock us both in.
A moment later, my brother’s voice echoed through the wall.
I sat in the dark, my hands resting casually on the arms of the chair, and listened to Julian beg.
It was music to my ears. He was desperate.
He was terrified. He was practically ordering her to run to his fortified estate, fully aware that her pathetic little apartment locks meant nothing to the man hunting her.
And then, I listened to Sage seal her own fate.
“Julian, I’m really starting to think I’m just losing my mind,” she murmured.
Even after leaving the undeniable evidence in her car today, she was still doubting herself.
I could hear the subtle, soft sounds of her chewing. She was eating the burger. The sedative was already slipping into her bloodstream, mixing perfectly with the false sense of security this hotel was providing her.
I listened as she flawlessly gaslit herself.
She rationalised the SUV. She rationalised the power outage.
She even managed to convince herself that she had simply misplaced the black lace panties I had stolen from her bed.
It was a masterpiece of psychological self-destruction, and I hadn’t even had to say a single word to her.
“I am perfectly safe,” she promised my twin, her voice already starting to take on that faint, heavy slur of chemical exhaustion. “I’m going to sleep for twelve hours straight in this giant bed…”
I opened my eyes, staring at the blank wall in the dark.
“Yes, you are, little bird,” I whispered to the empty room, knowing Julian couldn’t protect her, knowing she was now at my mercy, and knowing that when she finally woke up, the illusion of her safety would be permanently shattered.
I sat perfectly still in the dark, listening through the wall as the chemical weight of the sedative finally dragged her under.
The soft sounds of her chewing stopped. Her breathing slowed, turning heavy and shallow. There was a faint rustle of fabric, followed by the dull thud of her phone slipping from her fingers and hitting the floor.
“Sage?” Julian’s voice vibrated thinly through the drywall, laced with a sudden edge of panic. “Sage, are you there? Did you fall asleep?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
I stood up, adjusting the cuffs of my dark coat and walked over to the adjoining door connecting our rooms. It was locked from her side, but the mechanism was nothing against the heavy steel bypass tool I slid into the gap.
With a soft, metallic click, the deadbolt disengaged.
Safety is just an illusion, a deranged comfort we tell ourselves.
I turned the handle and pushed the door open, stepping into her sanctuary.
My eyes immediately swept the space, and my jaw tightened.
It was chaotic. The velvet armchair was shoved haphazardly against the main door.
The greasy room service tray was sitting recklessly on the pristine white duvet, dangerously close to staining the sheets.
And sage was slumped at an awkward, asymmetrical angle across the pillows, her bathrobe twisted around her legs.
It deeply offended my nature.
I walked slowly towards the bed. “Sage. Wake up,” Julian ordered through the phone speaker lying on the ground. “Sage. Answer me.”
I ignored my brother for a moment, my attention captivated by the girl on the bed.
I leaned over her, and a dark thrill spiked through me.
The sedative was a heavy paralytic, designed to shut down the central nervous system. But because her adrenaline had been running so high for the last two days, it had created an interesting side effect.
Her eyes were open just a fraction.
Her dark pupils were dilated, fixed blindly on the ceiling. As my shadow fell over her, I watched terror flood those deep blue depths. Her chest hitched with a trapped breath. She was semi-lucid. She could see me. She could feel my presence. But she was entombed inside her own paralysed body.
A sinister smile curled my lips. “Hello, little bird,” I whispered.
I could see the frantic, screaming panic behind her eyes, but she couldn’t move a muscle.
“I can’t stand a mess,” I murmured calmly, turning my back on her panicked gaze.
I picked up the greasy room service tray, carrying it all the way to the hallway door and setting it on the floor. I walked into her bathroom, turning on the hot water. I took a clean, white washcloth, soaked it, and wrung it out meticulously before walking back to the bed.
Her eyes tracked my movement, wide and screaming.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning beneath me. I leaned down and gently, methodically wiped the grease and salt from her lips and chin with the warm, damp cloth. I folded the cloth into a perfect square and set it on the nightstand.
Then, I reached into her discarded canvas tote bag and pulled out her hairbrush.
I spent the next five minutes grooming her.
I brushed every single tangle out of her dark waves, smoothing the hair out so it fanned perfectly and symmetrically across the white pillows.
I grabbed her shoulders, feeling her heart hammering a untamed rhythm—and shifted her body until she was lying perfectly straight in the dead centre of the king-sized bed.
I pulled the white duvet up to her waist, smoothing every wrinkle out of the fabric. Finally, I took her small, limp hands and folded them flawlessly over her stomach.
Immaculate.
“Who is there?” Julian’s voice suddenly roared from the phone, the sound echoing in the quiet, thoroughly cleaned room. He had heard the rustling. “Sage! Sage, pick up the phone!”
I crawled onto the bed, sliding my large frame right next to her.
I braced my weight on my forearm, hovering directly over her paralysed body.
I could feel the frantic heat radiating off her skin.
I reached out and picked the phone up off the floor next to the bed, holding it between my mouth and her ear so she would hear every single word.
I let the silence stretch for three gruelling seconds. I wanted Julian to feel the suffocating helplessness of the distance between us.
I reached my free hand out, slowly tracing the back of my knuckles down the soft curve of Sages spine.
“Shhh,” I whispered into the phone, my voice a smooth, icy drawl.
“She is perfectly safe, brother,” My eyes locked onto her terrified, paralysed gaze. “I’m taking excellent care of her.”
I leaned down, my lips brushing the shell of Sages ear. She couldn’t flinch. She couldn’t turn away. She just had to lie there and feel my breath against her skin.
Julian let out an inaudible shout of obscenities and threats on the other end of the line as the realisation hit.
I smiled, pressing my thumb gently against her bottom lip.
“Goodnight, Julian,” I said mockingly.
I tapped the red button, ending the call, and dropped the phone onto the nightstand, leaving my twin to drown in the silence of his failure while I stayed in bed with the girl he loves.