Chapter 10
The first thing I heard when I came to was the sound of a clock ticking. There was nothing else—just that.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Slow and patient, like calm breathing.
For a moment, I thought I had escaped The Craven, or the nightmare of it. But when I opened my eyes, I knew better.
The bed I was lying on had black sheets and a grey blanket.
A thin white gown wrapped around me, and my hands rested on my stomach with the fingers laced, like someone had laid me to rest. But most disturbing was how clean I was.
There was no blood or other fluids. No evidence of any of the atrocities I’d committed. Nothing but the clean smell of soap.
I stared up at the chandelier overhead. Its dull crystals caught the light but refused to sparkle, and while the ceiling looked darker, with the same age cracks as the rest of the hotel. I was still here. In a different room, but still in The Craven.
The realization settled heavier than panic ever could. Panic meant escape. There was no escaping from this place, or what I did. There was more blood on my hands. It wasn’t staining my skin in bright red, but I could see it.
Sighing, I turned my head to the right. That was when I realized that something had shifted.
Felix stood near the far wall. His reflection caught in the fractured mirror behind him. The creepy smile that was usually on his face. He wasn’t watching me or playful in any way. His attention remained fixed on the clock mounted above the door—a large antique one with a face yellowed by time.
Flynn sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. He rested his back against the bed frame and bowed his head. The white paint on his face looked cracked, and the black lines around his mouth were deeper and darker as if they’d been carved in, instead of drawn.
He wasn’t looming or sinister. He was simply there.
For the first time since I’d seen them, they both looked tired. Exhausted even. Neither one of them spoke or looked my way when I shifted, which was so much worse. I didn’t like the sudden silence.
“What is this place?” I asked while pushing myself up.
Two words. That’s all I got from the normally talkative Felix. “You’re awake.”
“Where’s Austin?” I looked down at my hands, searching for signs of blood.
“Gone,” Felix said.
“I killed him.”
Felix sighed, “He was already dead. He made his choice.”
The clock’s minute hand moved, and Felix’s jaw tightened while Flynn’s finger twitched.
That was when I knew. Whatever room this was, whatever night this marked, I wasn’t here to perform.
I was brought here to witness something. It wasn’t Felix or Flynn. It was this place—The Craven—that wanted me here. I felt it when I first walked through the doors. “What is this place?”
Felix didn’t look at me when he spoke.
“The Craven is a pause. A breath held between what was meant to end and what refuses to.” He glanced at the mirror. “Some pass through without ever knowing. Others…” His eyes slid my way. “…feed it.”
My pulse quickened. “What do you mean, feed it?”
“Sin, Poppet. It feeds on sin and guilt.” Felix looked back at the clock. “You felt it. The way this place strips you down to the bone. It doesn’t care who you wish you were. Only who you are when no one is watching.”
I swallowed. The room felt smaller with every word. “So, it punishes you?”
“Punishment implies morality,” Felix snickered. “The Craven is far more honest than that.”
“But I saw her.”
He glanced back at me. “Did you?”
I did. She was right there in the mirror. I smelled her and could almost touch her.
“Do you really think your sister would be here, in this place?”
Yes.
No.
“I don’t know.”
“That wasn’t your sister, Poppet. It was your guilt.” He waved his hand around the room. “The Craven simply showed it to you.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
Flynn made a sound—a quiet, involuntary hitch in his steady breath. Felix’s gaze flickered to him for just a second. I could’ve sworn something like grief cracked through his composure.
“This place remembers,” Felix said more to himself than to me. “Every choice ever made inside its walls. Especially the ones people swear they’d never make again.”
The clock ticked another minute, the sound deeper this time.
Felix straightened and squared his shoulders like he was bracing for something. “When the bells begin, you’ll understand what staying costs.”
His eyes met mine.
“It’s time for you to choose.”
The first chime rang through the air. It rolled through the room like a pulse, deep and final.
Flynn stiffened, his back arched, and his head snapped up as if yanked by an invisible string. A sharp breath tore from his chest, then cut short as his body seized.
“What’s happening?”
“Every choice has a consequence, Poppet.” Felix looked over at his brother as his fingers curled and uncurled, clawing at the carpet. “This is mine.”
Another chime rang out, and Flynn’s shoulder hit the floor. His legs drew in tight while his body jerked in violent, helpless spasms.
“Help him.” I jumped off the bed and rushed over to Flynn. “Do something.”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
Felix continued to stare at the clock while I tried desperately to do something. Ease his pain, comfort him, anything. But the more I touched Flynn, the more his painted-on smile cracked and split at the corners. And it got worse with each chime.
I gave up by the sixth one and stepped helplessly back.
“If you’re still here when the clock strikes twelve, this will be your fate,” Felix said.
The clock ticked.
Flynn gasped out a wet, broken sound as his body bowed on the floor and another wave tore through him.
I looked from him to Felix, then at the door. “What happens if I leave?”
“You get to do something your sister can’t.” Felix looked over his shoulder. “You get to live, Poppet.”
My eyes once again fell on the door. “What if I don’t deserve to live?”
“The Carven doesn’t care what you think you deserve. Only what choice you make.”
The clock loomed another chime over us.
I watched as Flynn’s eyes rolled back and his face cracked while his muscles locked, and I understood that this wasn’t a punishment. What was happening to Flynn wasn’t a spectacle or something meant to horrify.
It was a ritual.
“Make your choice, Poppet,” Felix said as the clock rang its ninth chime. “Or The Craven will make it for you.”
I looked from one brother to the other and tried to decide what to do. Stay in an eternity of torture, or leave and live a life of guilt?
Torture?
Or guilt?
The tenth chime.
What would Bethie want? Would she want me to suffer for what I’d done?
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
The eleventh chime.
Bethie’s smile flashed through my mind. Not the one she had that night, but the one she wore every morning when she saw me.
I knew what to do.
I walked up to the door and grabbed the handle.
“Stop lying to yourself, Poppet.” Felix warned as I pulled the door open. “The Craven doesn’t grant second chances to many. If you can’t let go of your guilt, don’t walk out that door. You don’t want to come back here.”
Letting go of my guilt was something I didn’t know if I could do.
I looked over at Flynn. His convulsing had stopped. Now he was lying there gasping desperately for air. When I turned back to Felix, I could see the pain in his eyes.
“Why did you stay?”
“Because he did.”
For the first time since I’d met him, I understood Felix. Love made people do crazy things. If Bethie was here then I might stay. But she wasn’t.
The twelfth chime rang as I walked through the door.