Chapter 5
Find me
I am lying in bed, staring at an inexistent dot on the ceiling, waiting for Lucas and the food I told Blake to bring, when I get startled by a strong voice.
“Dear guests, please close all balcony doors and windows and do not get out of the hotel for the next two days. There is a local warning for a powerful storm that will begin shortly, and we want you to stay safe. Our colleagues from the reception will be at your disposal for any questions you may have! We will not be responsible if you choose not to follow these rules! If you get out of the building and get hurt, you will do it at your own risk! Moreover, for those who need to check out in the upcoming days, please contact us to arrange a convenient solution for both parties. Thank you for your attention! We wish you uneventful days!”
During the announcement, my eyes searched the room for speakers, but I couldn’t find anything. They are too well-hidden. The voice was heard perfectly from every corner of the apartment.
Only after she stopped speaking was I able to process her words: we need to stay inside for two full days.
To hell with my plan.
I’ll need to come up with another solution with Lucas’s help, but we really need to find out if there are any secret microphones in the apartment. I cannot trust anything about Tamwine, so we need to be cautious. Same with the hidden cameras. Who knows what kind of pervs hide behind this facade?
I shiver only thinking about someone watching me while I was changing.
I sigh, looking around in the hope of finding a visible camera to destroy it. My eyes stop just above the full-length mirror next to the closet. I get closer to it, and I can see a detail my mind hasn’t captured before: there is a trace of a door frame around it.
I put my hands on the mirror and pull it away from the wall so I can check the back.
There really is a door. I need to pay more attention to details. Some of them may be too important to miss.
I lift the mirror, lean it against the closet, and pray that I won’t break it. I exhale with ease when it doesn’t happen, and it stays intact. I will think later about where I can put it so I won’t bump into it and wake up with glass shards and blood all around me.
I look at the door and open it. Behind it is a room similar to the one I am in, but brighter.
There is a bed and a couple of furniture pieces, but also another door that seems to go into a bathroom from what I can figure out from afar.
The fact that it has been hidden makes the room even more interesting.
There isn’t any other door to make this room accessible from the hallway.
I can feel a small, cold breeze, and I remember what the woman said through the miraculous speakers. I go to the balcony door and hardly close it as the wind is pushing it in.
A soft knock on the door makes me circle the room back to the main door and open it. I see Lucas with a backpack on his back and a ransacked suitcase in one hand.
I don’t even manage to ask him something, because he passes me by, throws his luggage on the floor, and slams the door shut. He surprises me by taking my hand in his and putting a piece of paper on it.
“I received this note in the room, and I have no other choice,” he puffs angrily. “I’m not in the mood to be relocated as they see fit.”
Please excuse the inconvenience, but you really need to free the room as soon as possible. There is a flood danger in this area, and for your safety, we will try to find you another room for the night. Please proceed to the reception for assistance! Thank you for understanding!
“You’re in luck,” I say, pointing to the room I just discovered.
He hasn’t seen it until that moment, even though his frowning expression is studying the room we are in.
His forehead smooths, his gaze lightens when he sees it, and he relaxes. Then the frown reappears.
“How come you have an enormous apartment and I only had a small room from which I was thrown out earlier than necessary?”
He is frustrated and for good reason. I just smile at him, but before I manage to say anything, another knock at the door is heard.
I see Blake enter with a smile on his lips, the cart full of trays that smells amazing, and two juice jugs.
He slows down, but doesn’t seem to be surprised when he sees Lucas.
“If I’d known you had a visitor, Anmara, I would’ve brought more food.”
“It’s fine. You bring too much food, anyway. My stomach is not that big,” I say, jokingly. “You can put them in the living room.”
“Sure.”
He goes to place the dishes where I told him to, then he comes back, greets us, and looks strangely at Lucas before getting out the door.
“Am I blind, or is it the same Blake from the notebook?” he whispers, still looking at the door even though Blake was no longer there.
“Yep, it is, but I haven’t talked to him about this, and I don’t think I’ll do it anytime soon.
It’s too dangerous, especially after what happened today,” I say in a low voice to Lucas.
“Let’s eat. We need to look for microphones and cameras.
If they heard us in the park, there is a strong possibility that we could be heard anywhere. ”
“Don’t trust anyone,” we both say in unison.
He nods, taking his luggage into the newly discovered room.
There is something about the way we say the same things that makes my body tremble and warm up. Especially down there.
?
After eating, Lucas signals me to come after him in the new room, and I follow him. The first thing I see in a corner of the room is his suitcase, overflowing with a multitude of clothes.
The noise of a zipper brings my attention back to Lucas as he takes his backpack, and throws all of its contents on the bed.
There is a lot of stuff.
I see a couple of strange devices in different sizes, a lighter and other small objects, including a photo of a man and a woman smiling brightly.
They look ecstatic. I don’t recognise their faces, but I feel a strong connection with the girl with brown eyes, probably more powerful than I’m able to make sense of at the moment.
There is something strange in the middle of all of these. When I turn the photo over, I realise that I’m right.
Tamwine.
Find me.
I’m not me.
Who the hell am I?
Lucas grimaces when I look at him, like he also tried to figure out what is up with those two and the words on the back of the photo. I can see the anxiety on his face when he looks at the man in the picture.
The emerald eyes beside me turn to face my ambers, and I can’t believe how much I can lose myself in them.
We get closer to each other without thinking, but something in my core stops me from kissing him.
I have no clue what exactly. Even though the desire is strong, we have another mystery to decipher.
Plus, I feel this need to punch him in the face as much as I want to feel those soft lips on mine for a particular reason. There is a confusing mix of feelings within me.
“It’s something odd about him, and it’s frustrating not being able to figure it out.” Lucas shakes his head and clenches his fists on each side of his body.
My gaze goes from Lucas’s angry eyes to the happy look of the man in the photo. I make this transition a couple of times, realising how similar the two pairs of eyes are.
“Lucas, go to the mirror.”
He looks at me like I have grown a second head. Of course he does. I roll my eyes, take his hand, and bring him in front of the full-length mirror from next to the bathroom door.
“Just look at you and the photo,” I say, and he sighs.
He does as I told him to, and his face freezes when he sees the remarkable resemblance between the two of them.
“Who do you think we need to find? Him or her?” he asks in a broken voice, while looking at my reflection in the mirror.
“I hope we’ll find out soon enough. And get out of this town as soon as possible. It fucking scares me.”
I try to get over it and turn my attention to the rest of the stuff on the bed, hoping to find something useful for once.
I take a strange lantern-like device and press a button on it. Aside from a small green bulb lighting up, it does nothing else. The same goes for the other two devices, which are just some cool small boxes.
My eyes lay on something else: two vibrators. I raise an eyebrow at Lucas, smiling amused.
“What? Wanna try them?” he smirks at me.
“Not now,” I stare at him with wide eyes.
Why not? What’s stopping you?
“Maybe later,” Lucas says, winking at me.
I put aside the strong sensation I had and take my eyes off the sexual toys.
I look once again at the three green lights, and an idea appears in my head.
I take them all to the other room to test my theory, and I know I did something right when two of them change their colour to a red one as soon as I stepped out of the door.
I place the one that hasn’t reacted in any way back on the bed and wave at Lucas to take one of them and rumble around the room.
Unfortunately, he manages to take it without touching me. I am longing for his touch, for his warmth, but I try not to think about that at the moment and focus on what I need to do.
I go to the corner of the room next to the main door, and I see that the colourful light from my device darkens as I get closer to the door.
Ok, so there needs to be something here.
I move the device around it, and it starts to flash in front of the door frame. I get closer and see the trace of a perfect square cut around the right side of the frame. I try taking that piece out, but no luck.
I’m already sick of it. Without thinking about my actions, I clench my fist and hit the frame. I wince and take a step back when it opens like a hatch.
Of course, inside is a microphone. I want to take it out and smash it, but Lucas stops me at the last moment.
“They will know if you do this,” he whispers very close to my ear, making me turn my head in his direction.
He is so close to me that I can feel his breath on my face. My heart starts to beat faster. I do the stupid thing and look at his lips, imagining how he would wreak havoc all over my body.
I gulp and softly nod my head, not finding the right words at the moment. He starts walking to the room he’ll sleep in, and I follow him there, only thinking about how he would lay me on the bed and…
Okay, stop, why do my thoughts go crazy when I’m so close to him? I know he has sweet eyes and a body straight from a porno magazine, but I really do need to calm down.
He closes the door behind us and takes the device from my hand.
He walks around the room with both of them, and I don’t even register when he comes back to me or how much I got lost in my perverse thoughts.
I shake my head lightly, and he makes me look at the devices.
I notice the lights are green and figure that we’re safe in this room.
At least for the moment.
?
We tried to find out what the third device was about, but we had no luck. We just managed to keep the green light on, and that is basically it.
Not to mention the fact that it seems homemade. Clearly not something you would usually find on the market.
At some point, I gave up and put it on the bed, looking for some other useful objects. Aside from some lanterns in different colours and two other strange devices, I haven’t found anything else interesting.
The darkness surrounds us during the search. Nothing around us is visible anymore. Not even a single light from outside.
The power outage hasn’t found the right moment to mess around.
I’m sure this hotel is haunted. That would explain so much, especially the strange noises coming from the bathroom vent.
“As we don’t have enough trouble on our mind,” I sigh.
My hands start searching for one of the lanterns among the things around us, but Lucas beat me to it, blinding me with a strong light for a second there.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, putting the lantern on the bed.
It doesn’t take long for it to die. I can’t manage to keep the dry laugh to myself, thinking that maybe I was right about this building being haunted. I won’t be surprised if I see the shape of a ghost in this profound darkness.
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” Lucas mumbles while rummaging around.
“Nothing important,” I respond, breaking up my frightened laugh.
Another light captures the atmosphere, and I seize the opportunity and take it from his hand. I don’t even mind him when he calls my name. I go straight for the candles I found during the short hunt in my closet.
I take them back to the room and light them with Lucas’s lighter, putting two on the floor and one on the bedside table. Lucas gives me an approving look, especially when the last lantern runs out of juice.
He takes the devices for the microphones and cameras and goes to the other room with them. Seconds later, he comes back angrier than before, throwing them on the bed. That’s a sign that they are still active, even with the power outage.
If they have a separate generator for these kinds of things, I don’t even wanna know what freaks are in charge of this place.
This thought alone gives me goosebumps and makes me wanna teleport myself far away from here.
I put aside my fears and try to concentrate on finding other clues, but no luck there. When I wanted to go to my room to sleep, Lucas stopped me.
“There is a camera that’s aiming directly at the bed. I don’t think you wanna sleep there,” he whispers.
A strong noise makes me jump and get closer to Lucas. I end up near his chest, which is illuminated when a strong lightning bolt strikes the room. It gives the room such a wicked energy that I cannot even put into words.
My chocolate eyes are spellbound by his beautiful eyes, which seem olive in the soft light of the candles.
I just can’t make myself take my gaze off them, but I am forced to do so after he takes me to bed and helps me under the black sheets.
He puts a soft kiss on my forehead, takes one of the candles from the floor, and then his warmth gets away with him to the other side of the door, closing it behind him without saying a word.
I turn my head on the pillow, and I immediately feel a familiar scent, but it isn’t Lucas’s.
The dreams welcome me with open arms, and a pair of pitch-black eyes capture my thoughts.