I hit the cement hard, joints groaning as my head bows, almost involuntarily.
The sharp tang of iron is stronger now. Copper, pennies, it floods my nose.
The ache in my gut is worse.
Sharper.
Colder.But the warmth around the wound…
Stein laughs. It sounds genuine.
My eyes drift closed.
“We’re going to have a fun night, you and I,” he says softly. “I can’t let you die just yet. But you can lose a lot of blood until that happens, can’t you,son?”
The room seems to spin around me, even in total darkness.
My body slumps forward, and somehow my face is against the grimy cement. I start to shiver even as the warmth grows on my skin.
Stein comes closer, then I feel his boot on the side of my face.
He presses hard, grinding against my jaw.
His laughter snakes through the room.
And I get it, then, as he keeps pressing, my lips smashed against his sole, my head throbbing as he grinds my skull further into the cement.
He stabbed me.
He stabbed me in the stomach.
Chapter 7
Karia
Slipping down the stairwell is eerie.
I almost regret being so alone.
I pushed on my Vans back in the room my friends left me inside, peered down the hallway, and when I saw nothing, sprinted to the exit of the stairs.
With the power still out, it is completely dark here, no windows letting in the lighter shades of night.
In my mind, so I don’t lose my nerve, I try to calculate the date as I curl my fingers around the metal railing, my footsteps silent, the only sound my pulse beating frantically inside my head. Counting forward from the anniversary Sullen went missing, I think it’s Tuesday. The sixth of October. One of my favorite months, I would usually be preparing to drift from party to party with Cosmo on my arm, drinking at the children of Writhe’s condos or homes bought from their parents’ money. Letting Cosmo touch me and fuck me as I got so drunk, even the ceiling blurred above my eyes. If we decided to go to his place, he would have to carry me inside. He was always gentle in that way, full of an attempt at manners. Never mocked me for whatI did the night before as the sun rose, but maybe because his expectations for me were so low, like everyone else’s.
Pathetic.
The word echoes inside my head.
I tighten my grip on the railing and wince, the cuts in my palm from the shattered glass at the Emporium still fresh.
On the next set of stairs, at the very top, I have to stop. My breath comes in vicious inhales and exhales as I close my eyes tight. The hotel seems to spin in utter blackness around me, my toes perched precariously on the ledge of the step.
The scent of must and cedar and the age of the hotel fills my nostrils as I try to breathe evenly, my heart racing in my chest, and it’s not entirely from sprinting in silence down the stairs.
It’s the memory of Sullen’s teeth along my palm.
How he swallowed a sliver of glass from my skin.
