We collapse together, bodies slick and spent, but even in the afterglow, I hold her close.
She's obsessed with me, and I'm utterly consumed by her—my perfect, eternal possession.
16
LANDON
Awooden cane appeared outside my bedroom.
There was no note attached to it, no explanation of how it got there, no one watching me as I regarded the odd gift.
But I know it was from Ryker.
The bastard returned shortly after two in the morning, and though I didn’t see him, I heard him stumbling around.
He must’ve seen my grimace the day before—must’ve noticed the way I struggled to walk due to the pain in my stomach—and stolen this cane on his way back home.
Love and appreciation for him fill me.
The sly bastard will claim to hate everyone aside from Ellie, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s a secret softy at heart, always performing small acts to show he cares.
I use that cane now to hobble down the hallway, toward the staircase.
One problem of living in a half-completed hotel—there’s no elevator. There are dozens and dozens of floors, but the only way down is a dank stairwell. Fortunately, Raymond moved allof us into rooms on the first floor. Unfortunately, the lack of an elevator makes it immensely difficult to stalk people the way I desire to.
Ryker and Zane make stalking look easy, but the truth is, it’s hard fucking work. I constantly pull at the wound in my stomach while trying to duck behind pillars and disappear down the end of corridors.
But I need to know what Raymond is up to.
He’s been disappearing more and more often, sometimes for as long as I day, and I have no idea why. Is he planning something to help Ellie? Meeting with his fellow FBI agents?
Betraying us all to POP?
I hate the fact that I can’t be with Ellie now, but at the very least, I can protect her this way. I’ll discover what her uncle is up to and then end him, if that’s what it takes.
The carpeting muffles the clack of the cane against the floor as I move down the hallway. I last saw Raymond disappear around the corner on the sixth floor, though I have no idea what’s up here.
Sweat beads on my forehead, plastering my brown hair to my temples, as I finally round the corner.
There’s a door at the end, and the sign above it reads “pool and hot tub.”
Is Raymond taking a daytime swim?
And why the fuck is the pool on the sixth fucking floor? What’s the reasoning behind that? The first floor, I understand. Even the second floor, I could see. But the sixth? Was someone drunk when they made the floor plans?
I press my ear against the door, waiting, but when I don’t hear anything, I tentatively push it open.
The air smells faintly of concrete dust and damp wood. At the center, an empty pool yawns—a rough rectangle of pale gray concrete lined with rebar at the edges where the tiles are meantto go. The bottom is littered with a few discarded screws, a plastic water bottle, and a curling blueprint corner that’s gone soft from moisture. Beside the pool rests an empty hot tub, smaller but equally raw, its fiberglass shell dull and streaked with grime.
Overhead, a single dangling wire swings gently where the light fixture should be. The room’s unfinished ceiling reveals pipes and ducts running like exposed veins.
Across from the door, an entire wall is missing, leaving behind nothing but a wide-open frame that looks out into the forest beyond. Sunlight pours in through the gap and washes everything in a pale gold that does little to warm the chill in the opening.
It’s there Raymond stands, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips. “I know you’ve been following me, boy. Can’t even have a damn smoke break, it seems.”
“I wasn’t exactly being subtle,” I drawl, hobbling forward.
He snorts and finally turns to stare at me, offering the cigarette. I shake my head, and with a shrug, he puts it back into his mouth.