Chapter 29 Blood Ink
Blood Ink
Liam’s POV
I moved out of bed and turned on the lights. I looked at the time and it was 00:45am.
“Did you call down for anything?” I asked Dylan.
“No, what would I need by this time of the night that can’t wait?” Dylan asked. He was already standing beside me, his voice low and fully awake.
“Maybe it’s not our room.” I said. “Let’s get back to bed.”
I carried Dylan to the bed and we cuddled each other in silence. I closed my eyes and used my heightened senses to check for any sounds in the corridor but it was very quiet, just like a building at depth of nights.
“Liam,” Dylan called me while rubbing my chest.
“Yes, are you okay?” I asked.
“What if all this is my fault? What if they succeed? What if…”
“Stop saying that, as long as I’m with you, I won’t let any harm come your way.” I said.
He dragged himself up until he was resting comfortably on my chest, then he tilted his head to look at me.
“Liam, I… want to feel you… inside of me.” He said while circling his fingers playfully on my chest.
“Are you sure? I didn’t want to do it in the bathroom for the first time.”
Suddenly, something moved at the door like footsteps that didn’t belong to one person.
“Who is it?” I asked but nobody answered.
“Who are you talking to?” Dylan asked.
“Didn’t you hear footsteps outside the door?”
“No, besides this is a bulletproof wall and door.” Dylan said.
That was when it dawned on me that the footsteps weren't human since I’m the only one that’s hearing and feeling it. I moved out of the bed and walked to the door.
“Are you not tired of playing hide and seek? Show your real self and let’s fight it out.” I said, but I got no reply.
The silence stretched for another few seconds and then it felt like an unknown cold rushed through me and made the hairs on my arms stand.
“Dylan!” The voice wasn’t human.
Dylan was behind me immediately, close and his hand gripping the back of my jacket.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Dylan!” The voice came again.
We stood at the door and neither of us moved and then I turned the door’s handle.
I stepped back and put my arm out behind me, pressing Dylan further from the door. I slowly rotated the handle and then, the door swung inward on its own. We looked outside the corridor but it was empty, the light out there was steady, not a single figure in either direction as far as I could see.
I looked at Dylan. “Stay in the room, I will go check out the other sides.”
“Liam…”
“Stay here and lock this behind me.”
I went out before he could finish the argument. I went to the right first, walking fast and quiet, checking the alcoves, the emergency exit at the far end, the stairwell door which was closed and showed no sign of recent use on the other side. Then I checked the left and got the same result. I didn’t even perceive a faint trail or feel the presence of a body. Whatever had been in the corridor had left nothing behind it.
I went back to the room and knocked twice.
“Liam is that you?” He asked.
“Yes,” I replied and he opened the door.
I walked in and he locked the door behind me.
“Did you see anyone?” He asked.
I nodded in disagreement and we just stood in the middle of the room and looked at each other. He pressed his hand against his mouth briefly, thinking. Then he looked down.
There was an envelope on the floor just inside the door, sitting against the base of it as though it had been slid underneath, though the gap was nowhere near wide enough for that. It hadn’t been there when I went out and I was certain of it.
Dylan picked it up before I could and turned it over in his hands.
We took it to the lamp on the bedside table and held it under the light.
His name covered every surface of it. It was written over and over in letters that overlapped and layered across each other until the paper was dense with it. Dylan!. Dylan!. Dylan!. Covering the front and the back and the edges in the dark reddish blood that had not come from a pen.
Dylan’s hand started shaking in fear. I could see in the set of his jaw and the particular stillness of his face that he was holding himself together through will alone, standing in a hotel room in the middle of the night with his name written in blood across every surface of an envelope that had appeared inside a locked room.
I put my hand on his arm.
“I’m okay,” He nodded once, acknowledging it without letting it break the surface.
Then I felt something move behind us. We both turned at the same time.
My shoulder bag was on the chair in the corner where I had left it when we came in, the straps hanging, the main compartment zipped. But it shifted like something was deliberately moving inside of it and pressing outward.