Page 83 of Cruel Pleasures

But my affirmations do nothing to stifle the craving that’s taken root.

The past week has been full of so much pleasure, I’m not sure I can block out what happened. I still feel Archer buried deep inside me as he pumped away and the leafy hedges tickled my spine. I can still feel the abrasive rope rubbing painfully yet deliciously between my soft thighs.

I can even remember the pleasure that had unfurled inside me in my dreams.

Tossing and turning, I moaned and shook and came.

This morning I woke yet again slick with juices from another wet dream.

…or are they really dreams?

Sometimes, I feel like I can feel things in the dark, like some creature has invaded me. The same dark energy that’s begun to make me question my sanity.

I didn’t kill Talia. I didn’t kill Quincy. I’ve seen Lyra. I know I have.

But when I rack my brain for memories that feel like they’re missing, nothing turns up. Just the vague awareness that I had felt so good in the dark, writhing in my bed. I’d chased after Lyra only for her to disappear as if never real.

My mind wanders to the guy in room six who happens to be Ryu. I’d known it when looking up into his scowling face. His eyes were the eyes of the masked man in room six. They were just as dark and unendingly soulless.

When he gripped me by the wrist, my body shuddered like it had in my binds. But why wouldn’t he reveal himself? Why would he even care that I’d convinced Timothee to give me some spice?

What could he have meant when he said there were forces after me? That I’d be torn to pieces?

Obviously, he had to be alluding to my search for Lyra and the fact that the Hostess revealed the first night of the Midnight Games that she knew who I really was. The Midnight Society must be trying to suppress the truth.

The closer I get to discovering what it is that’s being hidden, the bigger threat I pose.

I reach for the photograph I swiped from the room where I’d found a trunk of Lyra’s things. The polaroid feels like a relic from the far past, flimsy and water-damaged in my hand. Two small girls in matching pajamas with the letters J and L stitched on the front along with childish cartoon bears. Lyra stares back at me forlornly, almost as if begging for help, as she and her sister sit on either side of their mother. A woman who I don’t need to have met to know was a nasty piece of work…

“Where are you, Ly?” I whisper, running my fingertips over the photo. “How could you leave me?”

The many questions still circle my thoughts when a fist pounds at the door. I leap up from the canopied bed and rush over as if there’s a peephole from which I can peek out through. When it occurs to me I’ll have to open the door to find out who’s on the other end, I slow up and then say, “Who is it?”

No answer.

“Who is it?!” I call again, louder. With more bass in my voice. Annoyance contorts my features when no one answers.

But I do catch onto the pad of footsteps as they die away. Whoever was on the other end is running off.

“Oh no you don’t,” I grind out, flinging the door open.

I’m stepping out of my room and into the hall in the same moment the mystery person rounds the corner at the other end. The heel of their sandaled foot is the only thing I’m able to see before they’re out of sight entirely.

Sandaled feet that belong to a woman; sandaled feet that are a smooth, rich brown.

“Lyra?” I mutter. “Lyra!”

I throw myself forward in a mad dash to catch her. The rest of the floor feels eerily silent with no one else around except for the watchful eyes and upturned noses of the many portraits gracing the walls. The entire Hurst family purveying over the moment like they’ve done everywhere else in the castle-like house.

Alive… or dead.

“Lyra!”

Her name leaves my lips in a desperate pant as I close the gap. I’m racing down the next hall just as a door at the end slams shut with a harsh thud. Determination has coalesced with the other emotions mixed up inside me, pushing my legs to work faster. My hand outstretches for the brass knob.

I jerk at it, fully expecting for the door to be locked. Instead it pushes open and reveals what looks like a private study.

The walls are papered a deep navy that makes the room feel dark and forbidding. The drapes are drawn across the wide window with only a desk lamp on to provide a meager stream of light. Dust coats most of the burly furniture from the armchairs to the bookcase at the back. Its stale smell tickles my nose from the second I cross the threshold.