Page 13 of Hollow House

I woke from sleep when I heard a small beeping sound. I glanced around, noticing it was still pitch black outside. How long had I accidentally slept for?

Sitting up in a panic, I felt strong arms pull at my waist, trying to tug me back down. The unexpected touch startled me, and I jumped further away.

“Where am I?” I asked, wildly looking around. My mind felt blurry, and I grasped to remember what had happened before I passed out.

The Wraith sat up and grabbed my chin firmly, forcing me to look at him.

Right. Him.

“You’re safe, love,” he answered as he helped me lay back down next to him. The Wraith remained next to me, unmoving while my chest rose and fell at a fast pace. The adrenaline crash was intense, my body trembling.

“How long?” I asked, a bit embarrassed.

“Only an hour,” he murmured, his fingers running along my cheek in reassurance.

The beeping sound started again, and I felt him reach to pull something from his pocket.

“Fuck,” he muttered, pulling out a phone and opening it.

“Hmm?” I answered, fully turning toward him.

“I have something I have to handle.”

I didn’t expect more than a one night hook up, but after he declared me his for the rest of the night, I did expect more than this. A ridiculous excuse to slip away?

“I don’t know you whatsoever. You could just tell me the truth and be done with me for the night,” I said, a bit of a bite to my tone.

He moved so fast, I had no time to register as he climbed on top of me and pinned me to the bed. His weight shifted, his hard cock rubbing against my thigh.

“You feel that?” he asked. “That, love, is the effect you have on me. I would rather stay here and have you ride me until you see stars and scream my name, but I have a small matter to handle.”

“I still don’t know your name,” I scoffed, unsure how much I believed him.

“You don’t need to right now. All you need to know is you are mine, and you have learned nothing tonight if you think for a second I am done with you.”

With that, he stood, grabbing his shirt from the end of the bed. He finished buttoning it on the way to the door.

“Don’t wander too far,” he said as he grabbed the handle. “I’ll be back shortly.”

He slipped out the door, shutting it quickly behind him. The click of it latching again had me sitting up and staring into the darkness. What the fuck was all of that?

My head was barely clear enough to think straight. The wine and sex had me all forms of fucked up. I need to wash up, splash some water on my face. I also needed to pee before I doomed myself to my worst nightmare: a UTI.

Not the parting gift I wanted to take home with me.

I far preferred to take with me a story that would be my ticket out of the town. I still didn’t have the information I needed for any type of juicy article, but I was working on it. I was close, I could feel it. I just needed to stop getting distracted by sex.

The best sex I’d had in a long time, possibly ever. Okay, definitely ever.

But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I sensed he already had a big enough ego, and he didn’t need more to fuel it.

I pulled myself out of the bed, refusing to sulk and wait for the mystery man to come back. He may have been great, fucking fantastic, but I also wasn’t about to let myself become the woman who wasted the party waiting for him.

I at least needed to find a bathroom and clean up.

The hall was empty when I pulled the door open. I knew I was on the second floor, but I hadn’t been paying attention when running for my life.

I walked for a while, hitting dead ends and trying to follow the sound of music I could faintly make out. Stairs appeared in front of me after far too long spent wandering the halls. They weren’t the main staircase, but I imagined I could still get down to the party from them.

As I walked down, the music grew louder. It beckoned me back to the main room, begging me to join the festivities. I’d almost forgotten how many remained downstairs.

Eventually, I spotted a woman walking toward me and waved to her. She eyed me cautiously, and I realized how manic I looked, with my hair a tangled mess and my mask covering half my face.

Her own mask was a pastel pink, silver outlining the edges.

“Where is the bathroom?” I asked politely, needing to clean myself up.

“Right down that hall,” the woman answered and hurried off before I could even thank her.

I noticed the narrow hall branching off to the right in front of me. It was not the same as any I’d gone down before.

A waitress appeared in the hall, carrying a tray of drinks and walking toward me. I could hear the music following from where she came as she offered me another drink of wine. I politely declined, my head feeling clouded.

Maybe it was the high of another orgasm, or perhaps I’d had too much to drink too fast.

I wandered down the hall, the instructions enough to get me away from the party. But once in the hall, I quickly realized how misguided I was.

Doors lined the walls, all unlabeled. I opened a few, closets and sitting rooms behind each. Nothing remotely close to a bathroom, though.

I turned down a hall that branched to the right, hopeful I’d find something. All this space—there had to be at least one around.

After many failed attempts, I finally found one in the furthest corner of the house. The door groaned as I pushed it open. The dim lights just barely lit the stalls enough to see. It wasn’t quite what I was imagining in a mansion. Instead, it resembled more of a rundown school bathroom.

I picked the middle stall, realizing I had my pick with no attendees in the bathroom with me. The door shut behind me, and I had to fidget just to get the lock in place.

I peed as fast as I could, anxious to get back. The more time I spent away from the Wraith, the more I found my morals and plans going out the window.

My body craved his presence. The longer I was away from him, the more I itched to feel his touch again. I’d make my way back to the room he left me in and wait for him.

A small thud echoed through the bathroom, and I froze, standing up in the stall. Another guest had to have entered.I tried to catch a glimpse through the crack of the door, curious about each party goer. The more I learned, the more I could write for the article.

At first, I saw nothing. The longer I stared, I realized how ridiculous I was being. I smoothed out my dress, ready to step out and wash my hands. If someone was out there, I could see for myself then.

“Sloane.”

The word was a whisper, barely even there. Did I even hear it?

The water dripped—perhaps it was that, the sound echoing and playing tricks on my mind.

I looked up through the crack, convinced I heard my name.I could just make out the sink and counter, water dripping and driving me crazy. The little sliver wasn’t enough to capture the bathroom, and my stall was too small to move around and see beneath the others.

Steps echoed lightly, and I tried to quickly gather myself and flush. The sooner I could get back around the people in the main room, the better. I couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling.

I turned from flushing the toilet and caught movement in the crack of the door. My eyes tried to focus, and I leaned in to catch a glimpse in the narrow view.

A woman moved into view, and I tripped back, steadying myself on the wall. In the blink of an eye, she was gone.

I unlocked the door quickly, her blood-covered appearance panicking me, urging me to help her. She knew my name.

Was it the woman from before, the one in the window?

The door flew open, and I was met with nothing. Not a single person stood in the bathroom, and silence hung in the air. Impossible.

She was there just a moment prior…

I rubbed my eyes, smudging my glitter eyeshadow a bit, and looked around again. No one was in the bathroom with me. I swallowed hard and approached the sink. The water ran freezing cold when I turned it on, and I let it splash against my skin, snapping me out of whatever delusion I was stuck in.

The lights flickered, and I tried to rinse the soap off faster. I couldn’t grab a paper towel before the lights completely cut out. My heart stopped, and I sprinted for the door.

My hands scrambled against the wall in the dark, searching for it. I bumped into something and realized it was a trashcan as I maneuvered around it. A sound behind me made me move faster, and I nearly tumbled out into the hall as my hands found and pushed open the door.

I ran down the hall, back the way I came, without looking back. It wasn’t until I was back up on the second floor that I paused to catch my breath and slow my heart rate.

What the fuck had I stepped into…