Demon Hotel (Zombie Apocalypse Series, Book 1)

by C. M. Chidgey

  "You need to get that looked at."

  "I do." He admitted, but then his face turned angry. "And then we need to talk."

  Great, I knew I would be in trouble for running off, but I thought he could at least give me a day or two. He got to his feet before holding his hand down to me with his good shoulder. I took it and he pulled me up, I was prepared for my ankle so I was careful not to put any weight on it, but I wasn't prepared for my side to start throbbing making me cry out and my vision start to swim.

  "What's wrong?" Lucian asked immediately.

  Instead of responding I clutched my side before pulling my hand away to find it covered in blood. When the hell had that happened? It didn't take me long to remember the slice of pain that had accompanied the pain in my sore ankle after Eric had let me go. He must have stabbed me before releasing me or something because I was certain that it hadn't been there before.

  "Come on." Lucian said reaching out to pick me up.

  "No, your shoulder." I objected.

  "It will be fine." He grunted and before I could stop him again he had me in his arms and was carrying me. "Stay awake Tinkerbell." He said from between clenched teeth letting me know that his shoulder really wasn't fine and making me force my eyes open.

  "Your feet are a mess." He noted glancing towards them as he carried me.

  "Didn't have any shoes." I muttered.

  "If you hadn't left, you wouldn't have had that problem."

  I groaned. "At least wait until we're both stitched up for this argument."

  "Fine." He grunted as he walked down the stairs to the hospital wing and sat me down on a bed with Kate before leaving the room silently.

  "Doesn't his shoulder have to be looked at?" I asked her.

  "Jason will take a look at it." She told me. I nodded and she added. "Ok, what needs to be looked at?"

  I shrugged. "Stabbed in the side, twisted ankle and sore feet."

  "Ok, lie down honey and I'll be right back." She said before getting up and leaving the room.

  I did as she asked wincing as my side protested to the movement. The bed felt so comfortable after sleeping on the concrete floor and I was pretty sure if I had closed my eyes I would have been able to fall asleep within minutes. Kate returned then though so that idea was off the table.

  It turned out that Eric can’t have used a very big knife because it only took a few stitches and it wasn't too deep either. She couldn't do much for my ankle because we didn't have x-ray machines, but she was sure it wasn't broken since I could still put a little bit of weight on it so she just wrapped it up to help support it. The bottoms of my feet were covered in blisters and cuts and it took her almost an hour to clean them up and wrap them.

  All the bandages pissed me off because it meant that I couldn't shower yet, but at least it didn't mean I couldn't wash off all the filth, which I planned to do the second I got back to my room when I got out of here.

  "Ok, all done Taylor. Lucian wanted you to meet him in 215 when you were done here."

  I groaned out loud, great I would have to hold off on getting clean just a little longer and now I was going to get yelled at.

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. "I can't say I'm sorry I'm not you right now."

  "Thanks, that makes me feel better." I grunted as I slid off the bed slowly.

  "Can you walk on your own?" She asked when I winced the second my feet touched the ground.

  I took a few steps away from the bed and gave a small nod. "I'll be fine, thanks for the help Kate."

  "Anytime Taylor, but do try to stop getting hurt, your other injuries haven't even completely healed yet."

  "I'll try my best." I promised before leaving the room.

  My feet and ankle throbbed with every step as I walked up the stairs slowly and went into the elevator. Yet again, I was thankful that the elevator worked in this place, I don't think I would have ever made it up all of those stairs like this.

  When I reached the top floor I shuffled out into the hallway and slowly walked to room 215, the normal guard was standing outside and he raised his eyebrows at me.

  "I guess running away didn't agree with you."

  "Piss off." I grumbled.

  He chuckled. "Someone's in a bad mood." Then he knocked on the door.

  "Come in." Lucian called after a few seconds.

  The guard grinned at me and pushed the door open.

  "Thanks." I muttered as I limped past him and into the room containing all the usual people sitting around the table plus Bethany.

  I only had to take one glance to know that they were all pissed at me. Well this sucked, I had been expecting to be dealing with a pissed off Lucian, but not a whole room full of pissed off people.

  "What do you have to say for yourself?" Lucian asked.

  I glared at him noticing that he now had a clean t-shirt on with no blood covering the shoulder. "Are you kidding me? I can leave when the hell I want, I don't need to answer to you. I made it clear from the beginning that I wouldn't be ordered around by you Adams."

  "You could have at least let someone know you were going." Jack muttered.

  "We were worried." Bethany said. "You ran off in the middle of the night with no weapons or anything while you were still injured."

  "Yeah, well I just needed to be alone for a while." I muttered, not willing to ever tell them the real truth as to why I had left.

  "It was stupid." Lucian yelled. "You were completely incapable of defending yourself, if a zombie had caught up with you, you would have been killed."

  "Well, I got lucky and it didn't and I'm fine."

  "Where were you anyway? We sent scouts out looking for you, we couldn't find you anywhere." Jack said.

  "You did what?" I yelled at him before glaring at Lucian. "Why the hell did you send scouts out when you went crazy when I went out to get that group out from the police station?"

  He actually looked a little uncomfortable as he muttered. "They volunteered."

  "That's not the point." I shouted. "They could have been killed for nothing you idiot."

  "You're the one who ran off!" He returned raising his voice.

  "Yes, I ran off out of choice, that doesn't mean you send people out looking for me. Especially when there are soldiers about!"

  He snorted. "The soldiers are nothing, we've been dealing with them all week, which you would have known if you hadn't run off!"

  "Just because you've been dealing with them it doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, underestimating them is exactly the sort of thing that gets people taken!"

  "We shoot them from a distance, no one is in danger of getting taken and no one knows what we do because we kill them all." He hissed.

  I guess that explained the gun shots earlier, Lucian must have been shouting "now" to let them know to shoot the soldiers and Eric must have freaking escaped again, which meant that he could tell them and I could only imagine how angry the soldiers would be.

  "Yeah, well I suggest you get prepared for a big attack because it won't be long before they find out and then we're fucked."

  "They aren't going to find out." Bethany said.

  "Really, you think Eric won't tell them?" I asked.

  Lucian groaned and glanced around the table. "Any chance that someone shot Eric?" The silence in room was answer enough and Lucian growled out. "Shit, that bastard is always slipping away." Then he turned on me. "Why the hell did you have to turn up at that exact moment? He would have been shot if he hadn't been dragging you away."

  "Well, I'm sorry, next time I'll call ahead to make sure it's ok for me to come back!" I yelled.

  "There better not be a next time." He hissed. "You can't just leave when the hell you want without warning!" He was just getting angrier with each word as he left the table and walked over to me.

  I didn't hear his next words though because the nightmares broke through to the surface and the real Lucian was no longer yelling at me. The Lucian I was seeing was from my nightmares, his angry face see
med to morph into something evil. He got closer and I flinched before clutching my head and trying to blink away the hallucination. What the hell was wrong with me? I was shaking and feeling sick to my stomach, I had to get away from him.

  "I-I need the toilet." I choked out quickly before grabbing for the door and making my escape.

  The evil nightmare Lucian vanished and was replaced with the concerned face of the real Lucian just before I closed the door behind me, made my way up the hallway and went into the elevator. I took slow, deep breaths as the elevator began moving down to the level my room was on. These nightmares really needed to stop, they couldn't start affecting me when I was awake too or it was going to drive me crazy.

  When I reached my room I went into the bathroom immediately and stripped off my clothes before washing the dirt from my body with a cloth and water from the sink. Washing my hair was a bit more of a challenge using the sink, but I somehow managed it and dried myself off before pulling on clean underwear and a too big t-shirt. I let out a sigh glad that I was clean again and walked over to my weapons on my desk before running my fingers over my sword. It was comforting to know I had a weapon at hand again when I needed to defend myself.

  My feet and ankle were killing me so I walked over to my bed and lay down on top of it, not even bothering to get under the covers. My aching body sunk into the soft mattress making it feel like I was on a cloud. I didn't plan on it since it was only about seven 'o' clock, but it wasn't long before I dozed off.

  Chapter 18

  My screams didn't wake me up later that night, instead it was something touching my cheek and the feeling that someone was watching me. I slowly dragged my eyelids open to find Lucian sitting on my bed with a hand on my cheek as he looked down at me. I still wasn't awake properly and everything felt a bit fuzzy so I asked him.

  "Is this a dream?"

  He gave me a small smile. "Do you usually dream about me?"

  "Sometimes." I admitted. "But they aren't good."

  His forehead creased in a frown. "Why is that?"

  I probably wouldn't have told him if I had been fully awake, but my mouth seemed to be working without my permission.

  "After Eric tortures me, you get a box with a spider in like the one in Australia and you put it on me so it bites me."

  His eyes widened and he ran his fingers down my cheek wiping away tears that I didn't realise were falling as he said. "You know I would never do that to you though right?"

  I nodded.

  "Is that why you freaked out earlier?"

  I nodded again.

  "Why did you run?" He asked. "You scared the hell out of me, Elizabeth came and told me she saw you in the hallway and you looked upset. When I made it down to the lobby the guards were going crazy, they told me you ran off. I went out looking for you that night and every night since, but I never found you."

  "I was hiding out in a basement." I confessed. "There was food and water there and I didn't have any weapons so I stayed inside."

  "Why did you come back?" He asked seeming to notice how I had avoided answering about why I ran. Half asleep or not I wasn't about to tell him the truth about that.

  "I kept worrying that the soldiers would come back and kill everyone, I couldn't sit there and think about it anymore."

  "I wasn't sure if I'd ever see you again." He murmured. "Are you ever going to tell me why you ran?"

  I shrugged slightly. "I don't know."

  "I missed you Tink." He whispered.

  "I missed you too." I murmured lifting my hand up and wrapping it around the hand he had pressed against my face as I pushed my cheek closer.

  I still wasn't entirely sure if this was real or not, if it was then I really shouldn't be letting myself feel so comforted by him. If it was just a dream then it wasn't as bad since he wouldn't know about it, but it would still end up getting me hurt. It was certainly a better dream than the ones I had been having lately though so it was ok to just give into it this once right?

  I let my eyes close as I clutched onto his hand and then I felt his lips press against my forehead before he started to pull his hand away.

  "No, don't go." I mumbled.

  I didn't want this dream to end, if it did it meant that the nightmares could come back. If he left then the dream would probably end and I didn't want that to happen. He sighed. "Ok, but you just remember when you wake up that you asked me to stay."

  I grunted in response, I had no idea what he was talking about, he wouldn't really be there when I woke up, he would be in his room like he really was now.

  He lay down next to me on my bed and I let him remove his hand from my cheek so that he could wrap his arms around me and pull my back against his front. I winced when his arm brushed against my side where I had been stabbed and he immediately repositioned his arm and murmured.

  "Sorry."

  I didn't bother to reply, but just let myself relax in his arms and shivered as he brushed my hair away from my face and neck before planting a kiss on the side of my neck making me want to kiss him back, but I was so comfortable that I couldn't build up the effort to bother.

  We weren't there for long before Lucian's breathing slowed down turning into soft snores. I moved one of my hands to his and grabbed it interlocking my fingers with his before I followed suit and let myself drift off, I just hoped that I wouldn't have anymore dreams that night.

  I was slow to wake up the next morning, reluctant to leave my sleep that had been nightmare free for the first time in a week. My duvet was wrapped around me in a cocoon of warmth and I snuggled deeper into it not wanting to open my eyes just yet. The sound of breathing not coming from me had my whole body tensing up, why the hell was my duvet breathing?

  "Relax Blondie." Lucian grumbled sleepily before squeezing me gently.

  Ok, well I guess that meant that I had Lucian wrapped around me, not my duvet and that also meant that last night hadn't actually been a dream since he was here. My first reaction should have been to push him away and get out of bed, but I was just so comfortable that I did as he suggested and relaxed into his arms. I buried my face into his chest and let him hold me close ignoring the part of my mind that was screaming at me to move away.

  Lucian moved his head down and whispered against my ear. "Hmm, I expected you to be out of bed screaming at me by now."

  "I still haven’t decided against it." I murmured trying to stop my body from reacting to the touch of his lips as he pressed them below my ear in a gentle kiss. I froze when I felt something hard press against my stomach, without looking down I muttered. "Tell me that isn't what I think it is and you keep a gun in your pocket at night."

  He gave a deep chuckle that sent shivers down my spine. "I've just woken up and I'm a guy, give me a break."

  I snorted. "That is such a lame excuse."

  All I got in response was a grunt before he started kissing the side of my neck gently. It was another moment that I should have pulled away from him, but I found myself tilting my head to give him easier access and despite my best efforts to keep quiet a groan escaped my throat. He moved his hand onto my cheek and used it to tilt my head up so that he could press his lips against mine. I kissed him back desperately and wrapped my arms around his neck as he rolled me over onto my back and held himself above me.

  It was only seconds later that someone knocked on the door, but we both ignored it and Lucian slid his tongue into my mouth. I ran my hands down his front before moving them under the hem of his t-shirt to slide my fingertips over his stomach and up to his chest. The knocking sounded so far away and unimportant, all I was interested in was Lucian and nothing was about to stop me.

  At least that's what I thought until the sound of Elizabeth's voice came through the door and with it was an ice cold bucket of water being poured over me.

  "Lucian, are you in there? I need to talk to you."

  Lucian stopped kissing me and called back. "I'll be there in a second."

  He didn't even look a little ashamed
of himself to have been kissing me when his girlfriend was standing right outside. However, I was just angry with myself for giving into him. I should never have told him to stay last night even if I had thought it was a dream, it was stupid. It felt like my heart was breaking, I really had to stop doing this to myself. I had no idea what expression was on my face, but it made Lucian frown at me in confusion.

  "What is it?"

  I shook my head and lied. "Nothing, but I have to go to the bathroom."

  He pecked me on the lips before getting up off of the bed. "Ok, I'll be back in a minute Tink."

  I just nodded unable to understand how he could be ok with doing this. He was going to go out of this room and talk to his girlfriend and then just come right back in here probably wanting more kisses. There was no way I could do it though, that was the last time, I couldn't take anymore of it. I didn't agree with cheating and I certainly didn't want to encourage it. Even worse, I was falling for him and it had to stop now before letting him go got harder. I had run away to get away from him, but now I was right back to square one.

  I climbed off of the bed wincing at the pressure on my ankle and still sore feet as I glanced around the empty room, I hadn't even heard Lucian leave. Before he could come back in the room I walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. If I locked myself in here then I wouldn't be tempted to kiss him and he couldn't wait outside my bathroom door forever. He would have to go off and do some stuff, then I could come out, but I didn’t know what excuse I was going to make for being in here.

  I wished that I could have taken a shower, then I could have just taken a really long one and hopefully he would be gone by the time I got out. Lucian knew that I wouldn't be able to take showers with my bandages on though so that wouldn't work. There must be something I could come up with to explain being in the bathroom for a really long time.

  I sighed and sat down on the bathroom floor thinking I might as well get comfortable for a long stay. My side was already throbbing as I sat there, being stabbed wasn't as bad as being shot had been, but it still hurt like a bitch.