I stand and grab the invitation from the bed, shaking off the bits of glass. I leave my keycard on the dresser because I won’t be coming back to this room. Instead I’ll grab Daniel and my father, and we’ll head to room 1336. We’ll wake up. We’ll be together there.
At the door I see I’ve bled through the shirt wrapping my wound. I unravel the fabric carefully to check the cut, and I’m stunned when I find my skin smooth. Unbroken. I open and close my hand a few times, completely healed, although the shirt is stained with blood.
Both Elias and Catherine told me that Kenneth couldn’t hurt me, and now I know why: I’m not really here. But if that’s true, how can Kenneth inflict so much pain on Lourdes? Terrify the other guests? What’s different about them?
My telephone rings from the nightstand, startling me. I don’t wait to find out who it is. I yank open my door and rush toward the elevator, invitation in hand. I’ll play their game. I can fake dead better than anyone. I’ve done it for the past three months.
I think about my mother, and for the first time since she died, the thought of her doesn’t weaken me. It gives me strength. I’m brave. I’m courageous. I’m—
Sick.
Because when the elevator doors slide open, Kenneth is standing there, waiting for me.
Chapter 18
I see you’re dressed for the party,” Kenneth says, folding his hands over his chest. I glance sideways at him, his short arms and pudgy fingers. The normally pleasant face that now represents oppression and torture. “I must say you are a vision in red, Miss Casella,” he adds politely. “It was a good choice.”
I scoff, and roll my eyes to the ceiling, not willing to accept his compliment with grace. “I’m not scared of you,” I lie. “You can’t hurt me.”
Kenneth glances at my invitation and then lifts his chin, murmuring out a “Hm . . .” that manages to be both condescending and menacing at the same time.
The elevator is painfully slow, to the point that it stops moving. Sweat gathers at my temples, but I try to stay calm. From what I’ve already learned, I’m guessing this is Kenneth’s doing. His manipulation. I turn to him again, the taste of disgust thick on my tongue.
“We’re leaving,” I say, folding my arms over my chest in an attempt to look stern. I’d rather have armor. “You can’t keep us here.”
“I’m merely the concierge, Miss Casella,” Kenneth says. “I have no authority over whether you remain at the Ruby.” He runs his gaze over me, weighing out his words. “My guess is the decision will be up to you. How eager are you to get to your grandmother’s house?” His lips twitch with a smile, and he turns to face the elevator doors like my fight to survive bores him.
“How do you know about my grandmother’s house?” I ask, although I’ve already guessed the answer.
“Your father has been very forthcoming with his problems,” Kenneth replies. “It’s therapeutic for him, you see. He’s lost and overwhelmed. Luckily for him, unruly children tend to behave in the Ruby. He begged me to let you stay longer.” He glances over with an amused expression. “Perhaps he likes you better this way.”
I swallow down the comment, unable to argue the truth in it. But what Kenneth doesn’t know is that I’ve already seen my choice. I woke up cold and alone on the side of the road and came back for my family. The fact that he’s unaware must give me an advantage somehow.
“Does my father know what you are?” I ask bitterly. “What you really are?”
Kenneth lifts one of his hands in a Who knows? motion. “Your father is quite deft at denial. I suspect he needed someone to talk to, and I was more than happy to fill the role. He’s enjoying the freedom the Ruby provides, the respite from his grief. I do believe he’s forgotten all about your mother’s tragic death. All about your tantrums and parties. All about his pitiful life beyond these doors,” he snarls, and straightens his posture. “Your father will never leave the Hotel Ruby, Miss Casella,” he says. “You should probably begin to accept that.”
I step back, and the fabric of my dress makes a swishing sound against my legs. Kenneth’s threat only succeeds in solidifying my bravery. “You’re not keeping him,” I say, pointing my finger in Kenneth’s face. In my other hand the invitation crumples in my fist. “No matter what he’s done, he’s my father. And I’m getting him and my brother out of here. You won’t stop me. You can’t.” I have the vague sense that I’m full of shit, but I’m too angry to stop now. “I’m going to walk into your precious party and grab them both. And then you’ll never see us again.”
Fueled by my rage, I step closer to him, closer than I’d ever normally want to be. “We’re leaving, Kenneth. And I’ll burn this place to the ground if you try to stop me.”
Kenneth’s eyes widen, and I can see the hatred seep out. His arms fall to his sides, and he lowers his chin slowly, his mouth puckered and turning white. He’s terrifying.
“You should be careful of the things you threaten, Miss Casella.” He hisses out my name, and I step back. “Your friends will be very sorry that you’d make such a callous claim.”
I furrow my brow, about to ask him what he’s talking about, but the elevator bell dings for the lobby. Without another word, Kenneth walks promptly through the doors and disappears into the crowd moving toward the party.
What did he mean about my friends? Is he going to hurt Lourdes again? Elias? I start to walk out, when Catherine appears at the elevator entrance. At first she looks dumbfounded by my appearance, but then she spins inside and presses the button for the basement.
“Stop,” I say, darting forward. I push past her to hit the lobby button, but the doors close. “Damn it, Catherine. I have to get my brother!”
“Daniel is perfectly safe,” she says, casting a look at the invitation in my hand. She adjusts her stance, gorgeous in her white dress and perfect makeup. “Your dysfunctional family dynamics can wait.”
I notice that she’s shaking, and my anxiety spikes. “What happened?” I ask. “Where’s Elias?” Is Catherine like me too—caught in some in-between? Or is she just a person who’s trapped here, talking to ghosts? The elevator stops and signals the basement floor.
Catherine walks out into the hallway and then pauses to look back at me. “You need to see this, Audrey. You have to know this part of the Ruby before you go blindly into that party.” She groans when I don’t immediately move. “This is ironic, you know,” she says, clearly irritated. “I’m trying to save you, but it’s not because I like you, or even because I like your brother. I’m doing this because Eli cares about you. Even if I think he can do better.”
Elias must not be injured; otherwise, Catherine would be running to him. But the image of them in the billiard room is still fresh in my mind. The gentle way they spoke to each other. The way they touched. I freely admit to my jealousy, and I’m pitiful when I ask, “Do you love him, Catherine?”
She smiles softly. “Always.”
“Does he love you?”
“Never.” Her response is immediate but not cold. She states it as a simple fact—a painful one, judging by the way her eyes glass over. She could have drawn out the moment and tortured me, but she didn’t. She may not be completely terrible after all.
“Now,” she says, sniffling. “Unless you’d like me to tell you you’re pretty, too, I suggest we hurry up before the rest of us are set on fire.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
Catherine slips out of her shoes, hooking the straps over her finger to carry them, and starts to dash down the hallway. I have to run to catch up with her, tottering in my own heels. Catherine, of course, is the picture of elegance, even when she’s jogging in a sequined gown. We turn the final corner, and my worry deepens when I see several staff members gathered outside Lourdes’s door. They shrink away as we approach, avoiding eye contact with Catherine.
“The concierge doesn’t want guests in housekeeping,” Lourdes told me when I first met her. More than ever the staff are frightened, and I can’t help
but to absorb some of their worry. I can barely catch my breath when I reach the doorframe, petrified to peek inside the room. But Lourdes is my friend, and I won’t walk away from her if she needs me.
I steady myself and then look inside. The first person I see is Elias, positioned on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees, his face in his palms. The room is dimly lit, blood soaked into the carpet where Kenneth died, lamps and dishes broken. It takes a moment for me to understand the rest, and I recoil in horror, dropping my invitation.
Lourdes lies in bed, only I wouldn’t recognize her if it weren’t for her hair. Her skin is burned, so horribly burned that I scream and trip over my heels backing out of the door. I hit the floor hard but keep sliding back until I bump the wall. I smother my mouth to quiet my screams, my eyes fixed on the terrifying scene in front of me.
Lourdes’s charred skin is black as charcoal, bits of red muscle peeking through the broken edges. Her fingers are gone, her arms lie limply next to her, her nose and lips decimated. Her eyes rest wide and unblinking because the lids have been burned off.
I cover my face, my head between my knees as I sob. Kenneth did this. I told him in the elevator that I’d burn this place down to get out, and now he’s burned my friend. This is my fault. This is how he’s punishing me.
A warm hand slides over my arm. I yelp, struggling until I realize it’s Elias. “Audrey, you shouldn’t be here,” he says, taking my elbow to help me to my feet. “You . . .” He stops when he notices my dress, and shoots Catherine a questioning look. She avoids his eyes and walks inside the room. I’m half out of my mind and clutch Elias’s white shirt for balance. “You have to go back to your floor,” he tells me firmly.
I throw myself into his arms, hugging him tightly. “I already did,” I say. “I know the truth—I woke up on the side of the road, but my brother and father”—I start to whimper—“they’re still here, so I came back.” Elias’s body goes rigid, but I keep talking. “Then I saw Kenneth and I threatened him. Told him we were leaving. I was so stupid.”
“Shh . . .” Elias soothes me, murmuring that I need to calm down. He holds me until I quiet, my breathing settling into hiccuped gasps. Elias slips his fingers into my hair, cradling me as he rests his cheek on the top of my head. His embrace is comfort. It’s misery and grief. “This isn’t your fault,” he murmurs. “Lourdes lashed out, and now her punishment is to exist how she really is. It’s painful, but she’s already healing.” Elias holds me closer, and I’m trying to comprehend his statement. “You’re still going home, Audrey.”
I furrow my brow, wondering what he means by “how she really is.” Slowly I pull back and lift my eyes to his. He’s been crying, and I can see he’s scared. Scared for Lourdes and me, scared of Kenneth. But a new question has formed, one that goes back to the first day we met. “Elias,” I ask, stepping out of his arms. “How did you get here?”
He stares at me, the color fading from his complexion. Before he answers, a faint voice whispers my name from inside the room. It’s ragged and agonized, and I turn immediately, realizing it belongs to Lourdes.
“She’s awake,” Elias murmurs, and rushes into the room.
Awake? How is that possible? The burns were too horrific, she couldn’t . . . I let the reality fall over me. This is the Ruby. It’s all possible. It’s all terrifyingly possible.
My skin is tight from dried tears, my eyes ache from crying. Slowly I walk into Lourdes’s room and see her lying on the bed. Unmoved. Joshua is close by on a folding chair, and Catherine has taken up space against the wall. Tanya lies across the headboard with a washcloth, dabbing white ointment on the bits of Lourdes’s skin that are still intact.
I crouch on the floor, close to her. The acrid smell of burned flesh slips down my throat, and I close my mouth and put my fingers to my nose to try and block it out. Elias sits carefully on the edge of the bed. To my surprise, he picks up Lourdes’s charred hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it tenderly. “She’ll be okay,” he whispers, watching her. “Lourdes always pulls through.”
“Always?” I repeat.
“This wasn’t about you,” Catherine says, tipping off that she was listening to my conversation in the hallway. “You wanted to know why we obey Kenneth. This”—she motions around with her hands—“is what happens if we don’t. Eli’s deluding himself. Even when Lourdes recovers, Kenneth’s not finished. He’ll send her away again. There’s no limit to his cruelty.”
“Quiet,” Elias says simply, not taking his eyes from Lourdes. I follow his gaze, fighting the urge to scream again. Lourdes’s pupils slide in my direction, and sickness bubbles up in my stomach. She’s awake, and I can’t imagine the pain she feels, the absolute agony.
“Don’t cry,” she rasps. The soft sound of her voice fills me with a mix of relief and sorrow, and I wipe my cheeks where new tears have fallen. Despite her condition, I reach out to take her hand. It’s rough and brittle like a twig, and I’m careful not to squeeze too hard.
Elias stands and rights a chair from the floor, signaling for me to sit there. I do, and lean on the edge of the bed to comfort Lourdes. The staffers who were waiting in the hall tell Elias it’s time for the party, but he waves them away and shuts the door. He grabs another chair and sits next to me. The room is a funeral, weighted air filled with grief.
Braver, I look over Lourdes’s condition: the melted earlobes, the oozing flesh on her shoulder. I still. How she really is?
I shift my eyes to Tanya, remembering when I noticed the blood on her shirt that first day. My heart pounds against my ribs, and I turn to Elias. He’s trying to anticipate anything Lourdes might need. Attentive. And I’m starting to understand. I saw the crack in Daniel’s skull. Daniel, with that exact injury as he lay broken and lifeless on the side of the road. How he really is.
Oh, God. I know how Elias got here. Lourdes said that their group had been together for a long time, and Joshua said the party was in Elias’s honor. I couldn’t see it then. Wake the Dead at the fountain, the details of the fire, and the endless nights of parties he’s required to attend. Elias was in that ballroom fire in 1937. He’s dead. They’re all dead.
I carefully set Lourdes’s hand on the bed, overcome with the truth. These are the ghosts of the Hotel Ruby. They’ve been the ghosts all along, and I’m just a passerby who happened to get in an accident outside their gates, mine and my family’s souls coexisting with theirs.
“You’re dead,” I murmur, looking at Elias. “You died in the fire.” Elias shifts his gaze to mine. His expression bleeds sadness and regret. The ultimate loneliness. He nods and lowers his eyes to the bedsheets.
“The Ruby is a gorgeous and terrifying place, Audrey,” Joshua speaks up, his voice loud and cutting. “Normally, the people on the thirteenth floor get out thinking this was some wonderful dream. You’ve turned it into a nightmare.”
“It’s not her fault,” Elias responds quietly. “I brought her to the basement in the first place.”
Catherine laughs, rolling her perfectly lined eyes at him. “You’re such a sap,” she says. “Always on some romantic adventure. It was her error for following you like a puppy. I would have had more sense.”
“Yes, Cathy,” Joshua responds sarcastically. “Because you are the epitome of self-control.”
She smiles coldly. “No, darling,” she says. “I’m a bad decision waiting to happen. Now Eli, on the other hand . . .” She looks over at him, eyebrows up, willing him to play along. But he doesn’t even lift his head, lost in a wound I’ve reopened. Catherine sighs. “He’s good,” she tells me, although she’s still watching him. “Eli has always been good.”
I sit back in the chair; the idea of the Ruby being haunted is easier to accept when you’re intimately acquainted with its ghosts. “How can you stand it?” I ask. “Being here, day in and day out, the same every night? All of the tourists and ghost stories?”
“I’ve always hated that word,” Catherine responds. “ ‘Ghost’—it
implies that I float around in a white sheet, saying ‘Boo!’ I can’t interact with people, touch them. Hurt them.” She waves away the possibility. “What fun would it be, anyway? They can’t see me. Half the time I can’t even see them.”
“People,” I say. “You mean the others? Who are they?”
“They’re alive,” she says. “The others are the guests staying at the real Hotel Ruby, walking over our graves with hideous disregard. Talking loudly of encountering ghosts, when, believe me, they wouldn’t know a ghost if she walked up and asked them to dance.” She smiles. “They’re not always here, though. Sometimes they just fade out. Different realities, I suppose. Personally, I like when they’re gone. It’s quieter. And they occasionally leave things behind that become part of the hotel. The Ruby is where lost things end up—like you. It’s not awful. I get my best jewelry this way.”
Elias moves to loosen his tie from around his neck, and I feel a surge of sympathy for him. Affection. He told me that he understood grief, and I assumed someone he loved had died. In truth, he died, left to mourn the entire world.
From the bed Lourdes coughs, a painful sound. Joshua jumps up and comes to kneel next to her, murmuring that she’s fine. That she shouldn’t try to talk. Her eyes watch him lovingly, and I can see already that some of her skin is healing. Translucent and pale pink. Joshua kisses her forehead and sits on the floor, resting his temple on the edge of the bed close to hers. They’re all so connected. I envy their closeness, grateful they have each other. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to suffer through this alone.
“What happened the night of the fire?” I ask. “Why didn’t anyone get out?”
Catherine’s icy features thaw slightly, and she tilts her head as if asking permission to go on. Elias nods. “We have to start at the beginning, then,” she says, sitting back and crossing her legs. “It was 1937 and my fiancé was being honored. Well”—she smiles—“Elias’s family was being honored, but they were too busy to attend so they sent us in their place.”