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Soon we were cruising to the other end of the city—the Lowers, in a beat-up Ford truck. The sun barely kissed the clouds as it set, flaming the sky into a bright orange scene, and my gaze found Arkane, whose attention was fixed on the road ahead.

Somehow, the feeling from earlier that it would be a long day didn’t leave my bones, but another feeling crept along with it. It felt as though something hard was going to hit my face when I least expected it. It didn’t make any sense because I knew I would be expecting danger tonight.

So what else could it be?

CHAPTER 14

BELLE

Something was reminiscently ugly about the Rose Ellen. It looked like the kind of building where one may take a look and think, How does a building like this even exist? With its peeling, muddy yellow walls stained with years of water damage, dust-smudged glass windows, and patches of overgrown weeds that were even growing up on the tilted Rose Ellen sign, I had no clue who, even in their right mind, would stay here.

But this was fancy for the Lowers. Although I lived in a new area that had undergone recent renovations to become a modest neighborhood, Rose Ellen was a part of the original Lowers charm. Till today, most parts of the Lowers were a playground for crime. So many hardly took notice of the condition of its architecture.

Set in the dead-end curve of a run-down street with graffiti-painted walls and few empty complexes, nothing suspicious really stood out about the Rose Ellen. That was, if you didn’t consider druggies settling home on the dark alleys and women in short skirts flagging down the runaway cars, high out of their minds, as suspicious. The wide curve provided plenty of yard space for the building that had only a single red car parked, which I found odd.

From the rumors, I knew the Rose Ellen was a famous site for prostitution and elegant drug purchases, so I thought it would be swarming with people. But it looked more like a lone haunted ghost hotel at the end of the driveway, with leafless trees casting gloomy dancing shadows on it.

If Arkane shared the same thought as me, he didn’t show it. Even dressed casually in plain black jeans, a sweater, and rugged combat boots, it did nothing to hide his charm. He tried to conceal his identity with sunglasses and a baseball cap, but that didn’t help either. The only assurance I felt was that no one actually knew what he looked like, so to the common man, he was simply a brooding hot man.

His men had already swept the entire location, but they couldn’t find any unusual activity, and that only made it more suspicious.

What did Timothy Walters plan for Arkane tonight? Or was he actually telling the truth? Even if he was, my heart couldn’t agree with the man who had a hand in killing my family.

Whatever it was, it was subtly brilliant, something masterful enough that it didn’t raise any flags. Timothy Walters was smart among the five men, but not as smart or as cunning as his leader, the one with eyes so dark they seemed evil. I don’t know why, but I had a feeling he had a part in whatever it was that was going to unfold tonight.

My heels dug into the rough gravel as I walked to the hotel. Arkane kept a close distance behind me, playing the quiet boyfriend. We had already agreed that I would do the talking to avoid suspicion. Even then, Timothy Walters knew both of us, so if any of his men were watching, we were busted. But Arkane had an army of men on standby, so if anything did happen, the other side would lose some too.

I almost didn’t even want to touch the dirt-clad, tarnished door handle, but I did it anyway and entered the Rose Ellen lobby, which looked worse than the outside. The place itself was modest in an outdated fashion, but the heavy smell in the air wasn’t nice at all. My mind almost didn’t want to imagine the origin of it.

“Hmm, excuse me,” I said, approaching the lone man at the reception desk. For a hotel, it all felt very motel-style, with a visitor log, rusty bell, and wired telephone among the several take-out cartons and empty soda cans at the desk. The man himself wore a bright green shirt and khaki pants, with unkempt hair and cigarette marks on his lips. Didn’t the hotel have some kind of maintenance to keep decorum? But this was the last place I would expect that.

“How can I help you?” he asked in an uninterested tone, licking the remnants of food from his fingers.

“We would like a room,” I replied, suppressing a sigh and the urge to slap his face awake.

Without even looking at me, he slid a paper my way and continued to eat and talk at the same time. “Name, sign, and cash only.”

The sounds he made grated on my nerves, as I quickly signed under a false name and paid cash, and darted out of there. Our room was on the second floor, but Arkane and I planned to sneak into the room next to 404. It wasn’t like this place was riddled with security or cameras.

In fact, it all felt so quiet, almost as if no one was here, but just as I finished that thought, two men dressed in chef outfits walked out, each lighting up a cigarette, not even caring that they were still indoors.

“Man, I swear that fucking freezer is haunted,” said one of the men, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “I told that manager to fucking change it, but he swears everything is fine.”

“Why?” The other man laughed, smoke billowing out of his mouth. “Is your favorite ghost still living there?”

“I know you won’t fucking believe me, but wait till you see it for yourself.” He narrowed his eyes at the other man. “I know for a fact I kept the meat on the shelf by the door yesterday, and what do I see in the morning? All the packets crashed like a heap at the end of the freezer. And it wasn’t just yesterday. It’s been happening every morning for four fucking days.”

The second man laughed again, shaking his head, and soon their voices faded into the air as they exited the hotel.

I paused, frowning at them.

“What’s wrong?” Arkane whispered from my right side.

I shook my head, and we continued walking. “Odd time for the cook staff to be leaving.”

Arkane’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t say a word.

We took the stairs because we didn’t want to catch anyone’s eye. Only when we reached the fourth floor did the hotel finally seem alive and no longer dead. The clatter of people became busier, and heavy bass beats buzzed through behind two large closed doors at the end of the opposite hallway.