The heartstopper

Chapter 36

By the next day, the death toll had gone up drastically. That noisy couple who had been fighting non-stop on the second floor? Dead. The young child lived though, the child was left in the hotel room, covered in its parent's blood.

There was a boy from Charlie's year who'd gone missing, his name's Connor, he'd yet to be seen, but it's to be assumed that he's been locked in a hotel room, somewhere in the building. His sister had been a blubbering mess ever since he couldn't be found by his roommates when one of them had woken up in the middle of the night. People were now disappearing from their rooms as their roommates slept, it was a great cause for concern.

There were three businessmen who had come on this trip together and each of them was murdered. They were all in separate rooms, one of them was even on a completely different floor than the other two, but he had been murdered as well.

Some people had completely stopped leaving their rooms, even for meals. At this point, the officers were trying their best to get people evacuated for their safety rather than anything else. People weren't allowed to leave without a baggage check, everything had to be searched, including a more thorough search of the room you'd stayed in before you may walk out of the doors.

This caused a mess as those who were trying to leave were cramped together in the lobby, trying to get sorted. This is why others stayed in their rooms, it was a mess. A large portion of people was making great use of room service while others didn't bother, there was at least an hour delay on food, in addition to that, the hotel was low on food, they hadn't gotten their weekly shipping of food so the menu was limited.

At the rate things were going, the people of Higgs and Truham grammar school wouldn't be able to make it home for possibly the next week. Between the forty students as well as the teachers, they had booked eleven rooms, meaning they couldn't leave until each of those rooms was properly searched and once your room was searched, you can't reenter it, or else it will need to be checked again. There were too many people checking out, they wouldn't be able to get all of their rooms verified for a few days.

The student's parents were furious with the lack of protection that was prepared for their children and is completely blaming the schools, which is ridiculous. The parents signed a form for their teenagers to be sent on this trip and the schools shouldn't have had to arrange bodyguards for their students.

For many, what seemed to be the worst part of this all, was that at some point throughout the night, the ac had broken down.

"Why is it so freaking hot!" Tao exclaimed, throwing his beanie off of his head.

"It's because our window doesn't even open," Charlie replied back. They had tried, but for some reason, their window was a cheap-looking thing that must have taken the person who installed it only five minutes.

People around the hotel were claiming that things of theirs were going missing. One of the students from Higgs, Mikayla, was one of the people who had claimed that they thought Elle was the killer. This time, she claimed that someone had broken into her room and snatched something valuable of hers, of course, she refused to say what it was, so people thought she was asking for attention. But, then more and more people found odd things missing like; their left shoe, a button from their shirt, their toothbrush, someone even claimed that their room's TV remote's batteries suddenly went missing. None of these claims could be led back to the murders so they were brushed aside by the police.

"Has anyone seen my comb? I must have misplaced it," Nick questioned, digging through his bag.

"No,"

"Did you check the washroom?" Asked Charlie.

"I did, it wasn't there. It doesn't matter anyway, it's just plastic," Nick shrugged. He'd buy a new one once they got home, for now, he'd live with his bed hair, which he had forgotten to fix that morning.

"If someone broke into our room in the middle of the night just to steal your comb, we're sacrificing you," Tao claimed with a dead serious look on his face.

"Sure, you can do that. I probably just left it somewhere random," Nick said, not really paying attention as he turned his head to look for his comb. It wasn't on the counter in the washroom, it wasn't on the bedside table and it wasn't in his bag.

"Can we not sacrifice anyone?"

"But sacrifices fix like ninety percent of all problems,"

"Isaac!" Charlie exclaimed at his remark.

"It's true, I read about it somewhere," He shrugged.

"Perfect... How exactly do we sacrifice someone?" Tao jokingly questioned.

"We're not sacrificing my boyfriend," Charlie scoffed.

"But he's the rugby king, the Gods will see that as a higher prize," Tao insisted.

"I really don't think me playing high school rugby is going to give us much credit," Nick quipped.

"You know, you're right. Besides, the whole 'liking Marvel' thing really brings down your worth," Tao scrunched his nose as he said it.

"Marvel movies are good!" Nick insisted.

"For what? I don't get it," Tao said, lifting his shoulders.

Nicks's phone rang. "Hold on, I need to take this," He said, stepping out of the room. He'd been waiting for half of the trip for his dad to reply to one of his many calls or messages. They'd spoken on the phone for a few minutes when Mr. Ajayi and Mr. Farouq had brought them to the Eiffel tower but since then, he hadn't heard from him. He must have finally found time in his 'busy' schedule to call his son who has witnessed a murder. Nick answered the phone, his dad greeting him in French. It felt like a relief to finally be able to properly talk with him, Nick had feared that he wouldn't get the chance to do so.