The Haven Hotel

Scabs and Roses

"What happened last night?" Doctor Carver asks from the door while I eat the eggs and bacon she brought into my room. The bacon is rubbery, but considering how scarce good red meat is I stuff it down my throat anyway. "You looked like you saw a ghost."

"No, I was just, not feeling well." I've decided not to tell her about the hunter. It was a very simple decision yet I spent the whole night thinking about it. The thoughts were tied to other considerations of my situation; I have to stay in Central, not because anyone is forcing me but because Nadia seems to want me here. 

"Not used to drinking?" She walks back in and sits down on the bed beside me. 

"Yeah." It's the simplest answer, and the third lie I've told her this morning.

"I had a garden before all of this." She says. "I lived in Houghton, not far from here. Big house, with my husband, ex husband, and the garden was his idea, his pride and joy. He'd spend hours every day on his roses and orchids and things, then he'd walk back in the house smelling like mud and pollen. So we'd have these parties, or I'd have these parties, cocktail parties, you know. Naturally there were people who couldn't handle their liquor." She nudges me in the shoulder as if to remind me of what I just said.

"So, one day, someone threw up in the garden, all over a patch of daisies. The flower stalks were broken and the gate around the garden was all ripped apart. We never had any cocktail parties after that and my husband stopped talking to one of my friends. You know what the funny thing is?"

I shake my head, half hoping she would just leave me to think this situation over some more.

"The funny thing is, I was the one who did that to his garden." She laughs way too hard at the punch line of her own story. "I woke up in all those thorny roses. I just woke up too early for him to find me there. Moral of the story, you don't have to admit to things you don't want to."

"That's a terrible moral." The sentence says itself but I mean every word of it. 

"Not all morals are good ones, dear." She laughs and gets back to her feet. "You have to do things you aren't proud of if you want to be happy. I'm sure you know that already."

"What does that mean?"

"I think, that this has stopped being an amiable conversation." She heads towards the door, all the humor is gone from her tone and expression. "Dominic will be outside when you're ready. Nadia's waiting."

Her words have no effect on me until she's left the room and then I feel stupid. Regardless of how I feel about Doctor Carver, she's trying to be a grown up about this. I doubt she knows what I do, and if she does there's no explicit malice in her knowledge. Being hostile to her or anyone else isn't going to help me, especially since the hunter is in Central.

The hunter is in Central and so is Nadia. I lose what little piece of my appetite I had; the bacon isn't so appealing anymore. I stand up with the plate and kick the door open. I find the lighter man from East Haven standing outside my door. 

"Good morning." He says as he takes my plate.

"Morning." We start walking down the same labyrinth of doors and corridors that Carver and I went down last night. Most of the walk happens in silence, but the questions whizzing through my mind are way louder than thoughts should be so I have no choice but to ask one.

"Have you seen a man with gold teeth?" I ask. 

"Gold..." He ponders the question for a few seconds. "You mean like fillings?"

"No, I mean a mouth full of gold teeth." For a second I regret the question, then I see the look on Dominic's face. He knows exactly whom I'm talking about. He smirks and nods.