Hotel Midnight // Shawn Mendes (✔️)

Twelve

"So that's the truth?"

"Yes, I swear."

"And there's nothing else you're hiding?" Shawn asks suspiciously, and I shake my head.

"No, I swear. I spilled everything just now, I'm not hiding a thing." I tell him. I thought Shawn would be steaming mad when he heard the truth on how to get out of Hotel Midnight.

Instead, he just took a deep breath, sighed, and continued on with the conversation, not angry about me lying or about how much harder it was to get out of here than he had originally thought.

Well, either that, or Shawn was just an insanely good actor.

"So, do you have any idea how to get the key? Did any guest or worker here know the girl before she got out of this place? They probably know a thing or two about where the key is too." Shawn tells me, and I shrug.

"Um, well there is this one worker. Her name's Sarah, and she works at the candy shop. She was close with Kylie, the girl, and another guest named Coraline."

"And you haven't asked her about the key, or the girl, or even floor Zero? I need an explanation for that." Shawn says.

"Coraline went into floor Zero with Kylie, okay? And only Kylie made it back out. From what I've heard, she didn't even remember who Coraline was when she got out of there. Sarah refuses to talk about it. All of it. Believe me Shawn, I've tried."

"Obviously, you haven't tried hard enough. No offense, but our only hope of getting out of here probably has to do with everything Sarah knows about the whole situation. And I know I sound like a total dick saying this, but are we really just going to let her emotions get in the way of this? We'll be trapped in here forever, Nora."

"Shawn, I don't know. Sarah is a good friend of mine, I'm not going to torture her by asking about it."

"Then don't. I'm not going to force you to. But I sure am going over to the candy shop and asking. You can come or you can stay here." Shawn says, and only then do I realize he had a point.

As much as I love Sarah, I need to get out of this place, and so does Shawn.

As Shawn gets up and reaches for my hotel room door, I follow him, which causes his eyebrows to raise in surprise.

"Sarah won't open up to you, she doesn't even know you. You kind of need me in this sort of situation, Shawn. Plus, I'm pretty sure you don't even know where the candy shop is." I tell him, and his eyes light up with some sort of emotion I can't name as he smiles, then opening the door.

As we go into the elevator, I just hope that Sarah will tell us what we need to know, and not refuse to speak about it.

As Shawn and I walk towards the candy shop, I start to hear some sort of singing, and raise an eyebrow. Who sung in Hotel Midnight?

"Tick tock, can't you see, a week until I'm truly free!" The voice sings, and I notice that it was the same woman who had decided it would be a smart idea to hide a clock in Shawn's room.

Didn't she say something about a week when she was holding the clock?

I watch as Shawn and I turn the corner and see the woman begin to dust happily, still singing.

"The math is done, the math is right. Seven days till I take flight!"

"Seven days until what, exactly?" I ask the lady after approaching her. She is shocked for a moment, but instead of getting angry like I thought she would, the woman simply laughs, then rushing over to me and- bare with me here- decides to hug me.

I'm more than concerned about this woman's mental health and turn to look at Shawn for help, but notice that he was smiling, trying to hold in a laugh. I give him a dead look, which only causes his smile to get even bigger.

"A week until I'm free! A week until we're all free! I've waited so many years for this, darling, and the time has come!"

"What time?" I ask, and she just shakes her head in bliss.

"The clocks, my dear, the clocks match! Oh, what a wonderful day it will be! And I assume you have the key already, so we can all get out!"

"Wait- you mean in a week the clocks match up? In seven days?" I ask, and she nods her head.

"Oh yes! Mother Reenie said so, therefore it must be true! It has to be! So- where's the key? What does it look like? Are you hiding it safely?"

I was more than confused on why she was telling me all this information. And anyways, this woman was a worker, and workers couldn't leave whether they decided that they wanted to or not.

"I don't have the key. Did Mother Reenie say I did?" I ask, and she shakes her head, disappointment clear in her face as I watch her eyes cloud over.

"Mother Reenie didn't tell me you did. I was a few days off, is what she told me when I spoke to her about my plan, my wonderful plan. Now you must get the key, you must! I need to get out of here!"

"You're a worker, ma'am. You can't get out of here."

"I've been faking it, you idiot! I've been faking it for years and years and years!"

The woman continues to ramble, and that's when I hear the footsteps begin to echo throughout the hallway.

I've memorized these footsteps. I know exactly who the sound belongs to, and it caused me to shiver.

"Mr.Rush, he's coming." I whisper to the woman, and Shawn must have hear me, because he pulls me away from the woman and wraps his arms around me, as if he was going to protect me from the guy. Which, for the record, I was not going to let happen again.

"Mr.Rush is a cow! I don't care about him!" The lady tells me, and continues to speak terrible things about him, not listening to me.

Shawn begins to bring me closer to the turn, so we can quickly hide into the other hallway when he walks over and spots us.

"He'll ash you, shut up! Keep your mouth shut, please!" I warn her, an arms length away from the woman.

"I've been quiet for too long! Let him ash me, see if I care!"

The footsteps had gotten closer, and louder. The moment I realize that is the moment it's too late, because when I reach for the woman, to pull her into the other hallway, Shawn grabs me and pulls me around, so neither of us were in Mr.Rush's sight.

I peak my head over, hoping to grab the woman once I see how far she was, but Shawn pulls me back towards him the second I see one of Mr.Rush's shiny, black, leather shoes enter the hall that the poor woman was in.

"Ah, Miss Quell, why don't you follow me? The ashing room seems to need some dusting."

Shawn has to hold me from my waist to stop me from running over the moment I hear her scream.

A/N

yikes