Hotel Nigh

Chapter 25

While the Night is Young

"By any chance, is there a key for the room WISH?"

For a moment, all Danny did was just stare pointedly at me before crossing his arms over his chest. "If I invite you in – so no one hears – and you tell me your crazy theory whilst I get changed, I'll get the key and come with you into the room?"

Without thinking, I nodded, concurring immediately. He opened the door wider for Melina and I to enter and she shut the door instantly behind her. Danny was already searching in his wardrobe for clothes to chuck on when I began explaining the conversation with Miles and then with Hilda, right up until she said about the room WISH consistently cropping up in conversations between Matt and Gerald.

"The old guy in a wheelchair can actually walk?" Danny spluttered out. "Wait, where were you then when you heard a crash? I didn't hear anything." He haphazardly threw a top over his head, shrugging it down his body.

Melina and I shared a glance at one another before she nodded almost imperceptibly. "We were in the pantry," I began, explaining about the trap door, the small tunnel connecting the pantry and a room in the basement, and the box that has a lock.

Danny swore under his breath. "The lock? You never figured it out?"

I shook my head.

He contemplated it for a moment before declaring he was going to get the key for room WISH and said we should wait together in his room so it didn't arouse suspicion. Melina seemed all for it, and honestly, I couldn't blame her. We waited a few moments after Danny had left before she said, "I don't like to think how this is all going to end."

Without thinking, I held my arms open for her, only to grasp her shoulder lightly with one hand and gently pull her into me. My arms instinctively wrapped around her waist and she wrapped hers around my neck. I was overwhelmed suddenly with the scent of jasmine and whatever else her perfume was she wore.

Perhaps it was the jasmine that was affecting my impulses and rational thinking, but I leaned my head back, keeping my arms securely around her waist and stared at her as she did the same. Then I leaned in and connected our lips. Initially she didn't move, but then her body seemed to melt into the kiss and if it was possible, she pressed harder against me.

The kiss was urgent, though it didn't diminish the feeling of wanting to kiss her for all the right reasons and making it feel any less... magnificent. Melina was utterly stunning, and she'd been my rock for the past few days since being at Hotel Nigh. To be kissing her now, it made me forget about the previous two murders and what we had embarked upon. It made me want to continue in the privacy of one of our rooms, but now was not the time, unfortunately.

When I pulled back, though I didn't quite want to but I'd rather Danny not have a front row seat to this, she was blushing quite furiously. "Just in case," I told her, "with tonight." Because we're trying to stop a killer and God knows what will happen to us, so this is just in case.

She smiled. "Just in case," she repeated.

We smiled at one another for the subsequent few seconds until Danny had reappeared with a key not too dissimilar from mine for the room DUSK dangling from his fingers and a rather triumphant expression upon his face. Honestly, I had a feeling he'd been loitering by the door long enough to witness Melina and I just smiling at one another.

With Melina close to my side, we ventured upstairs and down to the other end of the corridor. No one emerged out of their room and nor did we even hear any sounds emanating from inside. How people could sleep, however, with the storm still continuing outside, accompanied with the knowledge that a murderer is on the loose was completely beyond me. Perhaps they felt they were safe locked in their rooms.