Kill Me Softly

by Sarah Cross

  As the light came on and the room blinked into view, Mira saw that the suite was different from the other rooms in the hotel. The sea blue color scheme had given way to white. White couch. White carpet. Shimmering white wallpaper, etched with ivory swirls. There were potted red rosebushes on the end tables, and a vase of red roses on the desk, along with a list of the birthday presents Felix planned to give her—all delivered, all crossed out except for Dinner at Rampion and the word Dancing.

  Mira smiled. So this was his secret. This was where he plotted romance.

  The walls were hung with art, like in a gallery. It wasn’t the collection of mass-produced seascapes found in the rest of the rooms; these were originals, some too rough and strange to be anything else. The largest piece was a misty spring landscape, with a castle in the distance, all purples and greens. There were smaller, less accomplished paintings, too, along with framed pencil drawings that looked like they’d been torn out of sketch-books—even a sketch of a boy looking down, flipping a poker chip between his fingers … a boy who looked like Felix.

  Mira checked for a signature on the drawings, but couldn’t find one.

  Moving to his desk, Mira opened all the drawers, sifted through blank pages of monogrammed stationery, souvenir postcards from around the world (all signed by his father), scattered trinkets, and an old, tarnished key. At the bottom of one of the drawers, she found a photograph lying facedown. Someone had written Felix 6, Blue 2 on the back in blue ink.

  Mira pried the photo out carefully, expecting to see a snapshot of the two brothers. But the boys weren’t alone. There was a young woman in the picture.

  All three were posed on a bench, in front of a cluster of bushes and a dusty elephant exhibit—the zoo? Felix had a big, guileless smile on his face. He was hanging on the woman like a monkey, his arms around her neck, hugging her. Blue sat on her lap, looking pouty and chubby and confused, clutching a bag of cotton candy. The woman had an arm around each of them, and there was enough of a resemblance that Mira was sure this was their mother.

  She was pretty, reed slender, a little gangly, and a little chic. Her straight black hair was half gathered on her head in a messy bun, while the rest hung loose. Her smile—amused and exasperated—reached all the way to her eyes.

  She looked like she loved them. She also looked pale, and tired. Like someone who’d been sick. Only, Mira didn’t think that was it. …

  She remembered the way she used to throw herself at Elsa and Bliss when she was little, how clingy and affectionate she’d been. And she imagined, if you were a Romantic, the toll that affection would take on someone who loved you more than anything in the world.

  Felix and Blue wouldn’t have had any control back then. They probably hadn’t even known what they were. They’d just loved her. And they were dangerous.

  That was why their mother had left. Not because she was afraid of getting attached, like Felix had said. Not exactly.

  Mira swallowed. She put the picture back in the drawer. She felt like she’d disturbed something precious, blown dust off a secret she wasn’t meant to see. A loss Felix wanted to hide even from himself.

  There were no warning signs here, no boxes full of mementoes from old girlfriends, no red flags. Felix was just private. He spent so much time being available to the public, attending to the Dream’s guests, that he wanted a room for himself, and only himself. A room he didn’t have to see every day.

  Mira felt a little guilty disturbing that privacy—but glimpsing these pieces of his private life, and the small things he valued enough to save, only made her love him more. So she felt like it was worth it. Even if he ended up getting mad at her.

  Her last stop was the bedroom. The door was ajar, darkness showing through the opening—and the fresh rose scent seemed stronger here. She pressed the door open with one finger, her heart pounding nervously as she wondered whether the bedroom would be specially decorated—maybe even with rose petals scattered across the bed. Because he had said he had another surprise for her. And she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. …

  A triangle of light crept in as the door eased open. Just enough for her to make out a figure in the dark.

  Her heartbeat flooded her ears, pounded around her head like a fist. “Felix?” she called. “Are you there? Did you know I would—?”

  But there was no answer. No movement. Whoever it was remained as still as a statue.

  “Felix?”

  She pushed the door open farther—until it thumped against an obstruction. Light flowed over the rest of the room. And she saw.

  It was a girl.

  A perfectly still, glassy-eyed girl.

  And there wasn’t just one.

  Cora, the girl Mira had seen with Felix that first night, was slumped in a chair, her wide eyes on the door, staring at whoever had the gall to enter. Her brown hair was a mess, and she wore the same green dress she’d worn when Mira met her. One arm hung limply over the side of the chair. Her head was propped against the headrest. Red lipstick clung to the edges of her lips.

  Barely a week ago, Cora had sauntered through the lobby and spotted Mira in the garden. She’d had a sure look about her, sharp but lovely. And now she was blank. She stared and stared but there was nothing in her expression. No life. Her eyes were as empty as marbles.

  “Cora?” Mira’s throat constricted; she blinked away tears, her hand trembling on the knob. “It’s me—Mira. Please say something….”

  But even as she spoke, she knew the girl wouldn’t answer. Because Cora wasn’t just one girl coldly holding court over the bedroom. She was part of a whole menagerie of lifeless girls.

  A blonde in a slinky nightgown was curled up on the floor beside the bed. A dark-haired girl, dressed in pants and a thin T-shirt, lay with her head tipped back like she was waiting to be resuscitated, or kissed. She had bruises on her wrists.

  Girls lay on couches. On the floor. Some were elegantly arranged, limbs posed to capture their beauty. Others were crammed wherever they would fit, like the room was a too-small suitcase someone had grown tired of packing. They wore evening gowns, tank tops and jeans, pajamas, blouses that had been torn open.

  And at the center of the room stood the bed, neatly made with a thick white coverlet. Potted rosebushes stood sentinel on each bedside table, giving off a rich, morbid fragrance. Scattered across the bed were loose pages from an old book. They were yellowed, curling at the corners. And left there deliberately, like bread crumbs: pieces of a secret that could finally be revealed.

  Shaking, Mira gathered the pages. This was his tale. The curse they hid from her.

  The first page bore an illustration: a well-dressed man in a richly appointed mansion, presenting a ring of keys to an eager young girl. Mira’s breath left her at the sight of the man’s blue hair, his sharply pointed blue beard. He looked like a devil and a king both.

  The next page featured the title.

  Bluebeard

  She didn’t know this fairy tale.

  Her eyes hurried down the page, missing entire lines, like the frantic beating of her heart had swallowed them—and she had to go back. Breath hard in her chest, she read.

  In the tale, a man with a blue beard sought a wife. Women found his strange coloring repulsive, but he was wealthy, and eventually, the girl he was wooing was won over by his gifts and his attention, and agreed to marry him.

  About a month into their marriage, Bluebeard was called away on business. Before he left, he gave his young bride a ring of keys that gave her access to everything in his mansion. Every door, every chest of jewels. They were the keys to his wealth, and more.

  But there was one door his bride was forbidden to open: a little closet at the end of the great gallery.

  “Open them all; go into all and every one of them, except that little closet, which I forbid you, and forbid it in such a manner that, if you happen to open it, there’s nothing but what you may expect from my just anger and resentment.”

  His wife p
romised she would never enter the forbidden room, and Bluebeard embraced her and bid her farewell.

  But as soon as Bluebeard had gone, his young wife rushed to the forbidden room, so rapidly that she nearly stumbled and broke her neck.

  She unlocked the door and stepped inside—and there, in the forbidden chamber, were all the bodies of Bluebeard’s former wives, the floor covered with their clotted blood. The young wife fled in horror, but not before dropping the little key on the ground, whereupon it was stained with blood, as if by magic, and no amount of scrubbing or scouring would remove the stain.

  The rest of the tale unfolded as fairy tales did: Bluebeard returned home early and discovered his wife’s trespass. He vowed to punish her, and took out his sword to cut off her head. There would be no mercy.

  “You were resolved to go into the closet, were you not? Mighty well, madam; you shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there.”

  In the end, the young wife was saved. Her brothers arrived just in time to interrupt the murder, and to slay Bluebeard.

  But there was a room full of women who didn’t have anyone to save them. Who had heard the words you shall take your place among them from Bluebeard’s lips, and been cruelly murdered for their discovery.

  Mira didn’t want to believe it.

  There was no blood on the floor, no blood anywhere. She crept toward Cora and touched the girl’s shoulder, wincing as she did. Maybe it was an enchantment. Please let it be an enchantment. …

  The girl’s skin was cold.

  Mira pushed harder, as if to force her awake, and Cora toppled off the chair. Mira cried out; she stumbled back to keep the girl from falling on her.

  Coming closer, Mira knelt and touched Cora’s neck, searching for a pulse.

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  None of the girls was asleep, drugged, playing, waiting.

  They were dead.

  They had been loved here. Killed here.

  And some—some had tried to escape. Their torn clothes and bruises were testament to that.

  “But it was too late,” Mira whispered. The forbidden room was a trap.

  Mira wondered how he’d done it. Not with a sword—that was where the tale diverged from the reality. Felix was a Romantic; he had another weapon at his disposal.

  Had he kissed their mouths, slow and soft? Had his lips brushed their throats like vampire bites, each touch siphoning away more life? Had he—had he—?

  She couldn’t let her mind go further. It hurt her to see the evidence, the years of seductions. She was crying and choking, wiping her eyes whenever the tears blinded her, refusing to let anything hide the truth from her now. She wanted to be horrified. It seemed sick to be jealous, too, but she was. It hurt to know he’d loved so many other girls; that she was not special, not unique.

  He hadn’t pressured her when they’d spent the night together. She’d thought it was because he was a gentleman. But of course he hadn’t pushed her; he didn’t have to. He knew this moment would come. When she’d need to know him—all of him.

  A night when he would claim all of her.

  No. Not tonight. Not her.

  Mira turned from the room, her heart in her throat, love and sadness making it hard to breathe. She loved him. She really loved him—even in the face of this, she wanted to somehow deny it, make excuses for him. She was full of emotion and her heart ached like it would kill her.

  She would go. She would run away and never come back. Leave her books behind, her clothes behind, her friends, her memories.

  But not her life.

  At the door, her hand on the knob—she heard the lock buzz open from the outside. She fumbled for the deadbolt—panicking even more when she saw how many locks there were: bolts and chains and—but the door swung toward her and knocked her out of the way.

  Mira stumbled backward, red roses blooming on the toes of her worthless, pretty shoes, and faced him, on the dawn of her sixteenth birthday. Felix seemed sad, fierce, perversely loving, and angry.

  But not at all surprised.

  “I didn’t mean—Felix—You don’t understand—” she stammered, fighting to explain, to save herself, with a mind that had gone completely blank.

  “Oh, Mira.” He shook his head, eyes burning with emotion; raked a trembling hand through his hair. “You had to come here.” His mouth was caught between a grimace and a tight line of pain.

  “I just got here,” she swore, so vehemently she nearly believed herself. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t touch anything. I just—let’s go to dinner. Please. Or I can leave. If you want me to leave forever, I can leave—”

  “I know exactly when you arrived, and exactly what you did,” he snapped. “I don’t need a bloody key to tell me that. This is a casino; we don’t trust anyone. We have surveillance like you can’t imagine.”

  Mira’s eyes spilled over with tears. Admissions of guilt. Damn it. She wanted to stay cool and calm and lie, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t. The bedroom was full of girls he’d murdered and he was going to kill her next.

  Something seemed to break in him when he saw her cry—but not the right thing. He was sorry—sorry for himself most of all—but nowhere in his face did she see mercy.

  She moved toward him, hoping she could reason with him; grabbed the front of his jacket. “Felix—you have to let me go.”

  He sounded weary. “I can’t, Mira. I can’t let you leave this room. Don’t you understand?”

  She didn’t understand; she refused to understand.

  The door was behind him. If she could get past him, fling it open, run—

  She lunged for the door and he caught her easily; shoved her hard and sent her sprawling to the floor. Her skin flared red where it scraped the carpet; her elbow throbbed from banging into the desk. He’d never been forceful with her before, and the violence was a shock, even now.

  Mira staggered to her feet—her hope dying as he turned his back to her and started securing the locks on the door. It was like a switch had been flipped in him; he seemed to grow calmer as he went through the motions. His hands shook less with every lock.

  “I never wanted you to see this part of me,” Felix said. “I tried to be better for you. But this is what I am. When it comes down to it—this is all I am.”

  “No,” she insisted. “It isn’t. It can’t be. I love you.”

  A strange look came over his face—mournful, affectionate, resigned.

  “I know,” he said. “They all did.”

  And then he pulled her into his arms, seizing her with such determination that her struggle collapsed almost before it began. A few days ago, she’d been so weak from his kisses in the flower shop she’d barely been able to walk; now the strength she’d regained wilted beneath his. And like a conquering hero, or a bridegroom—or a lover-murderer—he carried her unwilling body to the bed.

  He threw her down on the white coverlet and wasted no time climbing over her, pinning her down to keep her from escaping. The dead girls surrounded them, frozen in their positions, a limp, uninterested audience.

  Mira’s gaze swept the room, taking in every macabre detail. It was like staring at a wreck; she couldn’t tear herself away—until Felix laid his hand over her eyes. “Don’t look,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “You don’t need to see them.”

  He’d released one of her wrists to cover her eyes, and now she reached for him, her hand trembling over his features. He cared about her—she knew he did. If she could just get through to him …

  “You don’t want to do this,” she said. “I know you don’t.”

  Felix grasped her hand, pried it away from him, and flattened her arm against the bed. His eyes bore down on her, sorry but hard.

  “If what I wanted mattered,” he said, “this room wouldn’t exist. This curse wouldn’t exist. I want to be happy—to have a real chance at that, like everyone else. And I could, if someone would just listen.

  “Mira,” he whispered. �
�Why does no one ever listen?”

  “I don’t know!” she cried. And then she remembered that it wasn’t her fault; she could explain. She hadn’t even wanted to come here. “The fairy! Delilah. She said I should—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” His voice was gentle, tinged with pain, with the regret that had seeped out sometimes when he was with her. “There’s one innocent person in this room. And it isn’t me, and it isn’t you.”

  The first girl, she thought. The girl whose death had been an accident, before there’d been a forbidden room to invade, a secret to uncover.

  Before his curse had broken him.

  love destroys you, he’d said once, and this was what he’d meant. She hadn’t thought it would destroy her, too.

  You shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there. …

  “You can’t keep me here,” she said, holding very still, as if he were an animal that would attack if she moved.

  “You’re wrong. I have to keep you here.” His hands clamped around her wrists, and his grip was so strong it felt like he could crush her if he wanted to. He was so much stronger than she was. He had his own strength and he had all the strength he’d stolen. “Don’t fight me. Don’t make this harder.”

  “You expect me to just—lie here and die?” She strained against him, struggled to break his hold, to throw him off her. The skin of her wrists twisted, chafed in the shackles of his hands. Her shoulders surged upward, her legs fought against his weight. But he kept her pinned, as if it took no effort at all. The body she’d once loved to be close to was now a prison she couldn’t escape. At last, she lay still, sweat slicking her skin, panting, her wrists aching.

  Felix didn’t seem angry that she’d tried to free herself. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

  And now she knew it, too.

  Mira turned her face away so she wouldn’t see the decision in his eyes. There had to be a part of him that loved her enough to listen. “If you care about me,” she said, “just let me go and I’ll never tell anyone, I swear to god, I’ll never—”