“I look forward to it, Audrey Casella.” He flashes me one more dimpled smile, and then he turns and leaves, off to play his role in a haunting.
I lean back in the chair, doing my best not to cry. Tanya helps prop Lourdes up on a pillow, and then she crosses to the other side of the room and pours herself a glass of water. I’m running out of time. I need to get Daniel and my father from the party—but now that I’ve seen what Kenneth can do, I’m not sure how I can get past him.
“Before you try to talk me out of going to the party,” I say, “there’s still a lot I don’t understand. How am I here? I wasn’t in that fire.”
“The Ruby is filled with ghosts,” Tanya answers. “Not all from the fire. Heart attacks, suicides—most died right here. And some were killed off-site.” She motions to where I saw the blood on her shirt. “Hiking.”
Tanya sips from her water, rattled by the mention of her own death. “From what we can tell,” she continues after a moment, “only the really lost souls find their way here. The ones who are already dead but don’t realize it.”
Lourdes groans gently from the bed, trying to adjust her position on the pillow. Tanya sets her glass down on the dresser and walks over, sitting on the edge and grabbing the washcloth and ointment.
“It helps with the pain,” she whispers when Lourdes tries to brush her hand away.
“I don’t care about the pain,” Lourdes snaps. The two exchange a long glance, and then Tanya flops down in the chair next to me, putting her feet up on the bed. She shrugs one shoulder, telling Lourdes to do what she wants. Their tension isn’t hostile, more like sisters fighting.
“This isn’t just about the party, Audrey,” Lourdes says, slowly sounding more like herself. “You have to leave tonight, now. I promised your brother.”
“My brother? What does . . . what do you mean?” I ask, starting to feel frantic. “How much of this does Daniel know?”
“All of it. He came to see me earlier, before this.” She gestures to her body. “He was afraid you’d stay once you realized what was really going on.”
I’m taken aback, furious that Daniel knew about the Ruby and didn’t tell me. Heartbroken that he tried to deal with it on his own. “Neither of us is staying,” I say. “I would never leave him here. That’s why I came back, to take him with me. Him and my father.” Lourdes exhales, forlorn.
“What?” I ask. “They won’t kick me out of the party this time. I have an invitation.”
“Shit,” Tanya mutters. My stomach sinks, slow dread creeping up my arms.
“What does it mean?” I ask nervously. “Why did I get an invitation? Why now?”
They’re both quiet until Lourdes turns to face me. “Because you’re dying, Audrey,” she says simply. “Your body is dying, and if you die here, you stay here forever. You’ll be trapped in the Ruby with us. The invitation is symbolic. It’s letting go.”
I’m horrorstruck. Even though I already knew my condition was perilous on the side of the road, did I really think I was going to die? Would I have come back if I did? Wait. That means . . .
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Oh my God. My brother, my father—they’ve gone to the party. They’ve used . . .” I jump up from the chair, sending it sideways to the floor. My heart shatters, and a tidal wave of grief crashes over my head and drowns me. “They can’t leave,” I whisper. “That’s what Daniel didn’t want me to know. He knew I wouldn’t abandon him.”
It’s hard to breathe. I can’t breathe. Trampling past the overturned chair, I rush out the door into the hallway. I double over, gagging on my tears. With my hand on the wall, heavy sobs wrack my body and I fall to my knees on the carpet.
My brother’s dead and I can’t save him. They’re all gone, but I can still live. But how will I survive surviving this? How will Daniel cope when I’m gone? He’s dead on the side of that road.
“I’m sorry you ended up here,” Tanya says. I lift my head and find her squatting down next to me. Her dark eyes are full of compassion, sympathy. “But you haven’t gone to the party,” she says. She motions to where I dropped the envelope when I first saw Lourdes’s burned body. “You haven’t used your invitation, Audrey. There’s still time for you to go home.” She must understand what I’m feeling—she’s not from the hotel either.
“I can just go back to the thirteenth floor and wake up?” I ask her. She nods. “But I’ll be leaving my brother, my father, Elias, and all of my friends behind to suffer in the Ruby under Kenneth’s charge. How could I live knowing that?”
Tanya drops to sit on the carpet and shakes her head. “I was like you,” she says thoughtfully. “When I first came to the Ruby, I was on the thirteenth floor for a time, both me and my sister.”