A/N - in order for this to work (and to solve my writer's block), I changed the rules a little. Ghosts are allowed to come and go as they please from the hotel unless they have an especially strong connection to it. James, for example, is stuck to the hotel because he built it, and Mrs. Evers because she spent most of her life there. James' victims however, despite dying there, are not confined to the building.
()()()
"On the night you led me
Under your sin
You had me howling."
- Howling, RYX
()()()
As I screamed for James, the boy previously assaulting my lips stepped away, spitting on the floor of the hotel room. Death obviously hadn't sobered him up any.
"Anyone else want to have a go?" He looked around the room at his friends as I fumbled blindly with the door knob, unable and unwilling to take my eyes off of them.
Was this how I was to die? In a stolen nightgown, makeup streaking down my face, killed by ghosts or zombies or some other supernatural creature?
I couldn't say I didn't deserve it, because maybe I did.
Another boy approached me, pulling a knife out of his pocket like some 1950s gangster, and I yelled for James one last time, my eyes pinched shut.
The boy never touched me. None of them did.
Somehow James was in the room, glaring at the boys like they had committed the worst crime on Earth.
"If you remain in my hotel," He seethed, glaring at them. "I will make your afterlives a living hell. Is that what you want?"
The boys shook their heads at this proposition, and I felt bile rise in my throat once more. i avoided throwing up on the carpet, however, knowing that this time I would have to be the one to clean it up.
"Then get. out."
i could've sworn the hotel shook with his words as the boys ran straight through the wall behind me and out into the hallway. James sighed, smoothing back his hair again and straightening his vest, trying to compose himself.
"Miss Buckner," James huffed. "I advised you not to come in here."
My eyes widened, scared that his previously calm demeanor was completely gone now, worried that he would react the same way to my disobedience as he had to that of the boys.
How easy would it be of him to hurt me? Would it pain him, to hit me over the head or gut me like some kind of meal? Did these ghosts feel things in the same way I did? To the same extent as I did?
I started to shake like the boys did when they first saw James, my whole body convulsing as I leaned back against the door for support. James came to me. His eyes were not soft, not forgiving - they were still angry.
I should have listened. They all told me to listen - Liz, Ms. Evers - and here I was, just as defiant as ever. I was going to pay for it.
James lifted a hand to my face, prepared to hit me, to jog my brain against the side of my head.
But he didn't.
With a sharp intake of breath, he lowered his hand and calmly placed it against the side of my face, running a calloused thumb around the shape of my lips, his other fingers resting on my cheek.
"I am not going to hurt you, Stella. I am never going to hurt you. Frankly, I am embarrassed that I ever let you think I would purposely cause you pain." He said, his eyes lowered as if ashamed.
"But the woman - "
"She was my wife, Stella. Was. We haven't been together for a very long time."
I sighed deeply, knowing the question I had to ask - that had to be asked - before anything continued.
"Do you love her?" I prodded gently, lowering my head.
"Maybe once I did. But Stella," He shrugged, grabbing my chin and lifting my face to look at his. "I have not felt anything, for anyone, in nearly a century. Do you know what that's like?"
"I can't imagine,"
And I couldn't. I had spent the last few months mourning the loss of a child that was not mine, a child who was not likely to be missed by anyone except for me. I longed for that numbness, that feeling of emptiness, at the same time as I longed for happiness and joy.
What was better, nothingness or bliss? Total emptiness or total euphoria?
"But you're different, Stella."
As James enveloped me in his arms, I hoped the latter was true.