Mania (Fever Dreams Collection #1)

16. Maeve

Chapter 16

Maeve

Hazel’s last words hang between us while my heart beats wildly in my chest, blood rushing through my ears.

I must have misheard him.

He tries to speak again but stumbles over his words and stops abruptly. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

I try to do the same.

Finally, he clears his throat and pins me with his stare.

My body runs cold, expecting the worst.

“I’m not a ghost if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything at all, Hazel. Nothing in this fucked up place will ever make any sense,” I snap, still clutching the duvet close to my chest.

He sighs. “I just — can’t die.” His eyes turn grief-stricken. “The hotel won’t let me leave … I’m stuck here.”

“ What? ” I croak.

He puffs out another sigh, leaning his weight onto his open palm on the bed and drags his other hand over his face before continuing, “I bought this hotel in 1943, and at first everything was … fine. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for some odd oc currences with guests. Except there were no ordinary guests, and it took me far too long to realize they were ghosts. I tried to deny it at first, but I couldn’t ignore it forever.” He lets out an exhausted sigh. “Aside from that, the hotel ran like any other.”

“Aside from the ghosts,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.

He gives me a sad little smile, and my heart aches. Still, after all this, I yearn to reach out and touch him. To console him and tell him he hasn’t lost me. But I do nothing of the sort.

“It took another year for me to start feeling a presence.” His expression is weary, nerves skittering across his face. “It’s hard to explain, but I felt watched. Followed even when no one else was around. Then one day, I realized I couldn’t leave the hotel grounds. Try as I might, I could never walk further than the property limits. It was also around the same time I realized that no one could touch me.” He pauses, his expression turning wistful as he gazes at me. “Until you,” he croaks.

My heart pitches out of my chest but I don’t move. I let him finish. He drops his head and clears his throat as if trying to compose himself before he looks back up again.

“I seemed to be the only one aware of that harrowing fact. The only one painfully awake to this reality. It’s then I began to … unravel.”

His gaze turns remorseful, and my throat tightens with a confusing but all-encompassing empathy for the man sitting in front of me.

“I tried to end it all. Tried to find a drastic way out.” He chews on his bottom lip before speaking again. “I always kept a loaded Colt pistol in a locked drawer in my office.” He falls silent. Shrugs his shoulder as if to say You can fill in the rest .

My mind is racing with the nonsensical probability of him telling me this now, eighty years later.

“I woke up the next day as if it never happened. I — I can’t explain it. The gun was back in the locked drawer. No trace. No evidence. It only worsened this … this harrowing feeling of entrapment. I spent the following weeks chasing death. But nothing ever worked.”

He stops. His gaze studies me, appearing to choose his next words carefully. “Maeve,” he finally says and my heart does a little unexpected flip. “The bathtub … the hanging … Those were all my deaths.”

My eyes widen. My heartbeat tripling in rate.

“I was trapped,” I say without any thought. “Forced to reenact it … until you would appear, and snap me out of the trance.”

Hazel leans his body across the bed, his hand reaching out to me. “Dream girl,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry. I — I wasn’t myself. I had no memory of being there until you spoke the words. The hotel — my memory … it’s not as it used to be.”

His fingers graze my naked thigh, and my lips begin to quiver with the unshed tears I’m trying to swallow back down. Then he pulls himself up on his knees, both hands clasped together against his chest. “ Please Maeve . Forgive me.”

His hands fall open on his thighs as if offering himself to me. But I remain silent, and eventually, he speaks again.

“You need to understand. I hadn’t felt the touch of another for decades . I had accepted my fate. And then … you arrived and — and touched me. And I knew. I suddenly knew that we were bound to meet. Bound for a love like no other. You breathed hope back into my never-ending life. I know the two-way mirror was wrong, I know that . But I was desperate, Maeve. Desperate . I had to know you. I needed to watch you.”

Hazel stops, seeming to realize he was just rambling. I drop my eyes to the bed needing to escape his gaze.

Replaying his words.

Thinking.

The silence returns, and I let it caress my skin while his words sink deeper and deeper inside my chest.

I should leave.

I should pack my car and never look back. It would be the sane thing to do.

But …

What’s waiting for me out there?

Nothing but loneliness and heartbreak.

It’s what made me leave in the first place. And it brought me here. To Hazel.

Finally, I look up, my fist slowly unclenching the duvet.

“Like fate?” My voice is small and full of uncertainty, but nonetheless, I ache for his answer.

Relief flashes across his face, and he smiles. Still on his knees, he drags himself to my side of the bed and cradles my face in his hand. “Just like fate, dream girl,” he says against my lips before kissing me. “Just like fate.”