One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3)

a spider, you had better be Spiderman, Mark Grippen.”
It was so dark he couldn’t see her, only sense her, smell her complicated perfume. Didn’t know what she’d felt but whatever it was got to her. He knew a small light would begin to show above a door further down the corridor. He also knew their eyes would adjust just enough not to walk into walls but that meanwhile something else was coming for them.
It came with a burst of cold air, a dark figure in some kind of cloak, brushing past, muttering, making Mena bump against him and yelp.
“I think, it would be a good idea if you stayed close. I don’t want to . . . oh damn it, I really don’t want to touch other people.”
Her hand skated across his thighs, making him reach for it. “You okay there?”
“I’m going to hold on to you because this is creepy.”
He was glad she couldn’t see his grin. “You knew it would be creepy. It was in the prospectus.”
“Reading about creepy and, oh starlight, something touched me again,” she said, climbing his arm like a rope until she was almost tucked under it.
“You mean reading about it and experiencing it are different,” he said, trying hard to keep the laugh out of his voice. He failed, spectacularly.
“I hate you,” she said, but she was laughing too.
Locked together, they moved down the dark corridor to an illuminated door. Her fingernails were pricking his forearm. “Is something terrifying going to happen in there?”
“No. I won’t let you be terrified.”
“Spiders?”
“I won’t let spiders get you.”
“I think this is a terrible investment,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder, stifling a half-laugh. “Can we go home now.”
He opened the door to an ordinary if tired-looking hotel room where the bedside lights were on. Mena let go of him, strode inside and looked around. She flinched when the door slammed and locked behind them. The bed was turned down and there was a suitcase full of clothing open on the floor. “Not our room but no one is home, thank heavens,” she said.
Cue the moaning from inside what Grip knew was a bathroom.
Mena lurched for the door, only to realize it didn’t open without a key. The key she’d left in the corridor. “Oh shit,” she said laughing, but in a tipsy-scared way.
He knew if he didn’t stick his key in the door, there was another by the fake fireplace. He also knew the bathroom door would open and a woman in a nightdress with her hair all over her face would jump out at them. She’d hiss at them until they left.
“Give me your key,” Mena said, taking charge.
As he handed it to her, the bathroom door banged open and the woman appeared, shouting, “Get out of my room. Get out. Get out.”
Mena dropped the key and yelped. Grip swiped the one off the mantel, jammed it in the lock and they were out of the room and back in the dimly lit corridor.
She slapped his arm. “I’m scared, you shit of a man.”
She was laughing in that half-hysterical way, but he had to ask. “We can go back. We don’t have to finish.”
“We’re finishing. All we have to do is find our room, right? How hard can that be?”
Hard was one of those words that took some explaining. The first time he’d done this it took ninety minutes to find his room. The second time it still took more than an hour. While there were repeat patterns, it was different every time and the clues were deliberately difficult to find.
“You already know which room it’s going to be, don’t you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t. They move things around.”
Mena stomped a stiletto-clad foot. “I can’t believe I agreed to this.” She strode along the corridor a few paces and he followed. The door she opened revealed a library. Tattered books on floor-to-ceiling shelves and two big padded armchairs that had the stuffing hanging out of them. She flounced inside and threw herself into one of the chairs. Grip braced. That’s not something he’d done, he had no idea what might happen. He’d not entered this room before, simply closed the door on it and tried another.
Nothing happened. Mena crossed a leg and bounced it. “We need a strategy?”
“The only strategy we have is to keep exploring and watch for clues. We’ll know we’ve found our room when we find your bag and coat.”
“There must be a loophole.”
“If there is, I haven’t found it.”
He saw it before Mena did, a shadow that filled the room, starting from the corner, and growing rapidly. He looked up to find the source and that’s when the bats hanging from the ceiling became visible. “Mena.”
She shrieked and jumped into his arms as the first mechanical bat swooped them. Not close enough to touch but close enough to make you think it might.
He went for the door and backed into the corridor, pulling her with him. Through the open doorway they could see the ceiling was swarming with bats and other crawly things. It was so realistic, Mena was shaking.
“I won’t let them get you.” He held her loosely with one arm at her back.
She thumped her forehead into his chest, her breath coming fast, half a laugh, half a sob. “Have I told you I hate you?”
It didn’t feel like hate to have her this close. “You might’ve mentioned it.”
“Do not leave me for anything.”
One day a woman might say that to him and mean it for real. “I won’t.” One day he might find a woman he’d want to say that to.
He knew now what kind of woman that needed to be. Someone smart and determined like Mena, someone fun who understood him,