We Must Kill Sleeping Beauty (4)

"What have you done?" Luke stared at the sheet of paper.

Luke immediately noticed the differences in our writing. There was a slight curl on the ends of each letter while mine was mostly straight. You needed an extreme strong attention to detail to find how less than a one tenth of a millimetre had a difference.

"I didn't know she would respond," I mumbled.

"Can we go to the hotel now? There's no difference whether we stay there or in your villa where there's only the two of us. The hotel should be safer since there's more people," I tried to reason.

"Rika!" Luke slightly trembled.

"Do you not know what you have just done?" He raised his voice.

"She only wrote a message on that sheet of paper," I guiltily avoided his eyes.

"What have I been telling you all this time?" He clenched his fists.

"Ignore anyone who looks like they need help unless it's anyone I know. They're probably entangled in a big problem that will become dangerous later on. Don't eat or touch anything I'm not used to since it'll probably make me sick. Ask you for permission for anything that I normally don't do," I recalled all his lectures.

Most of these rules were ridiculous. I remember watching my mom look disappointed as I didn't touch any of the food she offered us. Evan ate them just fine, showing there was nothing wrong with them. Although the food never tasted good as the ones I was used to, I wanted to show her I didn't mind.

"Now which ones did you break?" He coldly stared at me.

"None of them. I just touched a safe paper and pen given by you. I usually write physical notes anyways," I gulped.

Luke took a deep breath as the sheet of paper crumbled inside his hand. I could feel him losing more of his patience with each passing minute. This was not good. I stepped a few steps backward until I bumped into the bed.

"I tried to respect you as much as I could. I let you go to all those places in the third district before you landed with a fever. We can go to the hotel but you're not ever going to leave that room. If you do end up leaving, you're going to stay inside the villa again where you won't ever be allowed to leave your bedroom until we go back to school," Luke came up with a fitting punishment.

"We're going to the hotel now like you wanted," Luke pulled me into the car.

"Alex, can you prepare another room for us?" he called him on the way to the hotel.

"Is the one on the top floor fine?" Alex noticed Luke's bad mood.

"Yea it is. Thanks," Luke shut the screen.

"Rika, continue on that page in the book," he didn't give me the chance to gaze at the scenery.

I opened the book at where we left off before we entered the competition. I started to solve the questions under his wary eyes. It was better to listen to him when he started to get mad. Or else the lectures would just endlessly continue. Since we weren't in school, he could take me anywhere he wanted as well.

I didn't want to visit his parents again and get tortured by all those strict tutors. Although, Luke seemed to consider it as a last resort as well since he would suffer with me. When I was about to close the book since the car was in front of the hotel, Luke glared at me to continue. I sighed as I continued to read the passages inside the book while walking to my new room.

Unexpectedly, I ran into Evan while the elevators were going up to our floor. He seemed to have noticed the bad mood between Luke and I and stayed silent. When he took a glimpse at the workbook for the first time, his eyes widened at the difficulty level. The workbook was spelled so that it would mark whether my answers were correct. If I got an answer wrong, Luke would make me repeat the question more than three times until he was sure I understood how to solve it.

"Don't keep your eyes off the book Rika," Luke noticed me watching Evan.

I nodded my head as my mind was getting exhausted with all these brainteasers. Evan left the elevator a few floors before us. Compared to listening to every single command from Luke, I started to wonder if it was better to visit sleeping beauty instead. I could free her from her cage and all the attacks would stop.

"Can I rescue you? Can I free you from your cage?" I accidentally muttered my thoughts out loud.

"Can you take me to you?" I unconsciously blurted.

The note suddenly appeared from the roof of the elevator as if she was trying to respond to my question.

[I can show you where I am]

I dropped my book as I collapsed onto the floors. The next time I blinked, I found myself where my dream left off from last time. I tried to rise from laying on the cold floors of the cave. There was a white silken ribbon, showing the way to the exit. I continued to follow the path, wondering if this would be this easy. It was different from the route I used to come inside. I gasped when I was finally out of the cave.