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It takes her all of a minute to ask after him; she’s not going to deny she’s had a one track mind lately. The moment she spots the front desk and figures out where she is, she skips right over and brightly asks the concierge for Hale Santiago’s room number. “Or William Haley François Santiago,” she adds for good measure. “Detective, if you’re nasty.” She can’t help but smirk inwardly. She’d be lying if she said watching him interrogate a perp didn’t totally turn her on.
“I’m afraid we can’t give out information about our other guests, madam,” says the concierge, flashing her a tight-lipped smile.
“I’m sorry, I thought this was Valhalla, not an actual snooty hotel,” she scoffs, having hoped to avoid the monotony of bureaucracy and rules in the afterlife.
“May we show you to your room?” says the concierge politely in reply.
“Whatever,” she shrugs, allowing herself to be led upstairs. Almost as soon as the door shuts behind the bellhop, she breezes back out into the corridor and sets off in search of her boy. And so what if she spends all night working her way up each floor, knocking on every door looking for him? Time’s gotta be different here, anyway. She might not even need sleep, anymore. (This is quickly disproved when she finds herself curling up right there on the carpet on the 44th floor, promising herself she’ll just shut her eyes for a minute or two. She wakes up in bed back in her own room, wondering if this was Valhalla magic, or a bellhop carried her back here. She hopes it was the former.)
Every day after that is the same; she begins each morning (or whatever time it is) by asking the concierge if he’ll tell her where Hale is yet, and then resumes her search on whichever floor she left off on. It isn’t actually as tedious as it sounds. At first she brings along an iPod she found in her room (loaded up with a questionable mix of top 100 and classic rock she eventually admits she probably would have chosen herself), but after a day or two, she finds the people she meets behind each door provide entertainment enough. All types have found their final resting place here, human and fae, good and morally grey, eccentric and dull as ditchwhatsit. Some guests host wild parties in their rooms, while others appear content to hole themselves up with a book. Many are alone...but some have roommates. She almost walks right past the honeymoon suite, not sure she can stomach the sight of a happy couple just yet, until a pesky voice in her head whispers the possibility that he’s waiting there for her. He isn’t, of course. It’s some stupid, happy couple, who can’t seem to take their hands off each other. It makes her want to puke. (It makes her want to scream.)
She starts losing steam by the 400th floor, and hope by the 600th. But stopping, for even one second, would mean going back. She couldn’t go back to where she’d been - beyond hope. She couldn’t go back to grieving.
She couldn’t stop.
On the thirteenth morning (or is it the thirty-first?), she walks away from the concierge’s desk after his thirteenth (or thirty-first) non-answer, only to stop and spin on her heel. “Follow-up question,” she says, her vocal cords betraying her. “What about...Laszlo Malikov?”
The concierge responds in kind with his usual, (she suspects) falsely polite expression. “I can’t give out that information, madam.”
Kenzi smiles sadly. “Of course you can’t.”
It was worth a shot, anyway.
By the 700th floor, she’s dug the iPod back out. By the 800th, she’s looping Whitesnake albums and thoroughly loathing herself.
Come on, Hale, she thinks, desperate. I know you’re here somewhere. You’ve just gotta help me out a little.
By the 900th floor, she’s all but admitted defeat.
After she clears the 1000th floor, she trudges back onto the elevator, down to the lobby, and over to the concierge. “You’d tell me if he was here, wouldn’t you?” she asks, pointlessly. The concierge just blinks at her, that same annoyingly patient smile plastered across his face. “I knew we had an understanding,” says Kenzi with a nod, before heading back up to her room.
If Hale were really here, she knows, he would’ve found her by now. They should have met in the middle, as they always have. If he hasn’t found his way back to her by now...well. What’s left to do but settle in and start enjoying life after death?
Except she doesn’t feel dead, which makes it that much harder. Life simply goes on - in a weird hotel she doesn’t have to pay for, but isn’t allowed to leave. This is nothing like The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, she thinks, feeling ripped off. Wait, do we get Family Channel, up here? I’m way behind on Dog with a Blog.
And so, she begins to settle in. The channels are totally different here, and the DVD selection is weirdly limited, but at least the food is amazing. And if she wakes up every morning remembering the way his skin grew cool beneath her, well, at least there’s the room service to ease her pain. Mourning has never been so blissfully calorific.
And she soon sets her eyes on a new prize: a return to her life at home, with Bo. Because there’s no doubt in Kenzi’s mind that Bo is coming for her, and when she does, she will find a way to bring her home. And if she can’t have Hale back, then she’s sure as hell (or Valhalla) going to find her way back to her bestie.
Bobo will come for me, she repeats to herself each morning, once the waves of grief have subsided and she can breathe again. It’s gonna be just fine.
The DVDs are all weird sequels and obscure spin-offs - tangentially related to her favourite movies, but never quite what she’d choose for herself. She never does settle on a favourite room service order, either. Everything she loves most remains maddeningly out of her grasp.
But she can’t think about that anymore. Bo is on her way. That’s all that matters, now.
It just wasn’t her time yet. (It wasn’t their time.)
~
She wakes up unable to shake the thought that she should be looking up at Hale’s face, rather than the inside of her own casket. She left denial far behind her when she put on that white dress.
Lying in the darkness, six feet under, she’s never felt more alone.