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Delayed Admission

Page 15

by Heather Renee


  I want what everyone wants. I want freedom, and you’re going to help me get it. It’s been almost two decades of darkness for me, and I’m ready to show the council they screwed with the wrong sorceress. Alistair made a mistake the day he locked me away, she hissed.

  I’m not going to help you. You can torture me inside my head all you want, but I won’t be a part of whatever it is you think you’re doing.

  Standing from my bed, I finally gave up trying to push her from my mind and began to pace. I refused to play her mind games, and I wasn’t going to let her push me around.

  Don’t sound so smug, Raegan. You’ll do as you’re damn well told or those around you will pay the price. Your beloved Enzo is first on my list. Now, go practice your witch magic. I need you stronger. I’ll be back soon, and you don’t want to find out what happens if you disappoint me.

  My hands grasped both sides of my head when the stabbing sensation returned, but only for a few seconds before it was gone almost as quick as it had come. I needed to find that damn necklace and figure out how I got back to my room.

  After brushing my hair and changing my clothes, I left the dorm area in search of Enzo. If he wasn’t in his room, then Headmaster Stone would be my next stop. We had a problem, and one of them better be ready to help me fix it, because I refused to stand idly by while that witch tried to dictate my life.

  Chapter 17

  Enzo was nowhere to be found, and I was beginning to freak the fuck out. My stone was still missing. It had vanished into thin air, and Enzo seemed to have done the same.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know where he is?” I asked, and not for the first time since I waltzed into the headmaster’s office that night. “Use some of your magic juju to find him.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Raegan. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if Enzo doesn’t want to be found, then we’re not going to find him.”

  My hands tangled in my hair as my frustration increased.

  “Did you not listen to a word I said? Malina threatened him. I’m missing time. I don’t remember where I was for several hours today. Now, I don’t have my necklace and Enzo can’t be found. You think that’s a coincidence?”

  He leaned forward, face softening with compassion. “I understand you’re worried, but it hasn’t even been a day. I’m definitely concerned with you not remembering part of your day, but Enzo can take care of himself. He’s more powerful than I believe you’re giving him credit for. Maybe I can find you a similar stone like the one you lost to make up for your frustrations.”

  Something was going on. Headmaster Stone had always been on my side, but he was acting very nonchalant about everything I was telling him. I wanted to scream in his face, but as he continued to speak, I was realizing it wouldn’t help.

  Fuck it. I’d figure it out on my own.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry for bothering you so late in the evening. Let me know if you find another necklace for me.” Standing from my chair in his office, I forced a smile on my face and waved goodbye.

  When I was back in the hallway, it took everything I had to keep from yelling at the top of my lungs.

  Gemma was away.

  Enzo was missing.

  Malina was stronger than ever before.

  And I was on my own.

  Deciding I had no other options, I went back to Enzo’s dorm. Something had to be there, and I was going to find my way in. I hadn’t tried to get in before, because I assumed the headmaster knew where he was at, but I no longer had a choice.

  I was about to be the crazy girlfriend who went through his shit.

  Roaming through the halls, I tried to remain casual. Some of the teachers were still around who lived at the academy all year, but most of them knew I didn’t have family, so not too many people questioned why I never left the school.

  Headmaster Stone had kept my inability to go through a shield a secret from everyone except the council. Gemma, Peyton, and Finley knew, but I had a feeling Peyton’s and Finley’s heads had been messed with, because neither of them had brought it up since the night they witnessed it.

  Strolling into the elven dorms like I owned the place, I didn’t see a single elf. Weird, but not overly concerning. I had been in such a hurry when I was there earlier in the evening that I hadn’t thought much about it.

  It was pushing close to midnight, half my memory of the day gone. Malina had stayed silent since our earlier conversation, which I appreciated, but also made me nervous. There was a significant vibe of smugness coming from her, and I knew she had more than one something to do with my shit-tastic day.

  Arriving at Enzo’s door, just for curiosity’s sake, I tried the handle first. No shocker, it was locked. Placing my hand on the panel to enter the code, I tapped into my witch magic. It was the strongest part of me, and what I felt most confident in.

  I wasn’t sure where to start, but a syphoning spell and a blasting one were at the top of my list. Since the former was more conspicuous than the latter, I went with it, begrudgingly so.

  Focusing all of my energy on the power that controlled the door lock, I attached a magical tether to the object and began to pull on the energy within it. Since the keypad wasn’t supernatural, everything felt off, but it was working. I just needed to drain the battery, and hopefully the locking mechanism would fail to work.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice I could have gone the rest of my life without hearing snapped from behind me.

  “It’s none of your fucking business, Lyssa. Go back to whatever dark cave you crawled out of and leave me alone,” I replied without turning around.

  She was in my face within the blink of an eye. “Don’t push me tonight, Mutt. Where is Enzo?”

  “He doesn’t concern you anymore. Why don’t you run back to Drake and enjoy your vacation? It would make everything I’m trying to do a lot easier to accomplish.”

  She backed away, but only by a step. “I saw Desmond creeping around here earlier. I know we’re not exactly friends, but if something has happened to Enzo, I want to help. Your aura is all over the place, and I know something is wrong.”

  I chose to ignore her while I finished my syphoning spell and heard the lock give way a minute later. She hadn’t said another word and had lost the normal bitchy vibe she was so good at putting off. Also, something she had said tickled my memory, but I couldn’t grasp it, which was fueling my irritation.

  Damn it. I was going to regret this.

  “Come in and tell me what you saw,” I said as I pushed open Enzo’s door.

  She closed it behind her, and I began looking around his dorm, waiting for Lyssa to answer.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Anything to tell me where Enzo might have been going or what his plans were. He was supposed to do something for Headmaster Stone today after we had lunch. He never made it to our meeting spot, and I haven’t heard from him since this morning. Now, what did you see earlier?”

  “We’re supposed to be heading to the Caribbean tomorrow and I had forgotten my favorite swimsuit here, so I came back to grab it. When I did, I decided to check in on Enzo.”

  Taking a break from going through drawers, I rolled my eyes, which she saw and wasn’t happy about.

  “Enzo and I were friends for a long time before we became something more. Don’t judge me before you know the whole story.” Emotion I couldn’t identify flashed across her face before she tucked it away and continued. “Anyway, the platform wouldn’t go all the way up to his floor. It was jammed, so I waited at the bottom, assuming he was up to something. Enzo likes to push boundaries.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware of that.” I laughed. Ugh. Why was I laughing? She was not my friend, and we were not reminiscing. She was a means to more information, nothing more.

  She flicked her platinum blonde, almost-white hair back, and offered me the first smile ever that wasn’t more of a sneer. “When the platform began moving again, it wasn’t Enzo that w
as on it, but Desmond.”

  Every time she said Desmond’s name, my head pinged with a memory, but no matter how hard I pushed, I couldn’t break through the block on whatever I needed to remember.

  “What was he doing?” I asked when she paused.

  “That’s the thing. I have no idea. I hid behind a wall and didn’t get to see. He’s not the friendliest council member I’ve ever encountered. Always looks like he’s in pain and ready to snap. Anyway, I peeked out from the wall in time to see him turn the corner, and I’m pretty sure he was alone, but he shouldn’t have been up here. I know that for sure.”

  “Well, let’s see if we can find what he was looking for, and maybe it will tell us what happened to Enzo.”

  “Really?” Her head cocked to the left and eyes widened. “You’re not going to throw a fit about me helping?”

  “Would you rather I did, so you can run back to your beach vacation? I need help and nobody else seems to believe me, so beggars can’t be choosers. The only thing that matters is we find Enzo and soon. Something tells me he didn’t just take off to screw with everyone.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything else as we went our separate ways in the house. I took his bedroom. I didn’t feel comfortable with his ex, even if they were friends before, rummaging through his more private stuff, and I didn’t think he would, either.

  His closet was full of boring black pants, white dress shirts and a small dresser that held clothes not required by the academy. I pushed on walls and stomped on the floor just in case there was more to the closet than I could see, but nothing stood out.

  Moving on to his nightstand, I found his school tablet. They were locked with facial recognition and if I tried to screw with it, I risked wiping out the whole thing. I wasn’t that desperate yet, but I did take it with me.

  Lyssa’s head popped into the room. “Anything?”

  I flinched, still surprised she was speaking to me without the normal hostility I was used to. “Nope. You?”

  “There was a note in the garbage, scribbled down in what looks like a hurry. I can barely read it.” She handed it to me. “I think it says, ‘meet at ten near water’, but water could be way off.”

  Flipping the paper over, I looked to see if there was anything on it to tell us where he might have grabbed it from, but it was just a torn piece of plain paper.

  Black ink was used, and it was smudged as if the paper had been rubbed against something immediately after writing on it. For all we knew, Enzo didn’t even write it. We didn’t do anything with writing in class. Everything was done on the tablets, so I wasn’t familiar with his handwriting, but maybe Lyssa was.

  “Are you sure he wrote it?” I asked.

  “Well, I guess not. All men have shitty handwriting, so I guess it could be anyone. What do you think it says?”

  “I think the ‘meet at ten’ part is right, but I’m not sure about the second part.”

  Frustration swept through me as I continued to stare at the note. Where was he going and who was he meeting? Was it ten in the morning or the evening? Had he been set up this morning and been gone all day?

  “Do you have a phone?” I asked, wondering if we could try and call him.

  “Of course, I do,” she replied smugly, and I wanted to punch her in the nose.

  “Well, would you like to maybe use it to call Enzo? Mine was taken when I arrived, and I don’t have his number. Never needed it. You know, since we’re usually always together.”

  Working with her was going to be more difficult than I really wanted to handle, but damn it. I was out of options, at least until Gemma came back or the headmaster pulled his head out of his ass.

  Without replying, she pulled a phone from her back pocket and pressed a few buttons before holding it out, so I could see it was on speaker. Nothing happened for several seconds as I held my breath waiting for it to ring.

  “The number you have dialed is not available or has traveled outside of the service area. Please try your call again later.”

  The operator’s voice grated on my nerves. That had not been what I was hoping for. Even his voicemail would have been better than that.

  “What about a tracking spell?” I was just learning about those in class, but Lyssa had been at this magic thing a lot longer than I had, so hopefully she was familiar with it.

  “We could try it, but Enzo is normally shielded. Even his aura is kept a secret from others. If you haven’t noticed, he does whatever he wants and doesn’t usually like to talk about it. It’s why we broke up last year. I got tired of his secrets and never knowing what he was doing.”

  Huh. That made sense. Lyssa probably nearly nagged him to death before he called it quits. I could picture that and understood better why Enzo happened to be traveling through the states far away from her last summer.

  “We’re out of options for the night. I’m going to go back to my dorm and try to remember what happened today. Come see me if you think of anything that could help.” I turned to leave, but she grabbed my arm.

  “What do you mean ‘try to remember’? What happened to you?” Her voice was almost frantic, and her concern threw me off as I mentally chastised myself for not choosing my words more carefully around her. Not my friend, I reminded myself for the second time.

  “I don’t know. I was waiting for Enzo so we could eat lunch together, and the next thing I knew, I was in my room with a pounding headache.” Along with Malina back in my head, but she didn’t need to know the whole story. I’d already told her too much.

  “The council is in on whatever is happening. They’re the only ones powerful enough to screw with your memories. I could try and break through whatever blocker they have, but it would hurt.”

  I wanted to laugh. Maybe she didn’t realize how powerful Enzo was, because he had been able to take memories from me when I first met him and certainly wasn’t part of the council. Though, I had been able to painfully break through his spell. Regardless, now that I look back on it, he seemed to have let me. He gave me the choice, warned me of the consequences, and I chose to ignore them.

  “No, that’s alright. I’ll try to work on it on my own. If I don’t get anywhere, I’ll let you know.” No matter how nice that crazy bitch was being, she was still a crazy bitch, and I wasn’t letting her in my head unless it was my only option.

  “I’m going to go back to my room, then,” Lyssa said. “I already called my parents and let them know I was going to be running late. I can stay for another day to help, but not much longer without raising suspicion.”

  “I understand. You don’t have to stay at all, but I appreciate it. Let me know if you see anything around here before you leave.”

  She nodded and we said an awkward goodbye before closing Enzo’s door and powering back up his lock.

  Instead of taking the platform with me, she disappeared and teleported back to her room, or so I assumed. Irritation flooded through me once again that I hadn’t been given that ability. Out of all the weird shit I could do, teleporting would have been the best gift.

  After I arrived back at my room, exhaustion set in. The day had been mentally draining. I was ready for it to be over and wake up tomorrow to find out it had all been a nightmare. My hands reached for my necklace out of habit, and I bit back a curse when I didn’t find it.

  Just as I opened my dresser to grab pajamas, a knock sounded at my door. Hope soared through me that Enzo was there and I had been losing my shit for no reason, but when I opened my door, it was Lyssa’s face that stared back at me.

  “Here.” She shoved a phone in my hand. “It’s my old one and still works. I put mine and Enzo’s numbers in there.”

  “I, uh, thanks.” I didn’t know how to respond. She had been nice enough earlier, but this was way more than I expected out of her.

  “Whatever, Mutt. I gotta go.” She turned on a heel and stomped down the hallway.

  Ah. There was the Lyssa I was used to. A smile tugged at my lips. At least one thing was
still normal in this scenario.

  Even though her back was turned, I flipped her off like a child, then closed my door. Walking to my bed, I sat down and turned on the phone, which was thankfully an iPhone like my aunt had, so I was somewhat familiar with it.

  Even though we had just tried, I pressed Enzo’s name and put the phone to my ear. The annoying operator’s voice came on again, and I was tempted to throw the phone in frustration but managed to hold in my anger.

  After putting the phone on my nightstand, I finished getting ready for bed and decided I wasn’t going to figure anything out while I was as exhausted as I was. Tomorrow would be a new day, and I’d hopefully not lose my shit and punch someone in the face.

  Even though it sounded like a really great idea as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 18

  Six days had passed since Enzo disappeared. Six damn days, and I was beyond the point of no return with my irritation.

  My only saving grace was that Gemma was due to arrive back at Shadow Veil within the next couple hours. If she didn’t show, I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions, and there was a high chance of the school burning down if I snapped.

  Headmaster Stone had been brainwashed; I had no proof of it, but I was convinced of it. Some heavy magic was being thrown around and, somehow, he’d been caught in the crossfire. I had spent the last five days trying to figure out how to get his head back in the game, but nothing I tried had worked.

  After finally being able to visit the “secret elven lair”, as I liked to call it, I discovered a few new spells, but either I wasn’t powerful enough to execute them or the magic suppressing the headmaster was a hell of a lot stronger than me. Either option was plausible.

  Lyssa had left the evening after giving me the phone. Neither of us had been able to get through to Enzo, and she had been checking in with me once a day. The more days that passed, the more I worried Malina had actually figured out a way to get her grimy hands on Enzo and had him locked away in the dungeon right underneath me.

 

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