Mark leaned even closer, and gods, the smell. “Justin wouldn’t be excluded just because of you, January, that’s not what I meant. He treated you like a nightmare, and I for one, am not okay with that, but after you left, Justin jumped out of the pool and tore through the party like a hurricane before vanishing into the woods.”
“What?” I asked.
“It was dramatic, to say the least. Everyone is a little afraid of him. After he was picked up for treason, people were saying that we should move the party elsewhere. I know this might be a massive overstep, but, January, I think you’re better off now that he’s broken up with you—”
“Wait, Mark,” I interrupted as I raised a hand. Too much information was warring for dominance in my head. “Can we postpone this conversation for later. Sorry, I have some friends over, and…” I glanced over my shoulder, “I was trying to tell you that our conversation really isn’t private, and maybe it should be.”
“Oh—uh,” Mark leaned into the room and looked past me first to Mitch, who sat at my table, eating a brownie with an unamused look on his face, then Mark looked over to my couch-full of friends, all of whom were looking over their shoulders. A wide, almost genuine-looking grin spread across his face. “Hey all—movie night, huh? And, Carrie, great flick. And snacks too, you all really know how to have a good time. How does someone score an invite to movie nights at your place, January?”
“Honestly, this is the only movie night we’ve ever planned here, and it was pretty spur of the moment,” I said, because Mark sounded a little hurt, even though it would never in my wildest dreams have occurred to me that he would want to be invited. This wasn’t his type of crowd.
I nodded to the couch. “Do you want to join us? We have plenty of snacks.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said, waving his hands in the air, but instead of leaving, he walked fully into the room and let the door close.
Patrick stood from where he was sitting next to Mia. “Hey. Have the other floors received their ranks yet?”
“No…” Mark winced, “I’m sorry, but the guards will be passing them out in the morning about an hour before first bell. And, for students who live off-campus, you’ll be able to pick them up in the office.”
“You got mine?” Mitch asked with a mouthful of brownie as he held out a hand.
Mark rolled his knuckles on the table, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. Then he brought up his shoulders and gave a half-smile, half-wince that looked comically sheepish. “Alright, you all caught me. I used my child of the temporary CEO status to get January’s badge early, so I had an excuse to talk to her.”
Cue awkward silence.
Mark met my eyes. “I meant it when I said that I didn’t come here to hit on you. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay after Justin attacked you last night.”
Zack stood from the couch. “Justin attacked you, January?”
“No,” I said, spinning to face the group. “Mark, that’s not what happened. No. I was trying to help a girl who was throwing up, and she almost pushed me in the pool. Justin knows I can’t swim, so he overreacted.”
“Wait…” Mark tapped a finger on the table, “Mitch is the one who protected you from falling—he zipped in front of the whole party—I don’t think I’d forget that even after a couple. Then Justin punched Mitch in the face.”
“Justin punched Mitch while he was protecting you from falling into the pool?” Lucas asked, his brow wrinkling up. “Is that why you have a split lip?” He asked Mitch, who looked as confounded for excuses as me.
It all sounded really bad. It was really bad, but it wasn’t what Mark was saying. I opened my mouth to attempt to break it down, but, suddenly, the lights went off, and the whole room plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER TEN
As soon as the room went dark, bodies all around my dorm glowed red and yellow to my dhampir vision. The room glowed in soft shades of blue and green. The crowd stayed where they were in front of the TV, but everyone was looking around, as bewildered as I was.
“Oh my god!” Susie said, high-pitched. “No more horror movies, guys,” she said the second part through a laugh.
A blood-curdling scream ripped through the air coming from what sounded like just outside Gregory Hall, and I rushed over to the window.
“I can’t see anything,” Zack called as he stood from the couch and staggered straight into Michael, who was sitting on the floor.
“Ouch,” he called out in a low voice.
The crowd behind me kept talking, but the scene outside claimed all my attention.
Either tonight was a new moon or there was heavy cloud cover, making the field outside Gregory Hall dark enough that my dhampir vision could take in all the details. A spiderweb of black cement paths cut through the glowing blue grass. There were no heat signatures from humans or animals, but mid-way on the field, there were piles of something. The mounds glowed different shades of green, which meant that they were varying temperatures, all warmer than the grass but not alive. The piles made out letters, stretching across the lawn.
Play with us.
The shape of those letters… it was irregular and yet familiar. My body must have figured it out moments before my mind did because vomit surged up in my throat, just as I thought the word: corpses.
The lights blinked on in the room, and a cheer rose up throughout my dorm room, but I stood at the window, covering my mouth.
Even though I knew what I was going to find in that field, my mind wasn’t ready to see it. Fifteen bodies lay on the lawn. They looked like they were sleeping. From what I could tell, they were all adults, wearing uniforms and suits.
Tears streamed down my eyes, and I couldn’t hold back the vomit this time. I staggered away from the window and barely made it to my kitchen sink before I was heaving my guts out. Pain seared through my ribs as I continued to hurl. Someone held up my hair, and I found Mia there.
“January, you sick? You want me to get you something?”
I pointed toward where a crowd was gathering around my window, but I couldn’t find the words.
Lucas broke off from the group and came over to me. “You okay? That’s got to be just some sick, Halloween prank, January.” He took a glass down from my cupboard and handed it over. “Those aren’t real bodies—probably plastic.”
“What is it?” Susie called over from where she and Richard still sat on the couch.
“A prank? Are you sure?” I filled the glass of water and rinsed my mouth out before using the rest of the water to clean off the sink.
Mia rubbed my back. “Yeah, dorm students pull pranks every year. I mean, that’s like—ten bodies out there…”
“Fifteen,” I choked out. My whole body felt hot and shaky and sick. “Can we watch something maybe a little lighter?”
“No problem,” Richard called over as he held up the remote. “Live-action Beauty and the Beast it is.”
Susie looked back. “Come sit and watch the movie, January. Jerks really do pull stunts like this every year.”
Exhaling a shuddering breath, I said, “I think I need a minute to gather my nerves.”
I wanted to believe that it was a prank so much, but the bodies were different temperatures. Some of their heat signatures were dark shades, whereas others were almost yellow-green. If they were dummies, wouldn’t they have all been the same temperature as the grass below them?
Most of the crowd was moving away from the window now, but Mitch still stood there, his hands white-knuckling the windowsill. His gaze cut over to mine, and I saw a mirrored look of horror in his expression.
“The dorm staff are moving in,” Zack called over before heading my way. “If it wasn’t a prank, we’d all be on lockdown. January—whoever did this deserves to have their ass beat.”
He continued talking, but a new thought had entered my mind, blocking out all others. Someone screamed after the lights went out, and I immediately moved to the window and looked down. There weren’t an
y people scrambling away from the bodies, not humans or vampires. There were just the bodies, perfectly positioned with no one around them.
Someone pounded on my door, and we all spun toward it in shocked silence. Everyone was acting like they believed the scene outside was just a hoax, but I felt palpable fear in the room, it was like a visceral force.
“Wait,” Mitch said as he charged past us, heading for the door. He propped his hands against the door. “Lucas, Zack, Mia, and Mark, you want to give me a hand here? Just in case.”
My sweatshirt pocket buzzed, and I reached down and grabbed my phone. On my screen was a text from Justin.
Justin: I’m at your dorm. Are you home? We need to talk.
Relief washed through me, and I wasn’t even sure what I was relieved about. I didn’t want to talk to Justin or see him. But then I realized that he was alive. I was relieved because he was alive, and somewhere in me I was sure that fifteen real, true people were dead and lying across the lawn, their bodies positioned into a mocking joke.
“It’s Justin,” I called across the room, as the best fighters among us lined up in a ring around my door. I held up my phone as proof. “We should let him in.”
They didn’t do it right away, everyone seeming to hesitate at once before Mitch pulled the door open.
Justin stood there, framed in the doorway, staring down at his phone before his golden gaze came up. He looked around in puzzlement at the crowd standing around the door. His dark hair was messy and damp around his face like he’d just taken a shower, and his hair hadn’t quite dried. He was wearing a white, button-up shirt with his sleeves rolled up.
“Hey…” he said, slowly, as his brows pulled together. “Is January here?”
“Can you guys let him in?” I asked because they were all just standing there, blocking his path. “I think we’re going to go under lockdown again, and we should all be inside.”
The crowd parted slightly, and Mitch let the door close.
Zack started to say, “If they were going to do a lockdown, they would have—”
The loud and distinctive click of the door locks snapping into place echoed through the room.
The room fell into a tense silence, with only the movie playing in the background.
“It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a hoax,” Zack said as he crossed back to the window. He peered out. “They’ve almost cleared the field.”
“Cleared the field of what?” Justin went to stand beside Zack, leaning closer to the glass. “What are they moving?”
“Bodies,” I said.
“Or dummies,” Zack insisted. He spun around, startling a little as he looked back at Justin. “Weren’t you just down there? You didn’t see anything?”
The look of confusion on Justin’s face grew more severe. “I was down there a few minutes ago, and then I got trapped in the elevator on the way up. It was pitch black, and then it suddenly started working again. No one was in the hallway when I got up here.” Justin looked over at me. “January, you okay? You look like you’re going to faint.”
He took a step toward me, and automatically, I took a step back. What the fuck?
Confusion and hurt passed over his features. “Can we talk?” He nodded toward my room. “Alone. It’s important.”
“I’m sorry, Justin. But, no.” I raised a hand. “I’ll talk to you, but not alone.”
I didn’t know what was going on, but something felt really off here.
“What?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe that I didn’t want to speak in private.
Mitch wandered over, grabbed the full brownie tray, and stepped in front of me. “I’ll go with you two.”
“Fine.” Justin’s gaze darted between us for a moment before he turned and headed into my room.
As if by a collective agreement, everyone else took seats around the television, or they were pretending to. All around the room, people had their phones out, and they were typing on their phone screens.
Instead of joining Justin and Mitch in the room, I locked myself in the bathroom and called my nana. Leaning against the door, I listened to the phone ring.
“January?” Nana asked, and in the background, I heard loud music.
“Yeah, sorry, I’ll call back later!” The moment I hung up, I dialed my mother’s rehab, insisting that the nurse leave her station to make sure my mother was alright. When I was sure that they were both fine, I turned to the mirror, seeing that Justin wasn’t exaggerating when he said I looked sick. I looked like a ghost, smelled like a sewer, and felt like I was going to throw up again. What I needed was blood, but the bags were in the hidden compartment in my fridge.
I made do with brushing my teeth and washing my face before leaving the bathroom. Stepping out, I wanted to go right back in, because Justin was standing there, watching the door expectantly.
“What happened last night, January? I woke to my phone blowing up with everyone telling me that you two were making out in the middle of my pool house at the party you threw last night,” Justin said as he leaned against the wall. “I know this is bullshit. I just need some sort of…” He ran his hand through his hair, “I’ve been going out of my mind all day, and I know this isn’t the right time… fuck.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “Can you just tell me what happened?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Mitch muttered. He sat down on my desk chair and hugged the brownie tray like it was a weapon. “You don’t remember?”
“I think I’d remember my girlfriend and cousin making out.” Justin turned his phone around, showing a photo of Mitch and me at the party last night. A shirtless Mitch leaned in toward me, his hands next to my arms. The way the camera was angled, it definitely looked like we were making out.
I should have felt some surge of emotion, anger, or righteous indignation. Instead, I just felt irritated that Justin could even care about something so trivial right now. “I don’t really feel that I owe you an explanation after you broke up with me in front of the entire party, but Mitch and I were talking there, Justin. We were standing in the middle of the crowd, talking. That’s it. We were having the conversation that we were all supposed to have before you freaked out—”
“Before I freaked out?” he asked like he had no idea what I was talking about. “I wasn’t there.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked as I crossed over to my bed and took a seat.
“I texted you that I didn’t feel well… right?” Justin asked as he walked slowly toward me.
“At like six, yeah,” I said.
He held out his hands. “I went to bed. Then I woke up feeling even worse because my phone was chiming nonstop, one message after the other. This photo from Corey Mitchel was one of the only texts I had the energy to open, and only because it flashed across my screen, and it looked bad.” Justin took a seat on the foot of my bed. “But even before I came here, I knew it was more than likely just a shot of you two talking. You wouldn’t cheat on me. I just wanted you to be aware that people were spreading shit.”
When I really looked at him, I couldn’t help but notice that his skin had a sickly gray undertone. Dark circles were under his eyes, and even though he looked like he recently showered, dark bristle spotted his chin. He always shaved.
“So, you’re saying that you don’t remember the party?” Mitch asked as he leaned in toward Justin. His voice matched the skepticism that I felt. Justin hadn’t seemed drunk or sick at the party. He’d seemed elated and then enraged.
“I’m saying I didn’t go to the party.” Justin’s head fell into his hands. “I was asleep.”
Mitch’s gaze met mine. “The fuck?”
“Do you think maybe someone was impersonating him.”
Justin raised his head from his hands. “Can you guys please just explain what you’re talking about. My head is starting to pound.”
I leaned over to my bedside table drawer and pulled out a bottle of Ibuprofen. “Hold on. I’ll get you a bottle of water.”
“It’s fine,” he said, swallowing two pills dry. “I’d rather you just tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Justin…” I glanced over at Mitch, “I was helping a drunk girl, because I guess I just can’t help myself, and she almost knocked me in the pool. You were already upset at the girl, Parker Cleary.”
“She’s the school snitch,” Justin muttered. “She’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t want her at your party. You were about to pour a beer on her head, and when Parker stumbled into me and almost knocked me into the pool, you jerked her away pretty violently. Mitch zipped over and helped me, and then you got really angry at him and punched him.”
“What?” Justin breathed.
“Yeah.” He pointed to his lip. “I let you have one, but on the second punch, I shoved you in the pool.” He lifted the brownie tray, shoving it toward Justin. “Eat something. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Absently, Justin picked up a brownie, but he just stared at it while furiously rubbing his forehead. “I can’t remember any of this—did anything else happen after that?”
“You kicked Mitch out of your house, forever,” I said.
“Oh fuck, man,” Justin said as he looked over at Mitch. “Look—I don’t remember any of that. Maybe I was sleepwalking.”
“Justin, you were awake and sober. Or whoever was impersonating you was awake and sober. The look in your eyes, it terrified me. It was like someone else was in there.” I stood and wandered over to my bedroom window, craning my neck to look out at the field. The bodies were gone now, but security guards were everywhere and vans lined up along the curb. Soldiers unloaded what looked like large black boxes. Fifteen people died today… or recently… and someone left them on the lawn with the message ‘play with us.’ The message was left around the time Justin entered the building or just after.
I turned back to face Justin, pulled the letter out of my sweatshirt, and crossed over to him. “Read this.”
Broken Elites (The Vampire Legacy Book 3) Page 9
