Academy of the Forgotten

by Eva Chase

  I didn’t want to think about that. As selfish as it might be, I let myself lean toward him, tipping my head against his shoulder. Just like that, his stance relaxed. He eased his arm around my back and rested his chin against my hair.

  “I’m glad I know,” I said, “but I have no idea what to do about it. Every time I find out something new about this place, it just gets worse, and bigger, and crazier…”

  “I’ve been here for years, and I haven’t seen any way out,” Ryo said. “You shouldn’t expect yourself to manage it. I don’t know how this all started or where the professors got their power, but they have a hell of a lot of it. That’s why I think you should go while you can. What good does it do staying here if all that accomplishes in the end is ruining your life too?”

  “I can’t just walk away now that I know. Even if I leave, I’ll still be thinking about what’s happening here. I’ll still be trying to figure out a way to break you all out of this.”

  “Or maybe you’ll forget like everyone else, finally,” Ryo said softly. “And get the peace you deserve.”

  My stomach twisted. “What if I don’t deserve it?”

  He eased back far enough to look me in the eyes. “Whatever you’ve done in your life, whatever mistakes you’ve made, there’s no way they’re that much worse than what the rest of us here have done. And you seem to think we deserve better. Why the hell wouldn’t you?”

  Because they’d paid for it plenty and I hadn’t? Because I already knew the college had claimed at least one person unfairly? But the man in front of me was gazing at me with so much faith that I could let those protests slide, just for the moment.

  There hadn’t been many people in my life who’d ever believed in me. Looking back at him, all I could feel was how much I needed that right now, here on the precipice of taking what would probably be the biggest risk of my life. How much I wanted to show him what it meant to me.

  There was one simple way to do that, one that I’d enjoy just as much as he would. I raised my hand to his cheek and drew him in for a kiss.

  He kissed me back in that eagerly tender way of his. I let my fingers trail up into his hair, tangling in the smooth strands. Ryo kissed me harder, his tongue teasing across the seam of my lips until they parted. It delved into my mouth, twining around my own tongue. A wave of giddy anticipation rolled through me.

  Ryo tugged me closer to him, and I took the encouragement as an excuse to swivel around completely, straddling his lap. Our mouths only slipped apart for a second before we were kissing again with even more passion.

  My hands roamed up under his shirt, and he took the cue to make his own explorations. The skillful fingers that had crafted the little metal flower stroked over my bra and urged my nipples to peaks as quivers of pleasure raced through my chest.

  It wasn’t making love, but it was making me feel incredibly damn good, and that was the most I’d ever been able to ask for. Ryo had told me before that he didn’t expect any kind of commitment from me. It might be the last bit of pleasure I got to take in my life, so I’d better make the most of it.

  I shifted on his lap, grinding against the bulge that had hardened behind the fly of his jeans. Ryo’s breath hitched. As I traced the firm muscles of his chest, he unhooked my bra with a flick of his fingers and dipped his hands beneath it. With just a few caresses, he brought a gasp to my lips. Then he tugged my shirt up and tore his mouth from mine to bring it to the peak of my breast.

  I gripped his head as the heat of his mouth flooded me with bliss. He sucked my nipple hard and worked it over with his tongue and the tips of his teeth until I was moaning and squirming against him. Then he performed the same magic on the other side. I swayed against him, my fingertips skimming over his scalp, my sex aching where it brushed against his erection.

  As he encouraged another jolt of pleasure from my breast, I eased my hand down between us to stroke his cock directly. In a matter of seconds, I’d unzipped him to remove the most obvious obstacle. His erection sprang free with a couple more tugs. I smiled through a sigh as I gripped the silkily stiff flesh.

  Freeing myself took a little more effort. When Ryo raised his head to pepper kisses across my collarbone, I yanked at the zipper of my own pants and wriggled out of them as quickly as I could without pulling too far away from him. Claiming his mouth again, I rubbed against him through my panties, squeezing the base of his cock until a groan escaped him.

  Ryo drew back and looked up at me, his eyes gone heavy-lidded and even darker than before. “Are you sure?” he murmured.

  “I’ve got an implant,” I said. “And I’m clean. As long as you are too…” I assumed condoms weren’t easy to come by around here, but then, maybe it was ridiculous to even be thinking about STDs in a bizarre world where the weather never changed and everyone’s life was bound to a freaking rose.

  “I’m good,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant. You’ve been through a lot, just in the last few hours—”

  I lowered my head so my forehead brushed his. “That’s why I need this. I want you. I want to remember how alive I am.” A sudden doubt unfurled in my chest. “Unless you don’t—”

  “No.” He cupped my cheek. “I want you too. I’ll always want you.”

  “And you have me.” I kissed him and yanked my panties to the side. I was so wet already that I slid down onto him with only the faintest burn that turned almost instantly into a sear of pleasure.

  “Trix,” Ryo mumbled against my lips, and let out another groan as I rose and sank over him. His hips bucked up to meet my rhythm. As we rocked together in deeper and deeper pulses, he clutched my thigh, connecting our bodies that much more determinedly.

  The bliss built so fast through my core that it was almost bittersweet, but I couldn’t bring myself to slow down. We crashed into each other over and over, the pleasure taking me higher, our breaths ragged between chaotic kisses. I soared farther with each thrust inside me. Then ecstasy burst like fireworks behind my eyes, ringing through me and flooding out every other emotion.

  Ryo gripped me tighter as I clenched around him. A tremor raced through his body as he reached his own release. He pulled me to him, our bodies hot and damp with sweat in the cool air, and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

  And in that moment I couldn’t help thinking it was a shame that “always” might not be more than another day.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Trix

  Ryo and I parted ways on the second floor between the two sets of stairs. He brushed a kiss to my lips with no sign of the awkwardness that sometimes followed an intense hookup like we’d just shared.

  “You do what you have to do,” he said. “Just remember that you don’t owe me anything.”

  “Hey.” I poked him in the chest. “Same goes for you.”

  He grinned at me in a way I was starting to find way more adorable than was probably wise and headed up to his dorm. I turned in the opposite direction.

  I wasn’t planning on actually sleeping yet, but if I was going to pull off what I’d planned to attempt tonight, I should probably make a show of going to bed. The thought of making this last-ditch effort made me so restless it was probably better I lay down and at least pretended to rest while giving my nerves a chance to settle. If it was a little early to turn in, I didn’t think any of my roommates would care that much.

  I reached the top of the stairs to the girls’ dorms and hesitated there. A few of the students were clustered around the door to my bedroom, leaning past the doorframe and then murmuring to each other. A thread of uneasiness pierced through my chest.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, walking over.

  The girls didn’t answer, just eased back to let me through. I stepped inside, my heart already sinking, to find Violet and a couple of my other roommates standing around Delta’s bed. The covers were drawn back from Delta’s face, her red hair stark against the white pillow beneath it, but I couldn’t see much else between the observers.

  “She
’s gone,” Violet said, and glanced up. Her mouth tightened when she saw me.

  One of the other girls who I thought might be younger than me wrung her hands. “What do we do? I didn’t think she’d really— She’d only been sick for a few days—”

  The girl between her and Violet shook her head. “It’d been creeping up on her for a while. The staff probably already know, but if it makes you feel better, you can go look for the dean or one of the professors. They’ll take her out when they’re ready.” Her tone suggested she didn’t expect them to be ready with any urgency.

  I hugged myself as I approached the bed. Delta’s cheeks had caved in on themselves, almost as dark as the rings that surrounded her eyes. Those eyes stared blankly straight ahead, already starting to glaze. Her lips, pale and cracked, hung slightly open, as if she’d been dragging in one last breath when her body had failed her.

  No. I wasn’t sure how much I’d even liked Delta, but I’d never have wished this on her. Just this morning, she’d made it to breakfast. She’d seemed like she might be getting better, not worse. How could—

  I spun around before I’d even known I was going to move. If I could just—if there was some way—

  The fractured thoughts chased me down the stairs and all the way out onto the darkened lawn. Just enough moonlight seeped between the strewn clouds overhead that I didn’t need my phone to guide me. I hurried along the wall and into the sparser stretch of forest there, my chest getting tighter by the second around my racing heart.

  I recognized the spot from the jagged stump where a tree had toppled sometime in recent months. Just past that, at about my shoulder height on the wall, I should find Delta’s rose…

  It wasn’t there. Leaning close, I made out a couple of narrow, pointed leaves, yellowed and shriveled, where the blossom had been. Shit. I dropped to my knees, fumbling across the uneven ground below in the dark.

  My fingers brushed something dry and delicate that gave a soft rasp as it shifted. I froze and peered closer.

  A small heap of brown petals lay at the base of the rosebush, a few of them still clinging tenuously together. Their edges had cracked, one already crumbled into smaller fragments.

  My stomach lurched. I braced my hands against the earth, willing down the urge to vomit.

  No one could fix that flower, no matter how green a thumb they had. There was no restoring that bloom to life. If I was being honest with myself, I doubted I could have rejuvenated it even if I’d started trying when I’d first seen it. And that was assuming it was growing in a natural way and not as much dictated by the whims of the staff as everything else here appeared to be.

  I stood up on shaky legs. The image of Delta’s wasted face remained in the back of my mind. When I closed my eyes, it only loomed more vividly.

  She couldn’t have been that much older than me—none of the students looked like they were older than their mid-twenties, and most of them younger than that. Was that how it went for everyone? They were trapped here for however long the college decided their punishment should last and cut down completely after just a few years?

  How much longer did Cade have? Ryo? Any of them?

  How short would the rest of my life be if I stayed?

  Twigs crackled underfoot. I looked up to see Elias making his way over, his expression solemn, looking weirdly formal in one of those suits he always wore.

  He stopped beside me and took in the bush and then the petals on the ground. “I heard about Delta. I thought you might be out here.”

  His rose had been starting to crinkle up. Had he already prepared himself to go the same way she had?

  “It’s awful,” I said. “Like the life was just drained out of her. I wish there was something I could have done…” I turned back to the rosebush. “I’m good with plants out there in the regular world, you know. That’s what I want to do when I’ve saved up enough: start some kind of business setting up people’s gardens for them and looking after them.”

  “These aren’t your standard roses,” Elias said. “Sun and fertilizer aren’t going to stop them from dying. And you shouldn’t be worrying about this anyway. You’re leaving tomorrow, like you’re supposed to. It’s okay, Trix. No one here expected you to save us.”

  Delta definitely hadn’t. I remembered her annoyance at my shows of concern. But Elias’s words twisted me up inside with a different memory: seeing the relief on his face when I’d accepted the dean’s offer. He hadn’t spoken a word to me.

  I gave him a defiant look. “I think I might have changed my mind about leaving.”

  His lips jerked into a frown. “Over this? You couldn’t have done anything to stop it, I promise you. You have to think—”

  I held up my hand to stop him and then rested it carefully on his chest over the lapel of his suit jacket. Over the spot where his heart would be thumping. Maybe it was selfish, but I wanted to see the flicker of heat that would light in his eyes like it had when I’d stepped close to him before. To remind myself that some part of him liked having me here.

  “I don’t have to do anything for anyone,” I said. “I got overwhelmed in the moment and thought I’d screwed everything up, but I’m not ready to totally give up. Thank you for trying to protect me, though, even if I didn’t always like how you were going about it.”

  “That really is all I’ve been trying to do. Protect you.” His voice came out low and a little rough, and a tingle shot over my skin, as if I hadn’t just taken my fill of another guy less than two hours ago. It was hard not to wonder just how much passion might lurk behind that starched exterior.

  I tipped my head toward the deeper forest. “I know about Cade now too. Ryo showed me. I don’t know if I can leave without at least trying to talk to him, even if he can’t understand with… what they’ve done to him.”

  Elias considered me for a long moment, his jaw working. Then he said, “Half past midnight.”

  “What?”

  “Half past midnight,” he repeated, tilting his head in the same direction I had. His mouth set as if he regretted the words, but understanding struck me. I might be able to talk to Cade properly if I found him then.

  I checked my phone. It was barely ten. Way too much time to kill. But then, I needed to wait until pretty late before I attempted my next gambit anyway.

  “Thank you,” I said, wondering how he knew. I had seen him coming back to the dorms awfully late that one night. What brought him wandering around campus into the early hours of the morning?

  From what I knew of this place, it couldn’t be anything good.

  An impulse gripped me that I didn’t give myself a chance to deny. I shifted forward and wrapped my arms around Elias’s solid frame, hugging him with my head against his shoulder. He inhaled with a start and then hugged me back, one hand stroking over my hair. For all the rigid strength coiled through his body, I caught a tremor of something more vulnerable underneath. A warm scent drifted up from his body, like dark coffee laced with a hint of sugar, exactly the way I liked it.

  My thoughts tripped back to the third guy I’d had a close encounter with this evening, the one who’d literally put himself through agony to say his piece. The memory of the last words Jenson had spoken to me made my body tense up, but the business between us didn’t feel finished.

  I had time. I should see what he’d say when half the school’s staff wasn’t hovering over us.

  I drew back from Elias, and he stepped back farther, as if he didn’t trust himself if he stayed in arm’s reach. “I guess tomorrow morning we’ll see where I’m at,” I said with a faint smile.

  He nodded. “Be careful.”

  As if I could be, really.

  When I reached the school, the whole place was dark, even the third floor windows. Had the staff collected Delta’s body? One of our roommates had seemed to think they wouldn’t be in any hurry. Maybe they liked leaving that glimpse into the students’ future on display to remind them of the fate they’d all face. I shivered as I stepped in
to the foyer.

  There was no sign of any of the staff moving around on the ground floor. It occurred to me on my way down the hall to the infirmary that Jenson might have been moved back to his dorm bedroom if he’d recovered enough. How would I reach him if he was up there? I didn’t even know which bedroom he’d be in, not to mention the various other students to contend with who might object to me being on the guys’ side.

  But when I nudged open the infirmary door, Jenson’s form was immediately visible in the dim light that crept through the room’s tiny window, lying on his side on the cot like he had been when I’d looked in on him before.

  The door clicked into place behind me, and he stirred, rolling onto his back. At the sight of me, he sat right up—and didn’t manage to hide a wince. He obviously wasn’t completely recovered yet.

  “What are you doing here, Trix?” he whispered. It was hard to tell whether his tone sounded more worried or annoyed.

  “I needed to see you,” I said. “Even if you don’t want to say anything else to me, there are some things I need to say to you.”

  Tucking in his legs under the blanket, he eyed me warily as I crossed the small room. I hesitated and perched on the edge of the cot by his feet. My fingers curled around the metal frame.

  I dragged in a breath. “You’ve been a jerk to me most of the time since I got here. But after what happened this afternoon, I can’t believe it’s because you hate me. I think maybe you’ve been trying to protect me in your own stupid way like Ryo and Elias were. And that—that matters a lot to me, even if I wish you hadn’t been such an ass about it. I’m going to stay at least a little longer and do what I can to protect you all too, and no jabs you take at me are going to change that. So, can you just be honest with me for a minute or two? What’s really going on, Jenson?”

  A ragged chuckle fell from his lips. He tipped back his head to gaze up at the ceiling as if searching for answers there. When he looked at me again, his mouth was twisted halfway between a smile and a grimace. “Are you ever going to give up?”