A Poised Nuisance (Lithe Book 1)

by Iris RIvers

  It was always going to be a war; a war bloody and ruthless, one that took years, lifetimes. One that may never end.

  “Lara,” Kai panted against her lips. Lara, Lara, Lara. He repeated her name like he was in worship, like she was his goddess, his deity.

  He’s going to kill me, Lara thought as he moved his lips to her neck, kissing the sensitive skin there.

  Not if I kill him first.

  He brought his hand to her torso, feeling for the buttons of her jeans. “May I?” he whispered, tugging on the waistline.

  “Yes,” Lara gasped, moving back to a pew, lying on its wood. “Please.”

  He slipped her pants off slowly. She watched as Kai’s chest heaved, his eyes lighting up in the shadows. Lara reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging at it in question. Kai answered, pulling it over his head. Her fingers grazed the smooth skin across his chest, his heart quivering underneath her palm.

  He is alive, after all. Did I do this to him? Did I bring him back to life?

  “I can feel your heart,” she whispered.

  “Didn’t I tell you? How hard it beats for you?” He covered her hand with his own, his arm propping himself up, above her body.

  Kai’s eyes, laced with desire and fever, outlined the shape of her bare legs. He kissed her again, but this time on her hip bone. Lara pulled her own shirt over her head in need.

  “God of sin,” he whispered against her hip. He moved to her bare stomach, kissing just above her underwear. “You are going to destroy me.”

  Lara closed her eyes as his tongue trailed across her stomach, then down to her thighs. Kai looked at Lara as he pulled down her underwear, his gaze unwavering, and she shivered as the cool air met her skin. His mouth met Lara slowly—so slowly that Lara had to bite her lip to prevent herself from gasping. His touch was excruciating.

  He was kissing her, touching her, in the holiest of places, within the soundless walls of God—trapped inside his reverence and forgiveness and piousness. But there was no God in this moment, no redemption, only Kai and his lips on her, Lara and her breathy whimpers. It was them, crying out, clinging to one another, accepting defeat. Accepting that, no matter what they chose to do, they’d never recover. They’d never turn back from this. The memory of their lips on one another, of the blood that coated their bodies, was one they’d never forget.

  When Lara died, her eyes closing and her heart slowing, she was sure she’d think of this moment, of the pleasure but also the pain—the pain she’d been trying to ignore; the pain of Kai’s stares and his kisses. The worst pain she’d ever felt.

  Kai was whispering things against her skin, things she couldn’t understand, things she didn’t want to understand. How could she, when her greatest enemy was on his knees before her? Worshipping her with his tongue?

  As Lara’s breathing slowed and her chest fell, she thought, with certainty, that this moment would be etched into the stars. That, when she walked outside, leaving the confines of the cathedral, she’d look up to see them, her and Kai, dancing across the sky, using their words and stares as weapons—devices to kill.

  “Do you feel it?’ she heard Kai say, far off in another world, another time.

  “Yes,” she answered, shuddering as the stars moved into her blood, pushed into the hollowness of her bones. “I feel it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ―Marie Curie

  Kai was burning.

  No—he was dying.

  Stuck inside the walls of the church, Kai couldn’t remember where the exit was. The pews were lit in flames, the smell of wood and ash clogging the spaces between his chest. He heard a crash from the walls; glass shattered beneath his feet. He turned over his palms to find them bloody and splintered.

  Is this from the glass? Kai thought, letting the blood drip down to the sallow floors. Or is this from touching Lara?

  “God,” he pleaded, using his arms to cover his burning eyes, and then swore. There was no god in this church. Not anymore. Not after he had done what he had done—to her.

  He could feel his skin melting like sugar in a beverage, could feel the very print of his thumb perish in the poisoned air. The stinging in his eyes had become too much to handle; he tried closing them, but he couldn’t. He was too immersed in the vividness of color around him.

  Red. Only red.

  It was the color of everything he hated. Blood. Gore. Lara.

  The flames caged him from within, and Kai fell to the floor, letting the fire wither through his jeans. He was sure his bones had begun to disintegrate. His lips widened as he gasped for air. He could still remember the taste of her as he devoured her whole. It was intoxicating, like a vector he could never stray from.

  Lara, Lara, Lara. Kai let his head fall to the floor. My ruination. My curse. The flames swallowed his body, starting from his legs and then moving to his hands. He did not tremble.

  A pounding came from beside him—so loud, so painful, Kai had to push his shaky hands against his ears. Is it her? Has she come to watch me die? He tried to ignore it, but it continued, increasing in intensity, creeping closer to Kai with every second.

  Kai opened his eyes. He was not burning but alive. Alive and breathing. Alive and whole.

  He sat up from his bed quickly, his breaths coming out in incomplete gasps. Sweat lined his body, suffocating the insides of his skin. The silk of his sheets itched against his legs. The knocking continued outside of his plaguing nightmare. It was coming from his front door, the noise vibrating against his adorned walls. He reached for his phone, checking the time—11:43 a.m.

  Kai jumped out of bed, wanting to rid himself of the feeling that came along with the dream he had just been drowned in—burned in. Grabbing a shirt from the floor, he walked to the front door and yanked it open, angered that he’d been woken up—despite the horror of his dreams—expecting to see Jehovah’s Witnesses or even a girl scout, but it was Farrow.

  Kai squinted. “What are you doing here?” He stepped aside to let her in.

  “I was beginning to think you’d never open the door,” Farrow exclaimed, subtly looking around at Kai’s messy living room.

  “I was contemplating it,” Kai murmured, moving to the kitchen to make himself a cup of black tea.

  “I’ve found it,” she said, hands moving to pull the familiar file from her bag. Kai set down his mug.

  “Found what?”

  “The cult,” Farrow replied. “It was a cult—a cult from Juilliard. And I think it still exists.”

  “Here?” Kai questioned. “Are you sure?”

  “Where else?” Farrow asked, moving to hand Kai the file. He took it with shaky fingers.

  “The details I have are blurred; they don’t make sense—”

  “Nothing about this makes sense,” Kai interjected.

  “But,” Farrow continued, “I think I’m finally onto something. I’m close, Kai. I am so close.” A smile stretched across her face, unnerving him.

  Kai opened the file. Inside was the letter left by his parents’ bodies, the one he had already seen, but this was a photocopy. A few printed words had been added in-between the ones already written.

  “You figured it out,” Kai said, suddenly realizing what she’d found.

  “Not all of it,” Farrow blurted. “But the name. I came across the name.”

  “How?” he wondered aloud, his voice barely a whisper. Kai cleared his throat. “How did you find it?”

  “At the bell tower. Your school’s bell tower,” she answered.

  Kai thought of the tower he passed almost daily, of its gothic architecture and chilling contrast to the modern buildings beside it. He remembered the dead bodies that had been found resting just outside the tower, behind its door, and melting into the ashen grass. Things were connecting in his mind like magnets, stretching apart then colliding in the middle of his brain, sparking understanding and pe
rceptiveness and a long list of things he never thought he’d experience. He wondered if that was how his parents would’ve been found if they didn’t live so far from the campus—if they were murdered by the same cult.

  Kai slowly looked down at the paper in his hand, running a hand across his thrumming head. The missing words were there; they’d been found, and it suddenly all made sense. It suddenly fit perfectly, like he’d always known the words; like, despite their absence, he’d known it would be the ones printed in the empty spaces. The lines screamed at him in Farrow’s abrasive handwriting, the letters big and dangerous.

  From Lithe of Juilliard.

  “Lithe...” Kai muttered, feeling like he had been doused in electricity—as if Zeus himself had clenched his broken heart inside the palms of his sculpted hands. He had their name. Their biggest secret. “They’re called Lithe?” he asked, looking back up to Farrow.

  Her face was grim but also full of anticipation—an odd mixture of emotions that confused Kai. “I don’t know for sure, but yes, most likely. It makes perfect sense.”

  Farrow had revealed their identity. Their veristic name. It was so overwhelmingly exciting that Kai had to sit down, had to clench his jaw.

  He could use the discovery to destroy them—he would use it to destroy them. He would watch them bleed, watch the blood pour from their throats as it had poured from his parents. He would watch them suffer in horrible agony like he’d watched his sister suffer. He would not let them win.

  Not this time. Not again.

  “Lithe,” he said again, becoming familiar with its sound.

  Farrow nodded, stray hairs from her bun falling around her shoulders. “It’s an odd name, isn’t it? Comedic, even. A group of blood-crazed murderers calling themselves graceful.” She spat the last word out as if it was a crime.

  “They are in a way, aren’t they?” Kai said. “A group composed of people intelligent enough to get away with obvious crimes right under our noses. It’s likely they’ve committed even more murders since then, and we still know nothing of them. They’ve been here, at Juilliard, for possibly longer than you and I have been alive, so yes—I’d say they’re graceful; graceful little fucks, and I’m going to tear them apart.”

  Farrow laughed a little, raising an arched brow. “I can nearly see your need for revenge.”

  “Good,” Kai said.

  Another knock sounded from the door; Kai looked to it in confusion.

  “It might be a friend,” Kai said, thinking of Baker and their habit to show up unannounced. He got up from his seat.

  “Actually,” Farrow said, stopping him, “I invited someone over. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Kai let out an irritated sigh; he wasn’t too keen on letting strangers into his apartment. “Who is it?”

  “Someone I met the other day,” Farrow explained. “He’s going to help us.”

  Help us?

  She headed to the door with Kai at her side.

  “Kai,” Farrow said as she opened the door, “meet Detective Clarke Murphy.”

  “I DID IT,” LOWRI SAID, biting her bottom lip. “I went to the church.”

  “And?” asked Ana. “What’d you find?”

  The girls sat in the bell tower, all standing, all incredibly anxious. Violet had told Ana it might be too perilous to meet at the tower, but Ana ignored her, saying they’d be fine because they were always fine.

  “Nothing of importance,” she answered. “I listened in on some conversations between the police. They haven’t found any evidence yet. No DNA left behind.”

  Lara let out a sigh of relief.

  “They’ve figured out that the weapon was a blade of some sort. But, most importantly, they have no suspects yet. All of his friends and family members had some sort of alibi.”

  “They have to connect it to us soon,” Lilah voiced. “I mean, it’s not the first time someone’s been found in the city with a cut-open throat. And most of those victims were found here—at the tower.”

  “I’m not sure they’ll connect it. They seemed pretty idiotic,” said Lowri.

  “I think you underestimate them,” said Evelyn.

  “Did anyone see you?” Ana interrupted.

  “Was I supposed to hide?” Lowri asked. Ana put a palm to her forehead.

  “Are you dumb?” said Violet. “What else were you meant to do?”

  Lowri shrugged sheepishly. “I think only one person saw me,” she whispered. “I haven’t told you about him—I’ve been too afraid—but he’s been following me recently. It’s like every time I turn around he’s there, watching me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lara asked, her short hair bobbing around her shoulders.

  “The same man who’s been following me was there, at the church.”

  “Do you know who he is?” Sienna asked, folding her arms across her torso. “His name? His job?”

  “I know nothing about him,” she said. “Only what he looks like.”

  Ana pulled out her phone, typing intensely. “He must be a detective. He must know something.”

  “He did seem to be a detective,” Lowri said, piecing together bits of her memory. “He looked like he was trying to find something, or—or someone.”

  Ana shoved her phone out before her, showing a few photos of some men. All white, all balding. “Do you recognize any of them?” she asked Lowri, her left eye twitching.

  Lowri’s eyes scanned the photos, face blank. Lara wondered what she was thinking—if she was scared of the man that had followed her. “Him,” she said suddenly, pointing to a man with dark hair. “I think it’s him.”

  “You think?” Ana said.

  “I, uh... Yes, it’s him. It has to be.” She seemed incredibly unsure, Lara noted.

  “We need to kill him,” Orion said. “He already knows too much.”

  “I’ll do it,” Lara said before anyone else could speak. The other girls froze, their mouths open in bewilderment.

  “You’ll do it?” Violet asked, brows raised. “After what happened last time? That’s funny.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really think that’s a good idea. I mean, no offense but you’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place,” Mia remarked.

  “I know,” Lara said, hands raised. “It’s my fault we’re in this predicament, so let me fix it. I want to prove myself—to you all.”

  The girls looked to their leaders. It was their call.

  “Well,” Evelyn said, a light blush tainting her cheeks. “Lilah?”

  “Ana?” Lilah said almost immediately.

  Ana looked to Lara, her eyes sharp and dark. “Okay,” she said at last. “You want to prove yourself? Here’s your chance to do it.”

  CLARKE HAD STAYED AT Kai’s apartment for two hours; him, Kai, and Farrow had been engrossed in a long conversation regarding Lithe and their murders, but he was finally leaving—which pleased Kai immensely.

  “Thank you for talking with me, Kai,” said Clarke. “It feels so great to find someone else going through something so similar. I—”

  Kai shot out his hand. “Of course,” he said. The two shook hands. Farrow stood awkwardly at the front door.

  “You can call me anytime, you know.”

  Kai nodded.

  “I just—I know how it must feel. Being alone. But I just need you to know that—”

  “What?” Kai interrupted. He was growing tired of the conversation.

  “Be careful of who you trust,” he answered. “It may be hard to see, but anyone could be completely against you. Despite your closeness. The worst people typically hide in the shadows, determined to be unknown. The worst people are typically never found.”

  The worst people typically hide in the shadows.

  Lara, he thought. She’s always hiding.

  It was a nonsensical thought, one of nothing but hatred and fury, but it still came to his mind, refusing to leave.

  As both Clarke and Farrow left, exchanging casual goodbyes, Kai couldn’t sto
p thinking of Lara’s face—of the possibility of her being a piece of his parents’ murder. He couldn’t help but think of their kiss as his fingers involuntarily traced his lips. He felt disgusted with himself, unable to believe that he had succumbed to her seduction—her manipulation.

  Is that what it’s been all along? Manipulation?

  But it couldn’t have been, because Lara was nothing but a dancer, a Juilliard student. She was the girl he’d met in the audition room; she was the girl who’d slipped glass into his shoe. But she was also the girl he’d kissed in a church; she was the epitome of his darkest desires, his woeful bane.

  What have I done?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Et tu, Brute?” ––Shakespeare

  He stood against a tree, smoking a cigarette.

  Despite the darkness, Lara’s vision was inexplicably clear; she could see the outline of his nose, the darkness of his hair, the white of his skin. When he took a drag, Lara could almost feel the smoke that drifted from his mouth fill up her lungs. She was there to kill him, to drain his blood, to prove herself—to show Lithe hat she belonged with them, that she wasn’t afraid.

  She wasn’t sure why she was so embarrassingly determined to please the girls of Lithe, but she was. And she was going to do it, there, with the man standing a few feet before her, destroying his lungs.

  Foolish. She had been foolish before—but not now. Not as she carefully stalked his footsteps against the dreaded concrete; not as she twisted a blade in the grip of her sweaty hand. This time, Lilah had given it to her. Lara felt incredibly stupid using another’s weapon; felt incredibly foolish because she didn’t have her own. How was she supposed to commit—truly commit—to a group of murderous girls when she had nothing to kill with? She supposed she should get her own, a blade specifically carved for Lara and her darkest desires. The idea was refreshing. Controllable.