I bolted through the clutter and out the door, the roar of the angry dragon chasing me down the stairs I hadn't taken to get there. Lost and terrified, I ran down hallways with no clue how to get back to the cafeteria and the others. Where was my nifty little teleporting trick when I needed it?
“Fucking marble,” I grumbled as I dashed around another corner. Thankful it wasn’t a dead end, I followed it until flashes of metal in the distance started to take shape. I recognized them as I neared—they were the suits of armor I'd seen the night Aidan and I had gone searching for the source.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Then I took another corner and nearly slammed into someone standing in the center of the hall. The brown-haired girl looked at me, features twisted with disapproval.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, her words tinged with a sense of malice that made my spine shiver.
“Yeah, I got lost. I was supposed to be looking for decorations—the headmaster is letting us have a dance on Saturday—”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she repeated, and this time, I felt a blast of something dark and sinister from her that I didn’t fully understand and didn’t want to unpack right then. She was trouble for sure, and not the kind I was in the mood to deal with.
“I was just leaving,” I said as I slipped around her, making sure to give her a wide berth.
I took off at a run and didn’t stop until I reached the cafeteria doors. Some students were still in there eating, while others had moved outside. I rushed through the room as discreetly as possible—I didn’t need another fall at the moment—and breezed past where Aidan stood at the fey table. I could feel him fall into step behind me, and I wondered if he’d bothered to glamour himself or if the thinly-veiled terror in my expression had been too much of a distraction. Either way, I didn't stop until I was standing right in front of Maddy and Rhys under the massive maple tree outside.
“Hey,” Maddy said softly, “are you okay—”
“Listen,” I blurted out, interrupting her. “Shit just got really weird.” Aidan slipped up behind me, and I dared a look over my shoulder. His reserved expression hid the uncertainty churning around him.
“Weird how?” Rhys asked, stepping up next to Maddy.
“Weird like I was just in the attic of the old section of this place—”
“The fourth floor?” Maddy asked.
“Yeah, maybe. I didn’t exactly count the staircases as I ran away, but that feels right. But that’s not what’s important. While I was up there, a painting talked to me—”
“That would explain the running away,” Rhys said.
Maddy nodded, shock plaguing her expression. “Like an actual painting?”
“Yep. An oil canvas of King Arthur’s castle or some shit with a massive red dragon who struck up a conversation with me.”
I searched the yard to make sure no one was close enough to overhear us, but the few students out there were too engrossed in their own conversations to pay attention.
“What did it want?” Aidan asked, stepping around me to better read my expression.
“He wanted to know if I had the ball. But he called it a relic. Then he asked if I wanted to know how to get out of Wadsworth.”
Maddy’s and Rhys’s eyes went wide. Aidan went still.
“Well…what did you say?” My sister clamped her hands on my wrists and squeezed them lightly. “Did you find out how?”
“Not quite?”
“What do you mean?” Rhys asked.
“He started speaking in creepy riddles and third person before he lunged at me. I was afraid he was going to burn the attic down, so I ran.” Rhys swore under his breath and Maddy let me go. Then Aidan stepped all the way in front of me, blocking my view. “But that’s not all,” I said, and I could have sworn the three of them groaned in unison.
“What else?” Maddy dared to ask.
“There was this girl.“ I turned to Aidan. “She was in the armor hall. She told me I shouldn't be there. I tried to sell her a lie about decorations for the dance, but she wasn’t having any of it. She just repeated herself like a robot, and I bailed. It was hella creepy.”
Aidan looked to Maddy and Rhys, then slowly turned back to me. “Did you notice the number on her shirt?”
“Umm….not all of it. Only the last couple. 79B maybe?”
“What did she look like?” Maddy asked, her voice high and tight.
“I don’t know. Plain, brown hair, angry.”
“About your height?” Rhys asked, his face tighter than I’d ever seen it.
I nodded.
“Did she sound like she was going to ruin your life if you gave her the chance?” Maddy asked, and I jumped with excitement.
“Yes! Exactly! She seemed like a total narc, too. Her whole vibe was dark and super sketchy. Like I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her.” Maddy’s face went pale. The boys were eerily silent. “Do you know who she is?” I asked, my gaze darting back and forth between them all. Then my eyes skimmed over the number on my sister’s shirt. 179A….
“You’re sure this is who you saw?” Aidan finally asked, the hesitation in his voice an ominous sign.
“Yes. Now just tell me who it is!”
Silence.
“Janie,” Maddy finally answered. “We think you saw Janie…”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maddy
“How could it be Janie?” Cece asked. “She’s supposed to be dead.”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a bare whisper. “In the old, pre-destroy-the-blob-attempt world, she was. In this one? Who the hell knows?”
Aidan glanced toward the door leading inside. “I want to see this painting with the dragon.”
Cece’s gaze swept across Rhys and me. “I’ll take you there. All of you. We can look for her along the way.”
We went back inside.
Rhys grabbed my hand as we headed down a hall, following Cece. “We’ll figure this out.” His fingers tightened on mine. “No matter where this craziness leads.”
“Do you think my sister really saw her?”
“No idea, but lately…?” He frowned. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
We entered a stairwell I hadn’t seen before and climbed to the third floor.
“There’s no direct route to the fourth floor,” Cece said, “at least not from here. I…” Her gaze met mine, and when it flicked away, I knew she wasn’t telling us everything. Was she hiding something from me—or from Aidan? “When I left the attic, I discovered an easy way down, but it’s on the opposite side of the building.”
“Why not go that way?” Aidan asked.
“Because we’re closer to this side of the building,” she said, moving a bit ahead of him.
Rhys and I followed them down a series of halls that led toward the back of the building, as far as I could tell, and up another flight of stairs. We entered yet another hallway, though longer, with five closed doors. By now, my brain was completely scrambled.
“Don’t let go of my hand,” I joked softly, “or I might get lost.”
His thumb tickled the back of my hand.
I studied the closed doors as we passed them. “Were these bedrooms in the old estate?” I asked Rhys in a low voice, unsure why I suddenly felt the need to be quiet. We hadn’t seen a soul since we’d left the cafeteria.
“Hard to say. I don’t remember hearing much about this section.”
My fingers tingled, and my hand snapped toward a knob on the right. “Let’s see what’s inside this one, then, shall we?” The door opened at my touch, and I winked at Rhys. “Not locked, so they must not mind anyone exploring.”
“I’m not sure about—”
Cece turned to stare back at us and creases appeared on her forehead. “The attic is this way.” She waved toward the door at the end of the hall.
“I want to check something out,” I said, my gaze drawn to the dimly-lit room. The curtains were closed, an
d I couldn’t see much inside other than shadows. I had no clue why my feet itched to take me in there, but my curiosity needed to be satisfied.
“I thought we were going to look at the painting with the dragon?” Cece sighed. “Hurry up.”
Rhys entered behind me and leaned against the open door frame.
I advanced into the darkness, striding to one of the three windows. I tugged the heavy drapes to the side, letting dingy light spill through the murky glass. Turning, I surveyed the room, taking in the grayed sheets covering the furniture and the five thousand spider lifetimes’ worth of cobwebs draping from a series of wardrobes to the canopy bed and then to the windows like a mesh of antique lace. As I approached the bed, my footsteps made dull thuds on the carpet and tiny clouds of dust puffed up into the air. My cough echoed around me.
I stopped beside the bed and fingered the frilly canopy, and the fabric crumbled to dust at the slightest touch.
On the opposite side of the bed, I approached a tall mahogany wardrobe. The doors creaked when I tugged them open. At first, I thought the wardrobe was empty, but when I touched the back, something clicked, and a panel slid to the right.
A secret room? Did I dare go inside?
Something was urging me on.
I stepped through, into a walk-in closet filled with a row of long gowns made from silky fabric in every color. My hair rustled, as if a breeze had drifted through the small room, but everything else around me remained still.
My arm stretched out toward the dresses, my fingers burning with the need to touch. But before I made contact, a howl shattered the lull I’d fallen into. Anxiety jolted up my spine and I stumbled backward, my hand flopping back to my side.
I rushed back into the room, and the wardrobe doors slammed shut behind me.
Rhys grabbed my arms. “Maddy,” he said, his hair askew and his voice frantic. “I tried to get you out, but the damn door wouldn’t open.”
My brain spinning, I stared at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“You stepped into the wardrobe and the doors locked. I’ve been trying to pry them open all this time.”
I frowned. It had only been seconds. “How long are we talking about?”
He shook his head, then raked his fingers through his hair. “Ten minutes? No idea, but it felt like a hell of a long time to me.”
“That’s not possible!” I blinked at him, unease flashing across my skin, lifting goosebumps. I rubbed my arms, but they wouldn’t go away. “I…I opened the wardrobe and there was a panel in the back. When it slid to the side, I stepped into a walk-in closet full of dresses…” So many dresses… “But then Wolfy howled. You heard him, right?”
“I didn’t, but remember, he only communicates with you.”
“He…” Why had he howled? “None of this makes sense.”
“Except getting the hell out of this room.” He grabbed my hand and hurried me out into the hall.
Empty.
“Cece?” I called. “Aidan?” I turned to Rhys. “This is really weird.” My voice came out ragged, like I’d run a 10k. “Where did they go?”
“Maybe they went on ahead?”
I strode down the hall, but the door at the end Cece had said led to the attic was locked. Frustrated, I rattled it. “Cece?”
No reply.
Rhys joined me, wariness darkening his eyes. He touched the knob but pulled back with a frown. “It…I can’t get it to open.”
Chills took over my frame. “This place sucks.” One weird thing after another kept happening. “I hate it.”
“You won’t hear an argument out of me about that.”
Turning toward the empty hall, I huffed. “Do you think...something happened to them? After the wardrobe. The dresses…” In my mind, my fingers glided across the silky fabric, and an echo of a girl’s laughter filled my ears. I spun back to the door. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Someone was laughing.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
My wide-eyed gaze met his.
A bang came from somewhere behind us, beyond the locked door. I skittered forward a few steps before turning. “Cece?”
Deep voices rumbled beyond the door. Male voices.
“Keepers,” Rhys said, his fingers tightening on mine. “Let’s get out of here before we’re caught.”
We rushed down the hall and the series of others, then took the stairs to the first floor, stopping when we stood outside the cafeteria, where we tried to act casual despite our heavy breathing and red faces. Inside the cafeteria, housekeepers were mopping, tidying, and getting things ready for the next meal, which reinforced Rhys’s suggestion that I’d been in the wardrobe for longer than I’d believed.
But how was that even possible?
“Out in the yard, kids,” a keeper called from the other side of the room.
Rhys lifted his eyebrows as if to say, want to make a run for it?
I shrugged. Once the keeper wasn’t paying attention, we could sneak back inside. Cece had to be okay. Aidan was with her, and despite how distant he acted sometimes, there was something about the way he looked at her…
Something I couldn’t quite define.
With the keeper’s heavy gaze on our backs, we walked down the hall to the end and bumped out the door and into the sunshine. I led him over to my usual spot in front of the one-way window.
“If my internal map is right,” Rhys said, peering around, “the window above us looks out from the headmaster’s office. Too bad we can’t see inside.”
“Actually, we can.” I pointed to the corner where I’d watched Janie sitting in the headmaster’s office, ratting out her fellow students while drinking beer and eating chips. She’d come to our room after and pretended she wasn’t half-drunk. Dropping down to my knees, I tugged him down beside me. “Come closer.”
He lowered himself onto the scruffy lawn.
“I found this not long after I was sent here.” Nudging my head toward the glass, I scanned the yard, but while a bunch of shifters hung out near the opposite wall, no one seemed to be looking our way. “Look through the glass and tell me what you see.”
He scooted around to face the window and squinted through the flaw I’d found in it. “Cool,” he breathed.
“See anything?”
“No one inside,” he whispered. “Multiple piles of paper all around. I can just make out the bookcase where you found Wolfy.”
“Is Wolfy there?”
“Nope. Wouldn’t think he would be, either.”
While I wouldn’t want Wolfy to find himself bound to the headmaster and forced to provide sentinel duties again, I couldn’t stop worrying about the little fuzzy guy. “Do you see anything else?”
“Nope, but the desk is in shadow. Maybe I could—”
I started to edge close to Rhys to look myself—
“If it isn’t cute little Maddy,” someone said from behind us.
My heart skipped about three beats. I jumped to my feet and spun, banging into Rhys. He got up and stood beside me, his casual stance negated by his fingers flexing at his sides.
“Hi, um…Eric,” I said.
“It’s Gavin.” The tall shifter puffed out his chest, making the green collar he wore rise up toward his chin. His glance took in Rhys, and he gave a curt nod. “Vamp.”
“Half-sorcerer, too,” Rhys said easily, a hint of steel coming through in his voice. “Don’t forget the magic.”
“Ooh!” Gavin said, his palms lifting. “I’m scared of all that magic.”
He hooted, and two other green-collared guys came over to flank him, forming their own version of a SWAT team. They filled the tiny corner of the yard with too many muscles, too much long hair, and the odor of too much sweat.
“You’re half-shifter,” Gavin said to me. “If you ditch the witch, you might even be half worth spending time with.” His predatory gaze traveled slowly down my front.
“I’m all set.” I took Rhys’s hand.
“And he’s a sorcerer, not a witch.”
“What are you, anyway?” one of the other guys said to me. Actually, he was Eric. I really couldn’t keep them straight. “You shift into a mouse?”
Gavin snickered and elbowed Eric. “Bet she’s a titmouse.” His coarse laughter grated up my spine, and his gaze remained locked on my chest.
Rhys lunged at Gavin, making the taller guy stumble backward. But Eric and the other guy dragged Rhys off and shoved him into the corner, pinning him in place.
“I don’t turn into a mouse,” I said, my frantic gaze meeting Rhys’s. We had to get out of here.
“You a rat, then?” Gavin asked, sidling closer.
Rhys freed an arm and his fist soared toward Eric, but he ducked.
A quick look showed no keepers in the yard. Everyone else watched, but they were grinning and pointing, enjoying the show. I’d find no help there.
My heart flailed behind my ribcage like the bird Gavin accused me of being. “I’m not—”
Gavin’s palm hit the wall near my head, making me freeze. His glare took in Rhys. “Take him inside.” While his friends dragged Rhys toward the door, Rhys struggled, with little effect. I assumed he wasn’t using his magic to avoid drawing attention. Gavin moved up against me, grinding my body into the wall. “I’m going to talk to the pigeon.” One corner of his lips curled up, and the eagerness in his dark eyes made me shudder. “Maybe I’ll even stroke her feathers.”
Gavin’s nose elongated into a wolf’s muzzle, and fur erupted on his bare arms. It happened so fast that, if I’d blinked, I would’ve missed it.
Had I imagined the entire thing? His coarse laughter added to that impression.
Grunting, Rhys flung off the two shifters. They rebounded and jumped toward him.
“Let me go!” I shoved Gavin, but I might as well have tried to shove a semi.
While Rhys fought the two guys, my control slipped, and my power rose up into my throat. I released it in a growling cry that echoed in the yard. I swore that smoke-infused flames shot from my mouth at Gavin.
Gavin blinked. “What the hell…?” But then his face smoothed, as if he’d already dismissed what might’ve happened.
Rogue Reformatory: Broken (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 2) Page 9
