by C. R. Jane
“You’re betting on me?” I bark.
“Yeah, alpaca head, zip it or your out,” Mercy snaps, then looks at me with softness in her eyes. “We’re doing this?”
“Sure.” I sigh, and she’s bouncing on her toes before dragging me to the tree stump where Dixon is waiting, and I glare at Mercy, squeezing her hand.
She shrugs while the corners of her mouth twitches, struggling to hold back the grin. “I didn’t know he wanted to play.”
“Sure, you didn’t.”
“Are you ready, Liam?” Professor London asks, appearing out of the shadows, and suddenly my heart hits the back of my throat.
“You’re playing?” I mumble.
“Can’t give up the chance to talk to ghosts.” His smile is spectacular, and I forget myself for those few moments. Okay, maybe this won’t be such a bad game. I try to push aside the whole confusion of Alexander and Braxton, and I concentrate on the fact that if Liam opens his gob about the lake incident one more time, I’ll yank his tongue out.
We all kneel down around an oversized tree stump; Liam sets up the game. Mercy and I sit on one side, Braxton sits across from me, Dixon next to Mercy, and Liam flops down next to me. Great.
“Five is a good number,” he admits to no one but himself. “Let’s all agree not to use our names, maybe we use fake names. That way we don’t get haunted.”
Dixon is miles away, while Braxton is shuffling over a huge rock to sit on.
“That’s not how it works, dumb ass,” Mercy snaps. “Ghosts already know who you are, what you had for breakfast, and what underwear you’re wearing.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “If I’m wearing underwear.”
“Eww,” she retorts.
“Double eww,” I add.
Liam just smirks at us.
I roll my eyes and catch Braxton staring at me intently, the fire flickering in his eyes. I lick my lips and his eyes seem to heat up.
Mercy elbows me and I flinch, but it does the trick of distracting me from him. I don’t need to be making eyes with my professor in front of all my classmates. A lot of his behavior is embarrassing enough and I’m still waiting for Clarissa to start spreading things about me and him after she caught us the other day.
“Ok, so how do we work this thing?” asks Mercy, doing her little excited bounce in her seat.
“We just each take turns putting our fingers on the planchette,” Liam says, gesturing to a heart shaped piece of wood on the board. “We ask questions and then wait for the spirits to answer.”
A flicker of unease trickles down my spine. I’ve always hated this kind of stuff. When I was in middle school, I was invited to the occasional sleepover party and they always wanted to do things like this. We once did the Bloody Mary game at a girl named Catherine’s house and I didn’t sleep for a month.
I have a feeling this is going to lessen my excitement about sleeping in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
“I’ll go first,” says Mercy. “Who killed Bethanie?” she immediately says intently, not taking her eyes off the board. Everyone else looks at her like she’s crazy. Leave it to Mercy to up the ante of the board game.
We all watch as the planchette begins to move, spelling out a word. I gasp when I realize what it’s saying.
“YOU KNOW”
Mercy blanches and her face gets really pale. She looks at me and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
I look quickly at the others to see what they are thinking, but only Braxton looks intrigued. Dixon is yawning with boredom. There’s a host of questions in Braxton’s eyes and I shake my head, signaling that I’ll talk to him later about it.
That guilt I’ve tried to keep controlled comes roaring back. Please let it not be him, I pray silently. I’m not sure what Mercy will do if it is him.
“I’ve got one,” says Dixon darkly before anyone else can volunteer. I shift nervously in my seat and I notice that Mercy does the same. Everyone else seems to have taken the game’s response as not real.
“Who will the killer get next?” asks Dixon with a devious smile, obviously loving how nervous Mercy and I look.
Mercy hits him on the shoulder. “Really, dude?” she mutters, and his smile only grows wider. He looks menacing with the firelight flickering across his face and I shudder.
Our eyes dash back to the board when we see it moving. “TWO DAYS,” is spelled out and we all frown.
Liam looks puzzled. “It doesn’t seem to be working right,” he mutters. “I’ll go next.”
“Will Adeline kiss me tonight?” he asks, sending me a naughty grin and eliciting a surprising grin from Braxton. I give a sigh of relief at the change in questioning. It was becoming a bit too intense for my liking.
The panchette immediately begins to move and we all burst out laughing when we see that it spelled “HELL NO.”
It works to dispel any tension from Mercy and Dixon’s questions and even Liam can’t help but laugh. He looks over at me and gives me a wink. “I couldn’t help but try,” he says impishly. I roll my eyes but can’t keep the grin off my face.
“On that note, I think it’s Adeline’s turn,” says Braxton, pushing the board over to me. He’s been quiet so far and I wonder if it’s hard for him sometimes to work at the school since he’s so close to our ages but still has to maintain the distance of a professor.
Thinking of our kiss, I blush. I guess he’s not that good at keeping distance.
I try to think of a question and my mind immediately darts to my parents. That’s just what I need though, for Clarissa to overhear my question and start spreading my status around school. Probably best to keep that quiet.
Mercy must get tired of waiting because she grabs the board from me. “I’ll ask her question,” she announces, a devious look on her face.
“Who is Adeline going to end up dating?” she asks, and this time, I’m the one who’s elbowing her. I can feel however that everyone’s eyes are on the board, Braxton’s in particular is very intent.
My eyes widen when I see what it’s spelled out. “WHY CHOOSE?”
Mercy is the first one to start laughing and I quickly follow even though my thoughts are beginning to fill with images of what exactly it would be like to date all five of them…
“Lucky duck,” crows Mercy, but I can tell that Braxton is annoyed. He abruptly stands up.
“Curfew time. Everyone back to their cabins,” he calls out. The students immediately begin groaning in protest. “You’ll be thanking me when you’re woken up at 6:00am for a hike,” he calls out before stiffly walking away, not bothering to look back at me. I let out a groan of frustration. I’m not sure what to do about him, or even if I should do anything about him.
As I get up, a piece of paper is suddenly slipped in my hand. I look around and see Alexander walking away. Puzzled, I unfold the paper and read what’s inside.
“Meet me in an hour by the docks,” it reads, and I purse my lips, suddenly feeling conflicted. Mercy reads the note over my shoulder. “You are so meeting him,” she says.
I want to meet him, really bad. And maybe I can actually get some answers from him while I’m at it. I walk with Mercy back to the cabin, weighing the pros and cons of going down any road with Alexander.
I’m quiet as we pretend to get ready for bed with everyone else. Mercy evidently plans to meet up with Dixon, her plan to move their guardian relationship into something more working apparently. It gives me a trickle of unease when I think about it, although I would never say anything to her about what I’m thinking. I hadn’t seen or heard of any of the scholarship students hooking up with non-scholarship students. Well...besides Alexander, Dante, Finn, and Nyx with me. It wasn’t that Mercy wasn’t gorgeous, or that she wouldn’t turn heads. It just seemed weird that Dixon was breaking from tradition. I mean even the cabins were split between scholarship and non-scholarship students.
Maybe he had seen the guys’ behavior and decided that it was alright?
Either way
I hoped that he didn’t break Mercy’s heart.
We both settle in our bunks, waiting for the others to go to sleep. Mercy was pretending to fall asleep in my bed so that she wouldn’t make a ton of noise creeping down from the top bunk. It seems like it takes forever for the cabin to be filled with the sounds of steady breathing signaling our bunk mates were asleep.
We wait an extra ten minutes for good measure and then we slowly crawl out of bed, slipping on our flip flops that we had placed right by the door. Mercy signals for me to move out of the way and she slowly...and silently opens the door. I must have an impressed look on my face because she smirks at me. I suddenly remember all the stories she told me about having to sneak out of her house. Those skills are coming in handy right now.
Once we get outside and close the door, we wait outside the door with bated breath, listening to see if anyone has stirred. I had propped open the window right by our bunks just in case anyone got up and noticed that the door was unlocked and locked it while we were gone. That’s the last thing we needed was to be found locked out of our cabin in the morning.
We walk together until it’s time for us to take different paths to our respective meet up sites. I was walking to the dock by the guys’ cabin, and Mercy was supposed to meet Dixon by one of the back cabin’s fire pits. We wave as we both slink off.
There’s a slight chill in the air and the silence of the night makes me shiver. I had never been afraid of the dark, but there was something menacing about tonight it seemed. I wondered for the thousandth time since Alexander had slipped that note in my hand what the heck I was doing going to meet him. All I could hope was that this wasn’t some kind of cruel joke that I was going to regret in the morning.
There was a patch of woods that I had to go through, and I hesitated, wondering if it was a good idea for me to go through the woods alone. I would forever be afraid of monsters in the woods after my experience with the woods outside Raven Academy.
Deciding not to be ridiculous, I head in, picking up my pace as I do so. The trees cast strange shadows on the ground and the full moon is barely visible through their foliage covered limbs. The forest is eerily quiet. I would expect out here for it to hold a cacophony of sounds. I mean, heck, I could have gone for some crickets or something. The silence just feels wrong. I hurry forward, trying not to trip on anything as I go along.
I’m almost to the edge of the woods. I can see the dock just ahead of me, floating serenely on the perfectly still lake. Just then I hear a voice. It’s just a whisper of a sound, but I swear that it said my name.
“Alexander?” I whisper, hoping that he was just kidding around with me. “Adeline,” it came again, not sounding remotely like Alexander’s voice.
I turn to run, not wanting to find out who the voice belongs to when I’m stopped by an arm grabbing me around the waist. I yelp out a scream, but a hand quickly slaps against my mouth.
“I’ve been waiting for this, pretty girl.”
A sick feeling passes over me when I realize who the voice belongs to. The one and only Professor Dusk. What the hell was he doing?
“You’ve been waiting for one of your students to get lost in the woods at night?” I snap, the heat of my voice muffled behind his hand. He laughs at my comment and licks the side of my face, making me want to throw up.
“I knew that you would think Alexander selfish enough to make you go to his dock instead of the dock near your cabin. But I also knew you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from meeting him. You’re nothing if not predictable, Adeline,” he says as he thrusts his nose into my hair and inhales happily.
I really was an idiot. A desperate idiot evidently. Why had I thought I needed to meet Alexander by him? And what kind of guy would even have the girl they liked walk through the woods at night in the first place. Ugh, I mutter, wanting to punch myself for being that girl.
Professor Dusk begins to drag me away from the end of the tree line, backwards into the woods. I start to struggle and kick, not wanting to experience whatever fresh hell he had waiting for me. He pushes me against a tree, the rough bark bites into my skin, making me gasp in pain. He slips a hand underneath my shirt, beginning to trace the skin on my stomach. His hand inches higher and higher. Desperate to stop him I attempt to knee him in the balls. All it succeeds in doing is make him laugh. He thankfully stops his progression up my shirt and instead pulls his hand away from my mouth, only to replace it with his mouth.
His kiss is repulsive and sloppy and despite the dire situation I’m in, I wonder how Clarissa can even stand it. He assaults my mouth, trying to get his tongue in between my lips. I open my mouth just so I can snap my teeth down, catching his tongue in between my teeth. I can taste his coppery blood.
Please don’t let him have a disease, is all I can think at that moment, until his hand slaps across my face. “Bitch,” he mutters. My head hits the tree behind me, and I see stars.
“You’ll be much more agreeable in a moment,” he murmurs as he leans toward me, again like he’s breathing me in.
I start to get dizzy the more he’s breathing and I’m not sure if it’s from hitting my head or from something else. The world around me starts to fade until all I see is a pinprick of light.
Suddenly, Professor Dusk is ripped away from me and I let out a gasp as the darkness in my vision starts to recede. When I finally come to enough to look at my surroundings I gasp when I see that Braxton is on top of Dusk right in front of me.
I watch as if I’m in a trance as Braxton levels hit after hit to Dusk’s face until I can see that Dusk is beginning to resemble minced meat. The sound of Braxton’s fists cracking bones on Dusk’s face echoes in the night.
I try to step away from the tree but without it’s support, I immediately begin to fall, and I have to immediately lean back against it in order to stay upright.
What is wrong with me? I reach up blearily to see if my neck feels normal because my head feels so out of it that I’m afraid he was choking me, and the lack of oxygen just confused me as to what was really happening.
All I can remember is him breathing, but it had to have been more, right? I’ve never heard of someone being breathed on to death.
I suddenly realize that it’s quiet. When I look down, I see that Braxton has stopped annihilating Professor Dusk, who is definitely either passed out or dead. Some part of me doesn’t mind if it’s the latter.
Braxton gets up off his knees, leveling Dusk a look so filled with hatred and disgust that a little bit of fear of Braxton creeps into me.
Reminding myself that he just saved me, I once again try to step away from the tree. It’s a fruitless effort once more as I start to crumple to the ground.
Right before the ground meets my face, Braxton’s arms gently catch me in their embrace, giving me a sense of deja vu from the hallway incident. He brings me up to his chest and I start to cry. It hits me all at once what was about to happen if Braxton hadn’t gotten to me and my sobs only intensify. He strokes my hair and rocks his body slightly as he holds me, providing me the comfort that I need. He murmurs something as he holds me and the horror of what happened seems to start slipping away.
I finally get ahold of myself enough to pull away. “Thank you,” I gasp, staring up into his tortured looking emerald green eyes.
“Always,” he says softly, and in this moment, I believe him.
Chapter 12
“Did he hurt you?” Braxton asks for the millionth time, his arm around my waist, gripping me tight against his side.
I look at the forest around us, trying to make sense of how I got here. Night smothers the woods, and I’m struggling to breath, still trying to come to terms with what I missed. It’s ridiculously dark but Braxton seems to know where he’s going, guiding me around trees and shrubs. Farther in the distance, the crackling of fire and laughter sound, but here, we’re in a hollow space where anything can happen, and no one will hear us scream.
“Why can’t I remember what just happened?” I
glance up to my teacher, the man I’m crushing on so deeply it should be illegal. Just being this close to him leaves me shuddering while fire pulses through me. He’s handsome, smart, and caring. Tonight, it feels like he’s my knight in shining armor, yet I don’t quite know why.
“What do you remember?” he asks, pausing our walk and turning me to face him. He cups my cheek and I lean into his touch. Shadows dance across his face, the moon’s silvery rays hit one side of his face, darkness conceals the other half like he’s made of two men. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But I shake my head at the ridiculous notion.
“I remember coming into the woods. Then I think someone followed me. Mr. Dusk was there... I think…” I shake my head. “Not him, but someone like him. I don’t know. Why can’t I remember?” I run a hand down my face, unable to clear the fog in my head or shake off a heavy exhaustion settling in my limbs.
“Why’d you go into the woods on your own?”
My mouth opens with a response, but I remember that part clearly and shut my mouth. I went to catch up to Alexander, wanting to continue what we started in the lake. How can I admit that out loud when I can’t believe I’m blushing just thinking about it, and I’m thankful for the night concealing my rosy cheeks.
“For a walk.” The lie pushes through my teeth, and I don’t feel guilty. Not when I remember his threat against Alexander, when I replay his glare after catching us in the lake. I feel like a fraud, like the worst person in the world, like somehow, I’m cheating on him. Braxton seems to like me, and I adore him, but I can’t differentiate my feelings for all five of the guys. Each one makes me want to walk over flames to be in their arms. That’s how insane they make me, so choosing… Well, like the ghost said, why choose? Except, I doubt Braxton and Alexander’s gang will be so cohesive on the idea.
“Well, don’t,” he demands. “Don’t go into the woods on your own anymore.”
I stare at him. “It’s dangerous? But it’s right next to our camp? And I’ve seen lots of people going into the woods.”
He huffs, his brow pulling into a tight pinch. “Not at night, you should stay at camp. It’s safer.”
