by Kat Cotton
“Nope. It’s got to be the woods,” Angela said.
A chill swept through me. They should not be going to the woods. Not now. Not ever. But they kept walking that way. We’d almost reached the edge of the school grounds.
“Sweet.” Oscar grinned. “You two meet us at the spot.”
“See you soon,” Blake called as the two of them rushed back to the school.
Angela walked toward the path through the woods but I grabbed her arm.
“This isn’t a great idea. It’s going to storm. You don’t want to be outside. You’ll get drenched.” I tried to keep dragging her but she resisted. “There are things in the woods that want to kill you. Dangerous things.”
Angela laughed. “I know about the dangerous things in this school.” Her smile changed to something much nastier. “You and the other freaks you hang out with. But you aren’t so bad, Cherry. Join us and we’ll let you stay on when we bring the others down.”
The rain started, big drops that soaked into my hair.
“If you go to the woods, Mr. Quiller will try to kill you,” I hissed. “He wants revenge.”
Angela laughed. “Yeah, right. He’s just hanging out, waiting for his chance.”
“He is. He has spies. He will know.”
I screamed as Angela pushed me. Fumbling, trying to right myself, I grabbed her arm. My fingers slipped on her wet skin but found traction. Yikes. Her hair. The two of us tumbled to the ground.
Mud squelched around me. I floundered, needing to get up, needing to get Angela off me. She struck out at me, her hand connecting to my face. I used my elbows, my legs, whatever I needed to get free. The idiot. Why didn’t she listen to me? I was only trying to save her.
The mud squished through my fingers as I tried to get to my feet. Angela rammed my side, sending me back into the mud on my butt.
“Don’t go into the woods!” I screamed the words, trying to get up while Angela flung mud at me.
“You can’t stop me.”
A wad of mud splatted on my face, stinging my cheek. I rubbed it then charged at her.
“Cherry!” The word almost melded into the rain but I spun around.
Britney stood under the cover of the school, watching me. I waved for her to help me but she went back inside.
“If you’re going to be an idiot, at least wait here for the others.”
I ran for the school. If I couldn’t stop her going to the woods, I’d need to get help.
Chapter 29
I HAD TO TELL MR. NORTON. I might be angry with him but Angela would be in danger. Oscar and Blake would be no protection. She’d be vampire food in no time.
I pushed myself, running so hard I could barely breathe until I arrived, panting and exhausted, at the scholarship room. Well, where the scholarship room should’ve been.
There was no door.
Huh?
I thudded on the wall but the wall seemed to give way under my hand. I yelled, trying to alert them.
The room had wards. I knew that. But only to keep other students out. Not me. I was one of them. That shouldn’t change.
But the wards wouldn’t let me in.
Should I run back to the woods and save Angela? I’d been forbidden to use my powers or work on my own. But her life was in danger...
I’d run back upstairs and call Mr. Norton. That had to be the best solution.
Mud caked my arms and legs. Rather than get that all over the elevator and trail it though the school, I stopped off at the bathroom near the elevator to quickly clean up. As I was leaving, Polly came in. I wanted to ask her how Ari was but Britney had said she was fine so I grunted a quick hello and wiped off my arms.
I rushed up to my room and found my phone but before I could ring Mr. Norton, I heard voices in the hallway. Oscar shouting and Dior giggling. I looked out my door to see them disappear around the corner, the relief making me dizzy.
Lucky I hadn’t called Mr. Norton. It’d have looked like an extreme overreaction. And probably like I was making lame excuses to be included in their group. Of course, Angela had come back to school. She wasn’t one to be wandering around the woods in a storm, getting her hair all soggy and her makeup ruined. She’d probably have wrecked her outfit too.
I ordered a burger from room service and had a shower while I waited for it to be delivered. No way would I head back out tonight. All this emotional turmoil drained me.
After my burger, I fell asleep but I kept having weird dreams. Then I realized that the banging on my door wasn’t part of my dream but real life. I got up groggily and opened the door, ready to blast whoever was knocking.
“Britney?”
She pushed past me, into my room.
“What are you doing here? How did you even get here?”
“I have my ways,” she said. “But that’s not important. Angela was attacked tonight. In the woods.”
I didn’t like the way Britney stared at me.
“No. No way. I saw them after they came back. Oscar and Blake and —”
I grabbed hold of my desk, needing to steady myself as my legs turned to jelly. I hadn’t actually seen Angela with them. I’d just assumed one of the girls had been Angela. I mean, I’d heard girls’ giggling but they’d gone around the corner before I saw who they were. I should’ve gone after them. I should’ve checked.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s in critical condition. They’ve taken her off the school grounds to a proper hospital. But she’s a mess. They’re calling it an animal attack but we both know the truth.”
I waited for Britney to smile, to confirm that she believed in me. But she didn’t smile. Her eyes narrowed with accusation. That look made me cringe.
I glared back at her. “I didn’t...”
“Really? Really? Because weirdly enough, she was attacked in that spot with the creepy tree that looks like it has a face. The exact same spot where Farran was killed. Which also happens to be the same place Mr. Quiller asked you to lure her to.”
I sat on my computer chair, no longer able to stand up. Britney thought that I’d been involved. She really thought that.
“I didn’t go with her. I told her not to. You saw me. I tried to stop her.”
“I saw the two of you fighting and Angela screaming. It looked like you were trying to force her to go with you.”
“I did. I tried to force her back to school.”
My stomach churned. I shouldn’t have to justify myself. Not to Britney. We were friends.
“Polly says she saw you washing blood off your hands and arms.”
“Blood? That wasn’t blood. It was mud.” I sighed.
Surely Polly would have noticed the difference but then we’d barely spoken. She’d only seen me for a minute. Definitely not long enough to be throwing accusations around.
“Don’t do this, Britney. Just don’t.”
Anger rose in me like a tidal wave, foaming up and up. Britney was the only friend I had left. Well, she had been. But she turned against me like everyone else. I tried to tamp the anger down. I couldn’t let loose on her. The two sides of me battled it out, my body burning.
“Lucas said you’d —”
“Lucas said?” I sprung up, shaking with anger so fierce, I could barely speak. “What did Lucas say? Because I didn’t think you were the type to be brainwashed by your boyfriend.”
“I’m your friend, Cherry.” Britney’s eyes flashed. “And I know you’ve been going through a lot lately but don’t push it.”
My body burned, the power building inside me out of control. My entire room shook. Things flew around my room crashing against the walls.
“Get out. Just get out NOW!”
Luckily, Britney slipped out of my room so fast, I barely saw her leave.
I gulped in air, needing to calm down. The energy that had built up inside me needed to dissipate somehow. I curled on my bed, clutching my sides and biting my cheek so I didn’t call out in pain.
The burning didn�
�t lessen and my mind turned over and over, every insult, every slur. I’d done some bad things in my time but I’d never, would never, lure Angela to Mr. Quiller.
No one would believe me now, though. Not Lucas who’d been my best friend for two years and had shared everything with me. Not the other scholarship kids who treated me either as comic relief or an undetonated hand grenade but never as a friend. And not Ren. Definitely not Ren. He’d turned on me so fast, my head still span.
I’d gone full circle to the place where I’d started. Alone and abandoned.
Chapter 30
THERE WAS ONLY ONE way out of this. Angela was still alive. She’d been taken to hospital. If she woke up and recovered, she could clear my name.
I’d go to the hospital. Now.
No, I couldn’t go now. I had no way of getting there and they probably wouldn’t let me in to see her in the middle of the night. But tomorrow, first thing.
Tomorrow was Saturday. I could walk to the village and catch a bus from there. There was only one hospital nearby. Angela had to be there. I’d wait it out.
But I couldn’t sleep. I checked the time. 4:30 a.m. I’d have to wait hours until I could get to the hospital.
I checked the route. The first bus ran at seven. Allowing time to walk to the village, I’d leave at six-thirty.
Instead of sleeping, I got out Mr. Worthington’s files and read through them again. I’d almost read the print off those files but I didn’t care. Every bit of information about my parents seemed like a fairytale to me.
When the first rays of the sun shone through my window, I showered and dressed.
My stomach rumbled but I had no time for breakfast. I rushed through the school, down the double staircase and through the entrance hall with the checkerboard tiles and the huge Edgewater Academy crest on the wall.
I’d clear my name and make them all look like fools. Every single one of them.
A hand clamped on my shoulder, stopping me.
I shrieked.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Norton asked.
“To the hospital. I need to see Angela. I need to get this mess sorted out.”
“I’ll drive you.”
Even though I was still angry with him, that beat the hell out of the bus.
I settled into Mr. Norton’s car, hoping he didn’t plan to fool me.
“I tried to tell you she’d gone to the woods.” My words came out in a rush. “But I’ve been locked out of the scholarship room. There was no door. I couldn’t even bang on the wall.”
He grimaced. “We did that for your own protection but maybe we went too far.”
I leaned over and turned up the heating. “But you do believe me?”
If Mr. Norton said no, I’d jump out of this car even if it killed me. I couldn’t stay with him. He cleared his throat. Not a good sign.
“I know you’ve had some problems this semester and that you’ve got a lot to deal with but I don’t think you’d ever willingly allow someone to get hurt, not even Angela Blackstone.”
I exhaled.
“Britney didn’t believe me. Britney thinks I did it, she wouldn’t even listen. And now she hates me just like everybody else.”
“People don’t hate you, Cherry.”
“Mr. Norton, you might be wise about some things but you can be a bit naïve about the ways of the world.”
Then I told him what Angela had said about the bugs in the school.
Mr. Norton laughed. “I know. But we disabled the worst of them a long time ago. And, of course, even if they knew about the scholarship room, they couldn’t bug it.”
“So, you let everyone think I was crazy, looking for bugs, when it was a certainty?”
“There’s a lot we can’t tell you. And usually, no one questions that kind of thing. You are the only student who does.”
I grinned a little. Yeah, because I was smarter than anyone else.
Then I stopped grinning.
“Are you just saying that because you want to butter me up? I mean, I know I’m smarter than most people...”
“No. Cherry. I’m not just saying that. You’re an exceptional student.”
I rested my head back, hoping that Angela would be well enough to talk when we got there. If she was still in a coma, this whole trip would be pointless.
Then I sat up. Bollocks. I didn’t need to talk to Angela. I knew who was responsible.
“You have to question Oscar and Blake. They were with her. They were meeting her in the woods. They’d have seen everything.”
“We questioned them. We questioned most of the students last night. All of your year, except you. Oscar and Blake weren’t with her. They said they’d been in the common room all night.”
“But that’s lies. It’s outright lies. When she told me she was going to the woods, Oscar and Blake said they’d meet her there.”
“People saw them in the common room.”
“Did they see them all night? Because the three of them talked to me in the garden. They wanted to have a secret meeting in the woods and...”
How had I not seen it? I’d been stupid and complacent and had fallen into their trap. Oscar and Blake had never had any intention of going into the woods. They’d set me up. They’d set Angela up too. And I bet this all had some connection to Oscar’s father wanting to do business with Mr. Quiller. It wasn’t like I’d be the only person who tried to cut a deal with him and Oscar would be far more inclined to play dirty.
I hugged the knowledge to myself. I wouldn’t shoot my mouth off, blurting out accusations without proof. I’d done that too many times and had just been laughed at. Instead, I’d gather undeniable proof then bam, they’d be gone. Not even Principal Murphy could forgive them that.
For the rest of the drive, I tried to organize my thoughts. Oscar had been setting me up all along. I’d known he’d been up to something but for a stupid moment, I’d let my guard down.
What about Angela? She couldn’t have been in on the plan. It wasn’t like she’d let herself be vampire bait. Blake and Oscar had played her too. Told her the four of us would have the secret meeting and lured her into the woods. But surely, after the demon attack in the village, she’d have known enough to stay clear of the woods.
Unless, somehow, she’d been involved those demon attacks. But why? I couldn’t imagine Angela not doing something for her own gain.
I picked at the hole in the knee of my jeans, pulling apart the treads. I’d do the same with this case too. Slowly unravel it until the truth became known.
Chapter 31
“ANGELA’S IN A COMA, right?” My fingers tapped on the door frame. “We have to kill the vampire who bit her. That’s what we did with Ren, remember. I have no idea how we’ll find out which one did it —”
“She wasn’t bitten.”
“Huh?” I glared at Mr. Norton.
“She wasn’t bitten. If she had been, there’d be a chance she’d turn.” Mr. Norton pulled out onto the highway. “They attacked her without leaving that possibility open. They’d have killed her but we surprised them in the act. She’s in a coma right now. The hospital has no idea how to treat her.”
My stomach turned. I didn’t even want to think about what they had done to her. Also, why were we going to the hospital if that was the case? Mr. Norton just wanted a chance to speak to me alone.
“What were all those fancy troopers around the school doing while this was going on? Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing they’re around to prevent?”
“They didn’t think students would go into the woods.”
But somehow, with all their training, Angela had evaded them. I guess she was used to sneaking around but —
“Didn’t they notice her perfume? You can smell that stuff a mile off. Mr. Norton, I feel the agents at the school aren’t exactly top-notch.”
“They’re agents, not bloodhounds. And most of them had been called to an emergency elsewhere in the school. But that turned out to be a false alarm.”
Of course it had. A false alarm set by Oscar and Blake. Maybe I’d underestimated the pair of them. Or maybe they were working with someone else.
“Who raised the alarm? How do you even do that?”
Mr. Norton sighed. “I can’t discuss that with you.”
“Yeah, I think you can. We've got all this time to kill.”
But he just shook his head and turned on the car stereo. Some old dude jazz music.
He turned the volume up.
I kept silent for a moment, going over my plan. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure someone else had been working with Oscar and Blake. Not Mr. Quiller but someone inside the school.
I turned the music down.
“Why do you think the demons have been invading the school grounds anyway? It’s got to be an inside job, right? One of the students.”
“Cherry, you’re not in the scholarship group anymore. I can’t discuss that with you.”
I grabbed a notebook out of my bag to write this down.
“When you say you can’t discuss it with me, that means yes, right? It’s totally obvious, when you think about it. The demons can’t get through the wards. The wards haven’t been damaged. So that means someone inside the school must be summoning them.”
I started making a list of suspects, topped with Oscar, Blake and Angela. I wasn’t really sure why they’d summon demons, though. Not that they weren’t capable of evil but there was nothing in it for them. Also, Oscar had been with me the day the demon appeared in the village and he’d been as shocked as anyone.
“Say, Mr. Norton, why do you think the demons have been invading the school grounds anyway?”
He sighed but I could do this for the entire drive because even if I wasn’t part of the group, he couldn’t stop my brain from working.
“Okay, I think it is an inside job.”
“We need a motive.”
“Not necessarily. It could be students fooling with magic, summoning things.”
“It could be someone doing it on purpose as a distraction. Or someone testing us. If an outsider wanted to know which students had powers and what they could do with them, this was the easiest way.”
