by Elena Monroe
I threw my head backwards and looked up at the sky, like it would answer all the silent questions in my head. I gave up after my fingernails sunk into my palm and stung enough to unclench.
I only made it a few feet forward, touching every tree for extra stability with every step. It wasn't until my fingers grazed over the trunk I felt something odd. I wasn't even sure what felt different about the bark a few trees away from the clearing.
Something tugged at everything inside me to investigate.
Goddamn it… I had Nancy Drew senses now too.
I patted the trunk trying to investigate the urge in complete darkness, juggling my phone, while patting a tree down is harder than it seems. Trust me, try it.
I finally found what seemed like fake bark. When I tugged at the seams, it slid to the side, opening up its secret cave. I got on the tips of my toes and flashed my light inside the cave, waiting for spiders or a family of rats to be very pissed off at me for disrupting their home.
With a heavy sigh, I found a small black box. It was simple and had a crest stamped on the lid. I turned the box over each way, looking for clues on the outside before I dove inside.
I breathed a clean inhale trying to push down the adrenaline and anxiety. The last box I opened out here was full of random shit that made no sense.
The latch seemed fragile and worn out as I lifted the lid to see a velvet baggy, like when you buy cheap jewelry. I plucked the bag out and gave it a small squeeze, trying to feel the shapes of the objects and make some assumption of the contents. It made a crunching effect with every squeeze, driving me closer off the edge of reason. I finally opened the bag, where the velvet was pulled close it was stiff and almost immobile, not wanting to be opened.
I dove my fingers inside, pulling out papers folded expertly into smaller versions and unfolding them carefully. Something old that had braved the Seattle elements wasn’t going to be fragile, but they would be close to rigor mortis. The pages were almost glued to the creases that I tried to flatten out.
The same pen and ink writing screamed Henry Jon at me without further investigation. I tucked the pages into my back pocket before I closed the hiding spot up all over again.
The woods were coated in a type of black that made your eyes adjust and heart race for no reason. I managed to not fall once on the way back to campus.
As soon as the streetlamps illuminated the sidewalks between the buildings I took an extra-long breath to make up for the short ones I pushed down the whole time I was in the woods.
I almost ran up the stairs to my room, and when I saw Kate and Luna on her bed talking, my adrenaline turned to anger.
Luna was the only one who knew I was out there, and she had told Bolton, who came running to inflict more torture on my poor soul.
I let the book fall down on my bed, and I gave her a glare that was meant to melt off all the innocent bullshit she wore like make up. You can’t be innocent and rat someone out at the same time, not in my book.
“Thanks for snitching.”
Kate didn’t even mistake my tone, and her shocked expression twisted towards Luna next to her. Luna let it seep in and didn’t even look guilty.
She didn’t explain right away or have an excuse ready. She was graceful and understanding like she always was. “Arianna, I get you are upset. It’s not safe to be alone in the woods. I was worried about you. We all know you can get over your head…”
There was a part of me on reserve, constantly on ice, waiting until the right amount of heat inside me melted the ice and that part of me spoke without thinking.
“Excuse me? Over my head?”
This was the fire licking the ice and melting the reserve I kept far from others. After my mother died, I tucked it safely inside. Now and again, I still spoke without thinking, slinging my arrows at anyone and everyone, but that was a kid's game compared to what Luna was awakening.
“Yes, sometimes you act without rational thinking and don’t consider the consequences. Isn’t that why you’re here? Sometimes you talk in your sleep. Begging your dad to let you stay if you change.”
There wasn’t a degree of cold left in my body when she spoke all this into reality, in front of Kate.
“At least I’m brave enough to be myself, Luna. I’m reckless and impatient, but I’m never gonna be the innocent twat who is too scared to be loved.”
I grabbed my towel off the door, with my shower caddy, and didn’t wait for her oh-so-shocked at my behavior attitude. It wasn’t shocking. Not my insult, not my attitude, not my cutthroat on reserve.
I was me all the time, leaving no shock-worthy element to my personality.
We had a private bathroom in our room, all the seniors did, but I needed out of our shoebox room and away from her assumptions about me that she was putting on display.
The hallway was old and had a certain musty smell you couldn’t escape, but right then, it still felt refreshing. I swallowed the fire down, trying to cool my icy reserve again before it lashed out at anyone and everyone around me.
Bolton
I had a reason to leave our little get together and that reason dissolved when my phone wouldn't stop buzzing in my pocket. Alba called me over and over again, making stealing my attention easy.
I had bolted from the annual meeting at a pivotal time: Caellum, the book I left Arianna, and the twins being close to ready with their ritual bullshit. It was easier not being present to hear the same argument over and over again.
It was the same song on repeat, boring into my brain and becoming my own personal theme song that I loathed.
Do we need Caellum to go home? For the ritual?
Is Arianna the one? What makes me so sure?
What if the ritual doesn't work?
All I heard was their drowned out voices while I stopped giving a shit about ten times ago.
They were all desperate to go home, but none of them remembered home. They were suffocating all their resources to find a cure for being a teenage dream. This was what everyone wanted, and we were trying to throw it away.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to be a fucking teenager. I was the essence of a god stuck in a skin suit that's sole purpose was to rebel, make a mess of girl's panties, and find a less serial killer way of getting my aggression out.
Home wasn't home anymore. All our gods were dead, and this world was being pulled along by something much worse than their games.
I stomped my way into his office like a fucking superhero who saw the distress signal. “What's the emergency?”
He turned from the book shelf he was pawing at, meeting my gaze, and being dramatic as always. “A book is missing from my shelf. Do you know anything about that?”
I leaned against the door frame, crossing my arms and making sure I wasn't giving anything away. Not even pleasantries.
“Nope. Is that it?”
Alba moved around his desk with a book in his hand and perched on its edge. “It doesn't matter how much you tell her, Bolton. She won't remember. It's written in her sign to be disconnected from the celestial bodies.”
I got tense, even though I forced my body to stay relaxed as much as possible.
Something about Alba always managed to put me on edge. Something about him creeped me out, and I couldn't tell if it was my teenage body or me rubbing his Virgo ass wrong.
“She's different. She's curious. She can survive it.”
He laughed, standing up from his desk like he was done explaining it to me while I threw a tantrum. “Stop forcing it. You think Cheyanne didn't think the same way you are right now?”
“I'm smarter than Cheyanne.”
He slapped his hands down on the desk, equal parts annoyed and frustrated with me. His head dipped below his shoulders, and his silence felt thick in the air.
“Finding the one takes patience. You’re human, and human error accounts for emotions, feelings, hormones… You have to stay level-headed.”
“I don't think anything based on fucking fee
lings, and I'm better than human error. I'm nearly a god.”
I wasn't sticking around for the rest of his pointless lecture. No one could decide if I was team Arianna or team throw her to the wolves and see if she's our ticket home.
I was deceitful and misleading on purpose. How I felt was mine and mine alone. I didn’t need validation.
The entire way back to my room my mind was a flood gate to last year when Cheyanne tried to convince me her new lover was the one. I had never seen someone fall so hard for someone else. She wasn’t swimming in the iris of his love; she was drowning with no signs of the coast guard to pluck her out of that kind of storm.
Every day she begged and pleaded with me to do the ritual because of how sure she was. I didn’t have any proof, nothing solid, except her devotion-sheathed eyes.
No one made a move without my say so, no matter how sure they seemed to be.
My instincts were right when Omari drove the blade through his chest, and we were all there still, left to gawk at the lifeless body and realize this was the price of being wrong.
I should have done more to stop the ritual, but the human part of me ached for Cheyanne falling for her first time.
I wasn't making that mistake again. I was going to exhaust every possible way to prove she was our ticket home or prepare her for the worst.
Either way, I was doing everything in my power so when I buried her body, I'd hurry the guilt too.
Classes resumed; time didn't care how we felt or the drama separating our minutes; it moved regardless. I slammed my locker, already pissed off that Ivy Prep forfeited the game tonight and now Caellum’s team was getting a second chance to rub winning in my face.
We were good enough to beat him, but not without enough practice time. It wasn't even the practice time, not really. My team needed to barb with each other, crack jokes at other’s expenses, and build up some confidence.
They were too scared of not being good enough that it seeped deeper into the confident parts of themselves too.
“What's your problem today?”
Jasper specified “today” because every day I had a problem. If it wasn't the circle, it was the fucking ritual, or Alba, or the Luna and Nyx drama… It was always something just out of my control.
I gritted my teeth through a curt answer: “Nothing.”
Jasper laughed as he leaned against the lockers with his bag dangling from his shoulder. I didn't bother carrying shit, whatever books my arms could hold, they did. I had done this year over so much I had everything pretty much memorized.
Jasper was relentless, dry, touchy, and uptight. So he pretty much fit in with the rest of the guys, minus Beau and Leo.
We weren't against them being together or anything, but their personalities were more vibrant compared to our dark hues. They were sunshine, while we were moody motherfuckers bringing the rain.
“Okay, but ‘nothing’ sure seems to have you in a mood.”
I glared at him, halting his ignorant thoughts from being silent inner monologues to whatever kind of concern this was.
He gave up quickly; his relentlessness wasn't any real match for me. I held everyone’s secrets, all the answers, as the only one who remembered home. I was invaluable. It didn't help deflate my ego.
I turned around quickly, for a clean getaway, when I collided with none other than my favorite purple-haired girl.
Arianna.
I gritted my teeth, already tipping over the edge, and it didn't matter that I had a soft spot for her under my mound of hate. She put another vex in my scale for me to weigh. My scale was broken, and only tipped one way.
“Watch where you're going,” she almost hissed.
I could hear Nyx and Jasper sneering behind me at my rage brewing.
“You're the one not looking where you're going. Pay more attention.”
Was this for leaving her in the woods?
Was she in just as bad of a mood?
Isn't anger part of acceptance?
Maybe she finally figured it all out.
I looked around the hallway, like she couldn't be talking to me, but I was the only person her gaze was locked on.
Her and I.
Hate and more hate.
King and queen.
I stayed quiet, and my silence wore her down after just sixty seconds.
“What's your problem? You hate me. I get it. Don't worry, it's reciprocated.”
I grabbed her elbow with too much force, sometimes the anger was hard to bite back, as I walked forward into her until she had no choice but to move backwards.
Now against the lockers I breathed her in; she smelled fresh laundry and morning dew. She was intoxicating, and it almost made me lose focus of my bad mood.
I barked into her, regaining composure. My fingers pushed her inked strands behind her ear, and my hot breath gave her goosebumps on her arm that I felt raise against my fingers. “You want me to like you? Try being loyal.”
The color didn't fade from her face, instead she became more animated: blushing cheeks, eyes glossed over, her mouth stuck open. It was almost comical watching her choke out any words at all. “I'm loyal. Maybe I’m just not to you.”
Did Arianna Weston officially declare her my enemy? Not just the new girl I loathed, but my enemy.
My betraying queen was aiming for blood on her hands: mine.
The warning bell rang, making everyone move with gumption from their place of gawking. I didn't move, and neither did Arianna.
We stood in the hallway, with my body weight pushing her back into the lockers, and our hate clashing. I looked down at her, concluding her hate was all bullshit, but that mischief in her smile made this so much more fun to play along.
Leaning down, I pushed my lips to hers, and the palm of my hand snuck into her open blazer to find the waistband of her skirt. I squeezed her side when I opened my mouth and my tongue slithered into her mouth. She tasted like honey: warm, wet, smooth... She was everything a kiss should be, hungry and wanting more.
Some girls gave it all away too soon, shoving their tongues down your throat while their hips swayed to meet yours and their hands tugged at anything they could grasp. It was sensory overload. I liked to experience each step before combining anything. Different fuels caught fire at different temperatures.
Arianna was slow and even.
Her arms slung around my neck, but didn’t pull me closer. She kept me intrigued, even though I knew it was time to pull away before it became difficult to do anything about it before homeroom.
I pulled away and she groaned in an offended tone. “No… why did you stop?”
I smirked with so much pride I wanted to slap myself. “I'm kissing a traitor.”
“You know what I've learned about being the new girl so many times?”
I popped an eyebrow, wondering what this new girl considered wisdom to someone of my caliber.
“The only traitors are yourself.” Her words slapped me across the face without any actual contact.
Traitors were only what you made of them, and most of the time, I demonized myself. She was a traitor for hearing my secret, running away, and reaching out for the evil worse than me: Caellum.
“Tell Caellum I say hi, traitor.”
I bit my lip, looking down at her lips, which were now a brighter red from our kissing—used and abused. The part of me that called her my queen didn’t want to stop, but my fury side always won, silently working behind the scenes to keep me focused and unhappy.
I left Arianna to regain composure against the lockers, only looking over my shoulder once briefly to see her fingertips caressing her own lips, rubbing me in, saving me for later.
I kicked my feet up in math class on the empty desk next to me. I only had Jasper in this class with me, while the rest of us were spread around in civics, English, and French. I would have traded Jasper for Nyx or Austin.
Jasper was the more vocal version of Nyx, always talking and resembling a dog with a bone when he found a subjec
t matter he liked. Don’t get me wrong, he blended in with us and was part of the circle bearing the mark of the Capricorn, but it didn’t mean I like him best.
As soon as I sat down, he leaned over, pushing his phone in my face to show me some Instagram posts of Caellum’s school. They were on the field running passes when Caellum showed up in the camera frame, moving his fingers along his neck, slicing his own throat as though it was meant to piss me off.
It worked.
If you wanted to get under my skin and evoke a god-like response, threaten me. It’ll earn you an enraged version of myself, one I’m even scared of.
I got up abruptly making the teacher stutter around her last words. I didn’t turn around to yell Jasper’s name summoning him to follow me; I didn’t need to. He followed me anyway.
As soon as we were in the hallway, I told him round up the team and meet me on the field. His eyebrows caved in, but he didn’t bother asking me anything.
I had my own mission: get us all excused by Alba so that this wasn’t some staged walk out when half the class left class to go practice.
Caellum wasn’t getting the best of us again. We were gonna practice until everyone’s fingers hurt against the leather and their pads felt too heavy to bare.
Tomorrow night, we would be ready to win.
Arianna
Kate and Luna were gossiping as to why Bolton was extra himself today in French when I tried to eavesdrop. I was great at listening and becoming almost invisible, even with purple hair. It was part of my new girl arsenal.
“Caellum is back on campus tomorrow.”
Luna’s sympathetic face frowned while Kate’s roll eye didn't put up with drama from boys. Unlikely friends, but I rarely saw them apart.
Kate saw me listening in when her features scrunched up and glared at me. She was always catching me, seeing me, when most didn’t. I wasn’t sure what to make of her all-seeing eyes.
“Do you have something to add?”
Her voice was saturated in annoyance, and I didn’t blame her. She kept catching me at my worst.
