by Sofia Daniel
When he left, Sebastian, Leopold, and Prakash walked in. They stood in a line around my bed, each staring down at me with concerned expressions.
“We need to talk,” said Leopold.
“But not here,” Sebastian said with a warning edge to his voice.
“Someone could be listening,” added Prakash.
Curiosity thrumming in my chest, I nodded. If Sebastian was ready to talk, I was ready to listen.
Sebastian knelt at my feet. “Can you get dressed? I want to take you to the hideout.”
Leopold held my hand in the back of the jeep and kept offering me sips of hot chocolate from a steaming Thermos flask. It was thick and rich and creamy, as though someone had made it from melting the finest dark chocolate and stirring in just enough full-fat milk for sweetening.
I didn’t look out of the window for the entire journey and instead focused on the love and concern radiating in Leopold’s aquamarine eyes. If anyone had told me the lout who I’d needed to punch in the privates would end up caring so deeply for me, I would never have believed them.
Leopold carried me into the hideout, which they’d already pre-warmed hours ago. He set me on the leather sofa with a pile of blankets and gave Sebastian a significant look.
“If you miss anything out, I’ll take over and tell Willow everything.”
“Fine,” Sebastian growled.
My heart stuttered out several rapid beats, and I looked from Leopold to Sebastian, to Prakash.
Prakash gave me a tight smile. “I’ll see if there’s enough milk for chai.”
Sebastian sank into the sofa next to me and for the first time in weeks, met my eyes with the same kind of heart-melting intensity from when we had first met. “When you didn’t turn up for Advanced Calculus yesterday afternoon, Prakash searched for you around the academy. You weren’t in the usual places, and Miss Claymore suggested that you might have gone home.”
I nodded.
“But you weren’t at your cottage, either.” He took both my hands in his and pressed my knuckles to his lips. “I called the police, who said you would need to be missing for twenty-four hours before they could send out a search party.”
I dipped my head. “No one would have found me. I got knocked out in Mrs. Benazir’s office, then moved to a cave.”
“Did you see your attacker?”
“No.” I repeated what I’d told the police and included my suspicions about Bianca and her father.
Sebastian’s brows drew together, and Leopold paused at the wood-burning stove, which he was currently refueling. Prakash pulled the saucepan of fragrant chai off the hob to listen.
As I told them the whole, confusing story, each boy’s reactions differed. Leopold’s eyes blazed with cold fury, which he directed mostly at Sebastian, Prakash stared ahead and breathed hard, while Sebastian bowed his head.
At the end of the story, Leopold growled, “Tell Willow everything right now, or I will.”
My brows drew together. Perhaps now, I’d find out what was wrong.
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair. “Leo thinks Miss Claymore is trying to kill you.”
I shook my head. This had to be some wild speculation brought on by their hatred of the woman. “She has no reason to—”
“She thinks she’s in love.” Sebastian dipped his head. “With me.”
“The woman is obsessed,” added Leopold.
I shook my head Neither of them appeared to be joking, but the idea of Miss Claymore wanting a student was ludicrous. I glanced up at Prakash, the least likely of the kings to fall prey to such crazy speculations. His features were solemn, and he gave me a confirming nod.
“Why?” I blurted.
Sebastian’s head snapped up, and my stomach flipped like a crepe as I realized how much incredulity I’d injected into the word. It was as though I thought no one could ever find Sebastian attractive, but that wasn’t what I had meant.
Heat bloomed across my cheeks, and I stuttered out an explanation. “I mean… You’re gorgeous and everything, but she can’t stand you. Miss Claymore is always telling you off for—”
“Consorting with you,” Sebastian said with a sigh.
Narrowing my eyes, I thought back. Most of the times I’d seen her reprimand him, it had been because she’d seen Sebastian try to get close to me. But hadn’t that been part of her attempts to stamp out bullying?
Cormac had also firmly believed that Sebastian was sexually harassing me. I just assumed he had reported his concerns to Miss Claymore, who had acted accordingly.
“I still don’t understand why a grown woman would think she had a chance with a seventeen-year-old.”
Sebastian wrapped his large, warm hands around mine. “You’ve got to understand my mental state at the time. I’d just lost my whole family, and my grandfather was still recovering from a heart attack.”
A frantic pulse beat in my dry throat. This additional detail was even more confusing. The plane crash had taken place when Sebastian had been twelve or thirteen. Swallowing hard, I gave him a sharp nod, even though I still couldn’t piece together how Miss Claymore might have fallen for a grieving child.
“I returned to school a complete wreck, desperate to get control over my emotions. Grief counseling wasn’t working, and neither was lashing out in classes. Miss Claymore tried her best to make allowances, but I was disruptive and ended up in detentions.”
“She seduced you?”
Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut. “I played the pull-a-pig game on her.”
I shot to my feet, and the blankets pooled onto the sofa. “What?”
“There’s no excuse,” said Sebastian. “I screwed her over and broke her heart, but I never knew she would ever turn her anger onto you.”
Leopold crossed the room and took my hand. “On that Monday you don’t remember, Claymore pinned him to the bed and tried to force herself on him.
“You walked in on us,” Sebastian rasped.
My throat closed up. “S-she saw me?”
Sebastian nodded.
“That’s why I think she put you in that car,” said Leopold. “To remove you from the equation and to stop you from reporting her to Mrs. Benazir. Or to the police.”
My knees weakened, and I collapsed back onto the sofa. Leopold’s hostility toward Sebastian now made sense, as did Miss Claymore’s strange reactions. She had been twitchy on my first day back, only relaxing after discovering that I’d lost my memory.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
“I didn’t believe she could be capable of something so horrific,” said Sebastian.
I rested my clenched fists onto my lap and squeezed my eyes shut. Miss Claymore had been my enemy all along. One who had posed as my ally to get close enough to do maximum damage.
“She needs to know that I’m not falling victim to her anymore,” I snarled.
“What do you need from us?” asked Sebastian.
Right now, I couldn’t even look at him. Not when he had held back such a devastating secret. Instead, I turned to Leopold. “I need you three to watch my back as I record her confession.”
Chapter 15
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my coat and stormed down the treehouse’s wooden staircase. Leopold offered to ‘warm me up,’ but the fury blazing through my veins thawed any cold clinging to my bones. How dare that woman act like a warrior against bullies while conducting her murder plans on the side?
I stomped across the snowy clearing toward Sebastian’s jeep. She did this all for an obsession with a boy who had seduced her as part of a stupid, cruel game.
The boys were already waiting for me. Sebastian, who I wanted to kick in the balls, sat inside, but Prakash stood by the front passenger door, looking at me as though I might explode. Perhaps he also felt a bit awkward for harboring is own secret about Corrine.
Moonlight cast silvery reflections on his glossy, black hair. “Willow—”
“I can’t.” Both palms came up. �
�Give me a few minutes to process everything.”
He inclined his head and took the front seat. A relieved breath slid from my nostrils. Intellectually, I understood that they were both young when they had hurt their victims, but my feelings about the game were still a bit raw in light of what happened to Ashley.
After we settled in the jeep, Sebastian drove in silence out of the woods and back into the road. His green gaze flickered to the rear-view mirror, but I stared straight ahead, not wanting to meet his eyes.
Leopold threaded his fingers through mine, offering me silent support.
I bit down on my bottom lip. Was I the irrational bitch? Giving my head a tiny shake, I shoved those thoughts away. My ire wasn’t about the pull-a-pig game. Sebastian knew someone was trying to kill me. Knew someone wanted me out of the academy by any means necessary, yet he hadn’t divulged Miss Claymore’s obsession.
“Are you alright?” asked Sebastian.
“I still don’t understand why you waited so long.” My insides cringed at the needy tone in my voice.
After a moment of contemplative silence, Sebastian said, “She isn’t the sort of person who would lash out at an innocent party. Her grievance was with me, not with you.”
“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” said Leopold.
“Thank you, for the rousing poetry,” muttered Prakash. “But Leo does have a point. That game can twist a person’s affection into an obsession.”
My head pounded like a bass drum. A new memory pushed its way out of the recesses of my mind. Prakash was getting drunk and confirming something Cormac had once told me. Corrine had become mad with obsession, but I couldn’t remember what Prakash had said she had done.
Squinting hard, I rubbed my temples. I needed to focus on our murderous deputy head, not a girl who was long dead.
As the jeep drove through the academy’s gates, my insides twisted into several painful knots. Although everything made sense—Miss Claymore’s motives, her ability to move around the academy without being questioned, and her knowledge of my whereabouts on the day of the last attack—the thought of confronting her lined my stomach with dread.
Sebastian parked the jeep in the courtyard. “Don’t let her touch you. Miss Claymore has a man’s strength.”
My throat dried at the thought of the deputy headmistress throwing me like a rag doll against the wall.
Leopold wrinkled his nose. “That’s an understatement. I’d describe her more like a she-rannosaurus. But she’s not without her appeal.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can you be serious for a minute?”
“PC muscles are no laughing matter,” he murmured into my ear.
“What?”
“Pubo. Coccy. Geus,” he whispered the Latin term like it was a prayer. “It’s the muscle that hugs a man’s cock during sex and contracts during orgasm.”
I slid my gaze to his sparkling, blue-green eyes and mumbled, “So?”
“According to Seb, Claymore can milk a man dry with those muscles. It’s like a fist of fury that squeezes so hard, it creates a vacuum that drains out his balls.”
“Leo!” Sebastian hissed.
Prakash tutted and shook his head.
I rolled my eyes. No such thing existed.
Sebastian turned off the engine, and I stepped out. As soon as the cold, fresh air blew across my face, harsh reality set in, and the lining of my stomach trembled.
Leopold walked around and placed an arm around my waist. “Hey, Seb. Maybe you can teach Willow the martial art of man milking, although being smothered by those substation mammary glands will squeeze—”
“Shut up,” we both snapped.
“Why?” he stepped back with an exaggerated shrug. “What man hasn’t dreamed of lying helpless while a buxom amazon seized his—”
“What’s wrong with you?” I whirled on Leopold and clenched my fists. “Can’t you think of anything else?”
“Good.” Grinning, he clapped me on the back.
“What?” my brows lowered into a scowl.
“You’re no longer terrified.” With an approving nod, he adjusted the collar of my winter coat. “Now, shoulders back, torpedoes forward, and confront that crazy bitch.”
“Thanks.” Leopold’s salacious commentary had distracted me from the sheer terror of facing a potential murderer, and the inappropriate pep talk had melted away all my anxiety. I gave him a tiny smile, ascended the entrance steps, and strode through the double doors.
We walked through the hallways in silence, and I pulled out my smartphone and fired up the recording app. As much as I wanted all three of the kings at my back while I confronted Miss Claymore, the effort would be futile. No one would slip up and admit to setting up a murder if she had an audience hanging on to her every word.
On the first floor, we stood outside her room. Sebastian placed a hand on my shoulder, making me stiffen. I still didn’t know how to feel about his withholding information about Miss Claymore for an entire term.
“Are you ready?” Prakash whispered.
I nodded.
“We’ll be outside the door,” whispered Leopold. “Any screams or thuds, and we’ll barrel in to save you.”
“Thanks.” I gave them sharp nods, indicating that I was ready for action.
After they moved out of the doorway, I knocked.
“Enter,” said the deputy headmistress in a crisp voice.
I turned the handle and stepped inside. Miss Claymore sat behind her desk, scribbling on a piece of paper. As soon as her black eyes met mine, her sour expression pinched.
“Miss Evergreen, the doctor said you could take time off school. What are you—”
“I know what you did.” My voice shook with the tiniest of tremors.
Her face paled. “To what do you refer?”
“You were in Sebastian’s room the night someone drove me off the side of the mountain.”
“Impossible, you said—”
“I saw you,” I lied.
Her breathing quickened, and her chest rose and fell in rapid succession. She blinked several times as though trying to work out what to do or say next. The sight of the stern womon looking so disconcerted made my chest swell with courage. Right now, I had the upper hand, but I wasn’t stupid enough to stay within reach of those long arms.
She rose to her feet and pursed her thin lips. “You’re mistaken.”
I raised my chin and stared into her dark eyes. “And I know you’ve had an affair with Sebastian since his third year.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose he told you this?”
“Only after my memory resurfaced of you pinning him down on the bed.”
“I see.” Her body went as still as stone. “And what will you do with this knowledge?”
My heart quickened. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. Miss Claymore had all but admitted to having sex with an underage boy. If I could get her to talk about how she’d tried to kill me, I’d be able to hand the recording to the police.
“You love Sebastian, and you don’t want anyone else to have him,” I murmured. “Is that why you put me in a car and made it look like an accident?”
She reared back. “What are you talking about?”
Doubt flashed across my mind. She hadn’t acted this surprised when I’d told her I knew about her affair with Sebastian, but a mere five minutes ago, she had also denied sleeping with him. I shook off those thoughts and focussed on the smartphone in my pocket. One slip-up on her part and I might be able to convince the police to bring her in for questioning.
“You were supposed to be there for the meeting in Mrs. Benazir’s office, yet someone hit me over the head.”
Her nostrils flared. “Is that an accusation?”
“Who else knew I would be in that room?” I spat.
“Miss Evergreen.” She side-stepped around the desk.
My heart leaped into action, pumping blood to my limbs. If Miss Claymore could thro
w Sebastian around, she could probably snap my neck in a second. “Stay where you are!”
The deputy headmistress raised both palms. “All right,” she said in the tone a dog whisperer might employ to soothe a rabid and confused Rottweiler. “Please remain calm. I don’t know how you ended up in that cave. As for the incident with your mother’s car, even the police don’t believe anyone staged a murder.”
“You did it because you wanted Sebastian for yourself.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she let out a long, weary breath through her nostrils. “I’m very concerned about your state of mind.”
“D-don’t gaslight me.” I slapped my hand on my chest. “It’s not madness or paranoia if someone hits you over the head and you wake up miles away in a cave. A-and I didn’t sleepwalk there, either!”
Miss Claymore shook her head, and rage exploded through my chest and into my veins. The wretched, two-faced woman would say anything to keep her job and stay out of prison.
“I’m sick of people telling me things aren’t real. Bianca and Geraldine pulled me out of bed, forced alcohol down my throat and put pork ribs into my body, but now they and Mr. Byrd are saying I did it to myself.”
She furrowed her brow. “Miss Ever—”
“And the day after I caught you half-naked in bed with Sebastian, I woke up in hospital, having been put into a car with another abnormally high blood-alcohol level!”
Miss Claymore pursed her lips and scowled. Because she knew I was right.
I waved my finger at her, hoping to provoke her into saying something, anything the police might use to secure her arrest. “All those times you punished Sebastian, it was because he was flirting with me!”
Her pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink. “It was because I worried that Sebastian was playing that terrible pull-a-pig game with you! No woman, young or old, should ever be falsely pursued. None should have her ever reservation melted away by sweet words and gestures, and none should fall for someone only to hear that it had all been a trick!”
