“You're so innocent and naive,” Lucien said. He cupped her chin with his hand and continued to smile at her. “Wake up, my princess. Come back to me again.”
“I don't…” Cheyenne started, but she found herself struggling to complete her thought. Dizziness washed over her again and she felt as though her body was floating. She had to fight to stay in control. “What are you doing to me?”
“I'm setting you free,” he said. His eyes were lit up with excitement. “Come back.”
Her eyes drooped close. I don't want to give in. I can't give in. Deeper inside her was another voice, another spirit even, beginning to take control. Against her will, she stepped toward Lucien and raised a hand to touch his face.
Am I possessed? That was the last thing she remembered thinking before having another blackout.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mr. Thantos found her lying in a bed she could only assume was still inside the castle of the underworld. The walls had the same dark stone, and the bed was large with tall wooden posts. The sheets were satin and the comforter a goose down. Cheyenne no longer found herself in her dress but a simple white slip.
Wearily, she clung to the bedsheets, ashamed of letting him see her in such a state. She didn't want to know what he was thinking. Clearly not anything good, because all he could do was shake his head and stare down at her. However, she didn’t see judgment or disappointment in his eyes, only a sincere and deep sadness.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he took a few steps toward the bed. He stooped down and gathered her in his arms, satin sheets and all. He took the extra time to wrap her in them like a babe in a swaddling blanket.
There was no definite way to answer the question. She didn't remember being hurt. Her body felt normal enough, aside from being a little tired. She shifted her weight to curl into his body, seeking warmth and protection. His body was cold, however, but strong, so she at least felt safe.
“I—” she started, and then choked on her tears as realization dawned on her. “I think he…” but she couldn't finish the thought. She didn't know. Nothing about her felt different, so she couldn't tell what had happened to her during the blackout.
“We will go home and have you examined,” he said.
“Zes, where is—”
“He is back at the school in the infirmary.”
She closed her eyes, resting her head against his chest. Exhaustion still weighted heavily on her. Cheyenne wasn't sure how he’d found her, nor what he’d done to be able to walk through the castle of the underworld as though he owned it. In the end, it made no difference to her. They were going home, and that's all that mattered to her now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When they returned, it was early Sunday morning. She was quickly taken to the infirmary so the school doctor, Claire Menchin, a gentle, thirty-something woman with light healing abilities, could examine her. Cheyenne was then forced to stay in bed inside. Mr. Thantos stood guard outside her door, despite the threat being gone. Still, it put her mind at ease to have him there.
Lucien had planned his attack well to orchestrate it so fluently, and on a day when Mr. Thantos was resting. How he made it onto the campus in the first place, no one knew. There would be a full investigation on the matter—her parents were seeing to that.
Cheyenne wished she could say Zes was in better condition than her. Lucien had given his word Zes wouldn't be killed, which was a small solace, but she wished she could see him herself. But no one beyond family was allowed to visit him yet.
“We won't have any test results for a few days, although we're sure everything will come back fine,” the doctor explained while discussing Cheyenne’s condition with her. “It can be hard to say with demons sometimes. They're a strange brood. Everything else looks okay though. There were no signs of penetration.” She had blood drawn, her entire body examined and x-rayed for anything out of the ordinary, and all of her basic vitals checked. It had been a rather long and tedious process.
“Wait,” Cheyenne said, confused. “So he didn't do anything to me?”
Doctor Menchin nodded. “Correct. As far as I was able to tell, you still have your virginity. Which is great news. I'd consider yourself lucky. Dr. Warhol will be in tomorrow to counsel you.”
“Great,” she mumbled. Thank God. She rubbed at her forehead slowly. Nothing had happened. He hadn't done anything to her physically, but something about the spell he’d cast on her had her feeling off still. She wasn't out of the water yet, that much was certain. This wouldn't be the last she'd hear from Lucien.
She returned her thoughts to Zes. “How’s—”
“Your friend is stable. We've put him in a magically induced coma so his body can focus on healing. Don't worry, it's nothing like a coma you'd find among the normal humans. It will help minimize the pain while we apply as much treatment, both magic and practical, as we can. He was brought in about an hour before you and has had a rapid recovery already. Once he wakes up, you'll be able to see him. We'll let you see your parents soon. Is there anything I or a nurse can get for you?”
“No, I just want to see my mom and dad,” she said quietly, wondering why the demons had to hurt Zes too.
“I’ll send them in.” The doctor opened the door to reveal Cheyenne's father in a rather heated conversation with Mr. Thantos.
“It's still not acceptable. We don’t give your school all of this money to have things like this happen,” Erik said.
“And what would you propose I do? I believe if you have a complaint you should be addressing it to the president of the school, not a lowly teacher such as myself,” Mr. Thantos said. “Regardless, am I to not do the things which are natural for my body? Why were you not there? You were certainly available. It is not my responsibility alone to protect the entire school, and I can only do so much. Had I been around, I doubt I would have been able to prevent the occurrences of last night from happening anyway. While I understand your anger and parental instinct is to blame all outside parties, I believe everyone could have done more aside from the children themselves.”
“It's your job.”
“It is also yours. She is your daughter. Or was the purpose of bringing her here to pawn off the responsibility once more on someone else? You can partake in all of the joys of parenting, but none of the actual work? My job is to educate first, advise second. I may have a past in guardianship, but that is not my job anymore.”
“Talk about pawning responsibilities off on someone else. But I suppose with a past like yours, I wouldn't want to say I could do a job I failed at.”
“Then I believe we are in agreement for a change,” Mr. Thantos said. “I am sure between the two of us we can come up with a more suitable scapegoat for the incident. Perhaps the fellow members of your cult, oh, I mean the Divine, my apologies. They are the ones who supplied the new wards to begin with. Maybe you should take it up with them and ask why their 'all powerful' magics have failed. Again.”
“They wouldn’t—”
Persephone entered the conversation. “Please, stop fighting. You shouldn't be talking about this here or be pointing fingers.” She brushed past them and immediately went to Cheyenne's bedside. Mr. Thantos reached for the knob and closed the door.
Cheyenne did her best to keep herself distracted so she wouldn't have a breakdown. Eventually she caved and snuggled into her mother's arms and started crying.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Halyn visited several times and updated Cheyenne on the latest gossip as well as delivered the minimal homework her teachers had given her to do. Too bad there wasn't much, because she would’ve loved to have had more of a distraction. While she had been released from the infirmary late Sunday night, she was taking the week off to be away from everyone and staying at the guesthouse with her parents. No doubt a version of what happened was already passing through the school, and Cheyenne wasn’t in the mood to listen to the whispers. One thing she didn’t do, but knew she should have, was to visit Zes
. She wasn't sure how she could face him. Anj hadn't stopped by to see her or called, and she was worried maybe he was mad at her.
When Persephone told Cheyenne someone was there to see her, she thought Halyn had come by again between classes. Instead, she found Jewl carrying gifts. Cheyenne sat up in the recliner where she had been reading and set her textbook aside.
“I know, huge shock,” Jewl mumbled as she walked in. She waited until Cheyenne's mother was gone from the room again before taking a seat nearby. “I know we haven't ever gotten along and you don't like me and blah, blah, blah. I'm not here to make some kind of sudden peace offering because I feel guilty and life is short and unpredictable. I never understood how traumatic experiences could make people suddenly like each other.”
Cheyenne was starting to understand why Anj liked Jewl so much—no, why he loved her so much. She didn't beat around the bush, and she was even more cynical than he was.
“I do have some things for you. And I was going to talk to you, well, apologize, prior to all of this happening, but the situation became a little chaotic. I figured I'd do it all in one sitting since I'm here for a few different reasons,” Jewl continued quietly.
“All right,” Cheyenne said.
“I don't like new people and I don't like change, so I think it can be pretty well assumed I don't like you for those reasons. It's not anything necessarily against you personally. I'm well aware of what he's trying to do with you, but that's him, not you. I apologize for taking things too far. Halyn chewed me out about the spider, and she's right. That was pretty lame. I can't say we're going to be best friends forever, or I'm going to be your friend period, but I'll make more of an effort to be civil at least. If you stick around long enough, I'll get used to you eventually.”
Cheyenne nodded and took all of it in. It obviously meant something for Jewl to share all this information about herself to someone she barely knew, even if they weren’t necessarily things she wanted to hear.
Jewl handed Cheyenne a small stack of cards and a book wrapped in blue paper. “These are for you.”
The cards were from students wishing her well and hoping she felt better soon. Some of them had been signed by multiple students and others were more personalized. Never would she have expected such an outpouring for her among her peers. The book was a black journal, plain and simple. This was from Denver, and on the front page was a small note.
I know you probably don't want anything to do with me after everything, but this will be the only time you'll hear me say this (or would it be see?). I'm sorry. Now burn this page, and we'll talk more when you get back. Please do it soon. Your roommate is making me contemplate homicide.
She ripped the page out, but instead of destroying it, she folded it neatly and placed it away for safekeeping.
“Thanks.”
“One more thing,” Jewl said quietly before standing up to leave. “Zes is awake now, and he wants you to come by sometime when you feel up to it. Hopefully that won't be too much longer. He's worried about you.” That was an obvious hint if there ever was one.
“Is he—”
“He's as okay as anyone can be after what he went through. I'm sure I'll see you around in some way, shape, or form later.” She shrugged.
“I'm sure.” There was so much she wanted to confront Jewl about. She had owned up to the spider, but what about everything else? Had she been in on the plan with Denver? With Lucien?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was difficult for her to go see Zes. She had to wait until the rest of the students weren’t around, because she wasn’t yet ready to talk about everything that had happened. She left a note for her parents while they were out and then walked down the forest path to the main campus. It scared her to go alone, but she soon got over the fear. She trusted the trees to tell her if someone was following her.
She silently slipped through the hallways of the infirmary. Not even the doctors or nurses noticed her pass through. She found Zes's room and knocked before entering.
Zes looked just as awful as the last time she’d seen him, if not worse. He had horrible bruising on his arms and a multitude of scars. His face had been beaten badly, to the point where if she had come in earlier in the week, she probably wouldn't have recognized him. Only a few bandages were left in place though. All of his wounds were healing over well.
His brother was in a nearby chair, curled up on the cushion with his head and legs squeezed between the armrests. At least he had a pillow under his head. Zes was also asleep, and she felt as though she were disturbing them by entering the room. Deciding maybe it would be better if she came back another time, she slowly started to walk back out, but stopped when Zes spoke to her.
“Don't go,” he said. He started propping himself up in the bed, wincing slightly, but he had a glowing smile. She couldn't understand why he would be so happy to see her after their ordeal.
“I didn't mean to wake you. Maybe I should come back when he's not sleeping,” she whispered, still staying as close to the door as possible. She was looking for any excuse to leave.
Zes shook his head, still smiling at her. He made a weak hand gesture for her to come and sit next to him. “He'll be fine. If he wakes up, it'll have nothing to do with you. I told him to go back and get some rest in a real bed, but he insists on staying. He's been here the entire time. I'm glad you came by.”
She nodded and sat down in the chair. She quietly moved it closer to him and sighed. “I'm so sorry. This—”
“Don't say it's your fault,” he said firmly. “It's not. Neither of us could have known what they were going to do. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. I should have done a better job at keeping you safe.”
“Could you have fought them?” she asked. She doubted he could have. If Mr. Thantos would’ve had a hard time with them, why would Zes have been able to do more?
“I could have at least tried. I have these abilities, this magic, and instead of doing something with it, I completely choked,” he whispered.
“They would have killed you if you’d fought back.”
“I don't care. You should have let me. You shouldn't have let him touch you.”
Cheyenne sighed. “But I care,” she managed to choke out. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes again, and she had told herself a million times she wouldn't start crying. “I care and I couldn't live with myself knowing they’d killed you because of something I did. I'm not worth it.”
“We could probably go around in circles with this,” he said and laughed. With a wince, he reached out to stroke her cheek. “Because I’d tell you that you are, and then you’d say you aren't, and it would never end. It doesn't change anything. It happened. We gotta move forward. I don't want to dwell on apologies anymore. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she said.
“I won't let him have another chance to try.”
Anj stirred slightly in his chair. “Why haven't you asked her out yet?”
Zes closed his eyes. “You're awake?”
“Sure,” Anj mumbled before slowly sitting up. He stretched out his arms and legs and then proceeded to crack his neck in multiple places. “I suppose you could say I have been for a little while. Long enough. I think I'm starting to get used to sleeping like this though.”
Zes sighed, looking down. “I'm feeling a little hungry. You wanna run and get me something from the cafeteria?”
“Of course,” Anj said. He sat up straight and actually smiled. “What do you want me to get? Do you want breakfast? Coffee?”
“Sounds good. You know what I like.”
Anj reached out and gave his brother's arm a gentle squeeze before leaving the room.
Zes laughed. “There, now we can talk like we're alone.”
“We are alone,” Cheyenne pointed out.
“Right, well, you know what I mean,” he said, biting onto his lower lip. “He's so...”
“He loves you.” She would have given anything to have a brot
her or sister to look out for her.
“I know that. I just wanted to get there on my own.”
“Get where?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Picking things up where we left off, you know, before we were interrupted by...everything. When I finally get out of here, I was thinking about maybe heading over to this indoor skating rink. We go there sometimes, and it's fun 'cause they've got free skating time to just dork around and stuff. I was gonna ask if you wanted to come with.”
“I'm not good at skating, so I hope you don't mind me falling down a lot.” She wanted to do anything to make him feel better. A date couldn't hurt, right?
“I'm not good either. I'm not good at a lot of things, but it doesn't stop me from doing them anyway. I go for me. Anj doesn't like skating. He doesn't like not having something solid underneath him, so we never went a lot when we were younger. I finally did it on my own.”
“I'm glad you want to share it with me.”
“Do you have things you do for yourself?”
She laughed a little. “How about I tell you when we go? I can't reveal all my secrets at once.”
“Deal.”
It felt nice to laugh despite everything. She only hoped this date wouldn't cause Lucien to ignite his wrath against her or, more important, against Zes. Silly girl, a voice within her said. The boy is your gift.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cheyenne sighed and glanced off to the side, anywhere, so long as she didn't have to look at Dr. Warhol. “No, I guess there isn't a whole lot I can say. Do you want me to talk about my feelings or something? Those should be pretty obvious. I feel used, violated, confused—pick your favorite synonym, and it probably applies.”
Agendas Page 23
