The School: A Supernatural Thriller (Val Ryker Series)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  The gun.

  He brought his foot down, stomping Bradley’s ankle, the pistol only inches from the man’s outstretched fingers.

  Scissoring his body, Bradley grabbed Nate’s leg, tipping him off balance. Nate twisted, throwing himself on top of the larger man and going for his throat, his eyes.

  Bradley landed a strike to Nate’s ribs. He followed with his left elbow, clipping Nate in the jaw, the blow ringing through his skull.

  When Nate had planned on infiltrating the school to rescue Josh, he’d focused his preparation on challenging his foe on the ethereal plane. He wasn’t prepared for confronting a man. Especially one who was bigger than he was. With distance, Nate could hold his own, but if they continued with this back alley brawling, he didn’t stand a chance.

  Nate had to reach that gun.

  He grasped at Bradley’s head, fumbling for something to hold on to besides smooth scalp. He latched on to an ear, twisting and ripping as hard as he could.

  Bradley let out a bellow. His hands flew to the side of his head, and at that second Nate scrabbled away, lunging for the spot where he’d seen the pistol. He groped the floor, praying for his hand to hit—

  Bradley caught him, chopping his right arm out from underneath, flattening Nate to the tile just as his fingers touched steel.

  Nate twisted around, shoving the barrel into the man’s temple. “Get off. Slowly.”

  Obeying, Bradley lifted his body off Nate, moving backward until he settled on his haunches.

  Nate sat up as well. He kept the pistol’s barrel trained between Bradley’s eyes. The man who’d tried to kill him. The man who’d succeeded in killing Steven.

  “Why the hell are you doing all this, Tim? Before tonight, I didn’t know you killed Steven. For two years, I didn’t put it together. So why did you think I was going to figure it all out now? Why risk coming after me now?”

  “I didn’t know where you were before the police chief called the office.”

  “But why kill me at all? Why kill Steven? Were you afraid we’d go to the press about the fiasco with the faery? No one would believe us.”

  “Maybe I just did it for fun.”

  Nate shook his head, even though he was pretty sure Bradley couldn’t pick it up in his dropped flashlight’s glow. Bradley was a lot of things, but one thing Nate had learned early in their working relationship was that his boss never did anything without a self-serving reason.

  Maybe there was someone who would believe. Someone Bradley had wanted to keep in the dark. “The IPPO doesn’t know, do they?”

  “About Steven’s death? What do you think?”

  “No, not just Steven’s death. The faery. You were keeping the whole thing secret. Your whole idea. Our research. You were trying to develop a supernatural weapon to sell to the highest bidder. And you told us it was a NSA directive to get us to help.”

  The flashlight’s feeble beam flickered.

  “So what happens now?” Bradley asked. “You kill me? Prove to the cop outside that you’re just as dangerous as I told her you were?”

  Nate’s gut clenched. The faery hadn’t killed Steven, but the threat to Rachel was still very real. Learning the truth about Bradley had changed nothing about what Rachel and Josh faced. And yet, he couldn’t just let Bradley go, and as much as he liked the idea, he couldn’t put a bullet in him either. Not in cold blood.

  “Now I take you outside to the cops. They can handle you from there.”

  The flashlight flickered again, then died. In the darkness, Nate didn’t detect Bradley’s movement until the man’s foot connected with Nate’s skull.

  Nate fell backwards, head ringing. Scrambling to get out of Bradley’s reach, Nate raised the weapon, trying to spot Bradley in the dark, and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When the gunshot exploded through the halls, Rachel screamed.

  She kept running, her breath ragged in her ears, the light from her phone bouncing ahead. The trident, tucked back in her waistband, poked her back with each stride. When Nate told her to run, she had without thinking, somehow hoping he would be right behind her. But he’d never followed. And now…

  Please. Nate has to be all right.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, someone running.

  Nate? Or God forbid, could it be Bradley? Or maybe it was neither. She no longer knew what was real and what was a hallucination. Maybe the sound was only in her mind.

  She darted to the left, ducking through the door into the lunchroom, and flattened herself to the wall. She turned off the light on her phone, slipped it into her pocket, and tried to sort out the sounds in the hall before making her presence known.

  Something whistled past her head, barely missing. It hadn’t come from the direction of the hall, but behind her, inside the lunchroom.

  She looked for the source, saw nothing but darkness.

  A carton of milk soared through the air and connected with the side of her face, splashing liquid down her neck, soaking into the shoulder of her jacket. An apple core followed, and she hunched forward, covering her face.

  And then the real barrage began. Potatoes and green beans. Full hamburgers. Plastic cups of fruit and Jello. Food rained out of the darkness, thrown by no one.

  Only in her mind. Only in her mind.

  Silently, she chanted the words, but they made no difference. She’d only been in one cafeteria food fight, but she had few school experiences that were more disgusting. In seconds, she was covered with wet and sticky and smelly and gross. She hadn’t heard any further sounds out in the hall, and she had to wonder if the sound was merely a faery trick, a way to drive her into the lunchroom. She’d move on to the library and take her chances.

  She pushed away from the wall, darted toward the door.

  The food barrage thickened. A folded lunch table careened toward her. She dodged to the side, avoiding it, and then dashed out into the hall, just as a wad of mashed potatoes smacked her in the cheek.

  The hall was dark. Even after holding her breath for a few seconds, Rachel could hear no sound. Whoever had been running must have passed by before the food ruckus began.

  She could only pray it was Nate, because if it was Bradley, then that meant Nate…

  Rachel pushed the thought from her mind. She had to focus on Josh. She had to trust that Nate was okay, that he’d be there like he promised.

  Right now with the faery tapping into her thoughts and making them real, she couldn’t afford to think any other way.

  She dug into her pocket for her phone and pulled out one of the nails. Her cheeks grew hot. A trill of fear stiffened her spine. She checked her other pocket and found the second nail.

  No cell phone. She must have dropped it in the lunchroom. And without a light, she could never find her way to the library. Without a way of communicating, she couldn’t call for help.

  She was just turning to go back and look for it when a forearm pressed against her throat and pulled her head back against a strong chest. A voice whispered in her ear. “If I’d known you were the key to finding Wells, I would have taken you months ago.”

  Rachel clawed at his arm and struggled to breathe.

  “Now we’re going to march on back to your boyfriend, and then I’ll kill you both. Sound good?” He pushed her down the hall, his hold on her throat firm.

  She had to do something to relieve the pressure on her throat, but the nail was in the way…

  The nail.

  She drove the spike into his arm with all her strength, sticking it into the muscle.

  “Ahh!” He sprang back, releasing her, sending the nail flying.

  She bolted forward. Running down the hall, she veered for the first door she reached.

  Unlike the rest of the school, the gymnasium was lit with a dim glow from emergency lights placed around the cavernous space. To the right of the door, a row of four climbing ropes hung down from the ceiling. Straight ahead, bleachers extended from the wall. Rachel dashed s
traight ahead, slipping into the deep shadow underneath the stands before Bradley reached the door.

  She moved as quietly as she could, climbing between braces. She was about a third of the way in when the sound of feet started pounding overhead. Not Bradley’s feet, but dozens of them, mixed with voices and the smack of a basketball dribbled on wood floor. Laughter came from behind her, and she recognized the voices of the clique of mean girls from her high school days. Rachel risked a glance back, but she could see nothing but darkness.

  Bradley had to be in the gym by now, but she couldn’t hear a thing. Not with the crowd noises in her head. He could be right above her and she wouldn’t know.

  She had to clear her mind.

  She tried the trick she’d used in the locker, searching for good memories of the few basketball games she attended, of gym class, of anything positive or quiet or empowering that had happened in a setting like this.

  She came up empty.

  Something dripped on her from above, adding to the stickiness of her already food-caked hair. She slipped on a pile of spilled popcorn, heard more jeers from the bullies following. The experience seemed so real that when she reached the end of the bleachers, she stared at the empty gym. No basketball game, no crowd, just a floor scattered with red rubber balls used for kickball.

  No, not kickball. Battle ball.

  Cued by her thoughts, one of the balls flew at her, thrown by unseen hands. She brought up her own hands to block it.

  Too late.

  The blow shuddered through her skull, and for a second, she thought she might lose her balance and go down.

  “Rachel, run! Back to the door! Get out of the gym!”

  “Nate?”

  Regaining her footing, she circled the corner of the bleachers and started back for the door. What was she thinking running in here? Gym was a nightmare on a good day.

  Stealing a quick glance over her shoulder, she spotted a hulking figure just twenty feet behind and closing fast, the low emergency lights shining off his head.

  “Bradley, stop!” Nate’s voice echoed off the walls. The sound of his feet thumped on the bleachers.

  Rachel caught a glimpse of him, gun in hand, just as a ball hit her in the shoulder and a third struck her in the jaw, snapping her neck back.

  She went down to her knees this time, Bradley catching her from behind, his fingers grasping at her jacket and the back of her jeans. She could feel the trident slip from her waistband and clatter to the floor.

  No.

  Without the weapon, she couldn’t stop the faery, couldn’t get Josh back. She had to recover the trident.

  Just feet from the wall and door, she spun around.

  Bradley straightened from a crouch, looming over her, taller, stronger, the trident clutched in one fist.

  “Drop it, Bradley.” Nate yelled. Behind Bradley, and standing near the bottom of the bleachers, he held the pistol in both hands.

  A smile curved Bradley’s lips. “He won’t shoot me, you know. Not when he might hit you.” He lunged at her, capturing her arm in a beefy fist.

  She scrambled backward, frantic to get away from him, desperate to—

  Something encircled her ankles, binding her feet, too fast for her to break away. She looked down. Even in the dim light, she could see that one of the four gym ropes was tangled around her legs. She tried to shift her feet. She grabbed the trident and tried to wrestle it from Bradley’s grip.

  Suddenly Bradley released her and jolted back, ripping the trident out of her grasp. “What the hell?”

  She tried to move, to run, but two more ropes were on her, wrapping a wrist, capturing an arm, lifting her off her feet. And then the final rope snaked around her neck, its thick, rasping plaits choking off her scream.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nate couldn’t believe his eyes. In all his dealings with the faery, it had always attacked the senses, weaving memories into horrific hallucinations, but he’d never been able to see the hallucinations of others. Yet this time, for a flash of a second when Rachel was trying to take the trident from Bradley, Nate could see the ropes slithering like snakes, wrapping her in their coils.

  Bradley turned around to stare at him. “Did you see snakes?”

  “Give me the trident, Bradley.”

  The agent pulled the silk bag off and gripped the weapon like a baseball bat. “Not a chance.”

  “No… for Josh…” Rachel choked out, the words deteriorating to a gurgle.

  It wasn’t going to end this way. Nate wouldn’t let it. He squeezed the trigger. The gun fired, the report echoing through the gymnasium.

  Bradley didn’t move.

  Nate fired again. He wasn’t that far away. He had to have hit his former boss.

  Bradley laughed. “This thing repels bullets? Amazing.”

  The grimoire’s incantation flashed through Nate’s mind. Illuminate and shield its wielder. That must be what the trident was doing. Showing what the wielder saw, shielding from threats, even bullets.

  Nate shoved the useless pistol into his waistband. He had to think of something else.

  He stepped toward Rachel. To his eye, she now seemed to be tangling herself in the ropes, twining them around her arms, her neck, choking herself. But when Bradley touched her while holding the trident, Nate had been able to see what she was going through, the ropes attacking like snakes. It was an image burned into his memory.

  He had to wonder if that image was burned into Bradley’s memory as well.

  Nate had no idea if the faery heard him or even cared, but it was worth a shot. “I thought the fay were supposed to be smart, able to sense things, know things that humans can’t. Yet you go after Rachel who has nothing to do with what was done to you. And the man who ordered it all? You let him just stand there untouched by the snakes.”

  “The snakes?” Bradley echoed.

  One of the ropes loosened from Rachel’s arm.

  Bradley took a step back. “What the hell are you doing, Wells?”

  “Agent Bradley wanted to sell you to the highest bidder. Yet you can’t sense that? Instead you go after a woman and child who never hurt you? Who never even knew you existed? Why don’t you use your snakes on Bradley. Order them to strike. To exact your vengeance.”

  The single rope uncoiled from Rachel and reached toward Bradley.

  The man dodged, striking out with the trident and missing. “Shut up, Wells.”

  The rope released Rachel’s neck, leaving her coughing and gasping. Unfurling to the floor, it coiled, then struck at Bradley like a cobra, catching his ankle, wrapping tight. The first rope followed, going for an arm.

  Bradley slashed at it, driving it back, the one around his ankle still preventing an escape.

  The rope slithered off Rachel’s legs, leaving her hanging by the last rope, about a foot above the floor, as if she was climbing the thing in gym class.

  Nate walked down the last few steps of bleachers and advanced on Bradley. “Give me the trident.”

  “Go to hell.” Bradley hit one of the rope ends, and it recoiled as if touching flame.

  “Throw it on the ground. Now.”

  The ropes swiped at Bradley again, the knot on one hitting him upside the head, spinning him to the side.

  Nate charged.

  He hit the middle of the big man’s body, driving into him like a linebacker, legs pumping, feet moving, shoes squeaking on the gym floor. He found the trident, grabbed hold, and plowed Bradley straight into the tangle of ropes.

  Like a nest of vipers, they struck, twining around him, wrapping him head-to-toe.

  “Help! The faery’s snakes! They’re killing me!”

  His screams grew muffled, and Nate turned to Rachel, brandishing his prize.

  She was…

  Moving backwards, twisting, fighting, as if being grabbed by a dozen hands that Nate couldn’t see, painful memories he could not know.

  “Find Josh.”

  “I can get you—”

 
; “Bradley already used it. What if it doesn’t have enough power left?”

  “We’ll have to take that chance.”

  “You promised me. Josh. No matter what.” Her head jerked back, as if an invisible hand had grabbed a fist full of hair and was now pulling her toward the door.

  Nate moved forward, the trident ready. He had promised to protect Josh, given his word both to Rachel and to Steven’s memory the night he’d failed him. But there was one thing Nate hadn’t counted on.

  He wanted to tell her he loved her, but this wasn’t the time. The best way to show her was to save Josh. “I’ll find him, Rachel.”

  She grasped the door jamb, holding fast against whatever it was that was trying to pull her from the room.

  “I’ll find him. And then I’ll find you.”

  “Nate? Mr. Welks? Is that you?” a small voice asked from beneath the bleachers. “You don’t need to find me. I’m right here.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Josh!” Rachel screamed his name. Holding tight to the door jamb with her left hand, she released her right and thrust it into her pocket, praying the last one was still there.

  Her fingers closed around the cold spike.

  “I have something for you, sweetie. Something you need to put in your pocket. Come on out.”

  He emerged from under one of the lower steps of the bleachers and rose to his feet.

  Her little boy.

  He was still wearing his favorite hoody. His hair was its usual tousled mess. And most of all, he was still smiling, as he did every day when he set out for school.

  Her eyes misted.

  She looked down at the nail, felt the weight in her fingers, and then tossed it to her beautiful son. “Keep it, honey. Keep it safe in your pocket.”

  Suddenly the hands were stronger, pulling her backward, wrapping around her throat.

  “Rachel,” Nate yelled. “You have the other one, don’t you?”

  She did her best to shake her head.

  “You have to have the other one. Without it…”

  Did he think she didn’t know?