Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Aidan looked down at me and reached out his hand. He hauled me to my feet, and the two of us stared at Sarah, still dumbfounded. While we gawked, she pulled a silver disc from her behind her back. She clasped it between her hands and closed her eyes. A second later, another, quite different-looking portal shimmered in the moonlight.

  “We have to go through together. I can’t hold portals across Earth open like the ones to Faerie—even with this.” She uncorked her fingers to show the disc gleaming in her palm. “The magic in this is good for only one shot at this.”

  She reached her hand back toward Aidan, jarring us back to reality. He interlaced his fingers with mine, then took Sarah’s hand. The three of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder before the magical doorway.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said softly, shock still coursing through me.

  She gave Aidan and me a serious look. “You too.”

  Then she marched us through the portal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Maddy

  After we left Gramps’s place, we bumped down the driveway, heading toward the main road. Behind us, lightning cracked across the sky and thunder boomed. Rain dumped onto the SUV.

  Rhys turned on the wipers. “What are your thoughts on what Gramps said?”

  “It was too rambling to make much sense of it.”

  “I think there are clues in what he said.” He lifted the chair leg he’d laid in his lap so he could drive. “For example, this thing. It’s a hunk of metal, and while it might make a decent weapon, a random stick would do as well. But I feel like I need to hold onto it.”

  “Gramps called it the Destroyer.”

  “I think…I don’t know. He could have been confused. It could just be a random chair leg from Wadsworth—or it could be something much more.”

  “I hope we figure it out soon.”

  We drove a ways without saying much, each of us lost in our thoughts. I stared out the window, trying to understand what Gramps might’ve meant when he’d said my ring was a channel. It didn’t make any sense.

  We hit the border between Maine and New Hampshire and soared over the bridge.

  My belly rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten much lately. I leaned forward to grab a muffin from the paper bag I’d tossed onto the floor. The car veered to the right, and I slammed my shoulder on the door.

  “Careful,” I said, following Rhys’s gaze to the rearview mirror. “Are we being followed?”

  “No...” He shook his head and blinked fast. “Something’s…”

  A horn blared behind us, and Rhys pressed down on the gas. He’d slowed to almost nothing. Bad idea on a highway.

  “Maddy!” Cece shrieked as she leaned forward from the back seat and grabbed my shoulders. “Oh my God, you’re okay!”

  Twisting in my seat, I took in Sarah sitting behind Rhys, her usual sullen look on her face.

  “Holy shit!” I yelled. “What the…? Where did you guys come from?”

  “You don’t know how happy I am to see you!” Cece cried. Our hands linked, and my eyes watered.

  Aidan’s gaze met mine from the seat behind me, and he chipped a nod in my direction. I couldn’t read his face, but that was nothing new. I had a feeling, though, that Cece had scratched her way below the surface.

  “Jeez, guys. Maybe next time give us a little warning that you’re going to pop into the back seat while I’m driving?” Rhys said.

  “We didn’t exactly have much control over it.” Cece tilted her head toward Sarah. “But we’re here. Glad to see you!” She squeezed my shoulders again. “Tell us what happened after you left the cabin.”

  I explained how we’d raced from the cabin and what had happened at Rhys’s parents’ place.

  Before I could get into Gramps, she flopped back in her seat and buckled. “We found out that Aidan’s parents sponsored the death room at Wadsworth. They needed the power to imprison a super-powerful, evil fey called Hagan who was a threat to their reign —possibly Faerie, too.” She cut Aidan a sideward glance while my mind rushed to keep up. “Yeah, broody boy over here is a prince of Faerie.” Her mock irritation fell as the ghost of a memory seemed to filter into her thoughts. “Anyway, the king and queen tried to kill us after they admitted everything. How they worked with the Council to keep Hagan trapped…how they used malum magic to fuel the whole operation...and how they sacrificed their youngest son to solidify the deal.” Her fingers intertwined with his, and she gave his hand a squeeze.

  “Holy shit! What happened after that?” I asked, my heart in my throat. “How did you get out?”

  “We killed the royals,” Sarah said matter of factly.

  “And Cece called a horde of dragons to take on the fey army,” Aidan said.

  My eyebrows had to be hitting my hairline. “You called dragons?”

  Cece blushed. “By accident, but yeah. I guess I kinda lead them or whatever now—oh shit! Where are they? I didn’t call them back to the painting before we bailed!” In a panic, she unrolled the canvas she’d been toting along since Wadsworth and stared down at the painting. She let out a huge sigh of relief.

  I peeked over to see not one, but countless dragons swirling around the castle in the background. “This is crazy…”

  “I know, right?” she said, rolling it back up. “It has something to do with the dragon pin that I found—or that found me.”

  “I’ve still got this thing, too,” Rhys said, lifting the chair leg. “My grandfather said it isn’t what it seems. He called it the Destroyer.”

  “That’s...not crazy,” Sarah said.

  Aidan’s hand extended between Rhys and me. “Can I take a look at it?”

  “I…” Rhys gulped as if he’d swallowed a frog whole. “Um...okay. Sure.” He laid one end in Aidan’s hand but didn’t release his death grip on the other. “You’ll have to look at it like this.”

  Aidan leaned forward and twisted the chair leg around, lifting and scrutinizing the end facing him. His breath caught, and his hand snapped back.

  “It’s…there’s ancient magic here. Fey magic. What exactly did your grandfather say? Don’t summarize; give me the exact wording.” He shifted back into his seat. His ragged breathing chugged against my neck through the gap between the head rest and my seat.

  “He said a bunch of things, but none of it made much sense. That I’m the final guardian. That only I can unlock everything.”

  “And this relates to the chair leg?” Aidan asked, his tone grim.

  “I don’t know. He was elusive, just saying that I needed to hold onto it, and as we left, he called out—”

  “That the leg is not what it seems,” I said. “That it’s the Destroyer.”

  “Interesting,” Sarah said. “I’ve only heard the Destroyer mentioned once, and it sure as hell isn’t a metal chair leg. It’s an ancient weapon that’s been lost for generations.”

  “He might just be confused,” Rhys said, but a thread of unease came through in his voice.

  “When we stop,” Sarah said, “can I look at it?”

  “Sure.” Rhys got off the highway and drove down a bunch of smaller two-lane roads, taking us deeper into New Hampshire and closer to Wadsworth, though I knew we weren’t going there. Yet .

  He pulled up to a stop sign and turned right, ducking into a convenience store parking lot. After pulling into a spot at the end furthest from the store, he put the vehicle in park, leaving the engine running, and dropped his shaky hand onto his lap. He lifted the chair leg with both hands and turned it around, examining it from all angles. “This thing...” He shook his head. “It’s obviously related to all of this, but I don’t know how.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” I pried one of Rhys’s hands off the chair leg and squeezed it. Light hit my ring, sending blue arcs through the car, reminding me. “Rhys’s grandfather also talked about this ring. And me. He said I’m one of ‘them’, whatever that means.”

  “A sentinel?” Aidan asked. “Do you think that’s what he
meant?”

  Sarah’s body jerked. “She’s a sentinel? Why didn’t you tell me?” The question was directed at Aidan, but I assumed all of us were included.

  “Why would we?” I asked. “It’s none of your business.”

  “But it is, because—”

  “That’s not all Gramps said,” I interrupted. My gaze met my sister’s. “He said the ring serves a purpose. He said it’s a channel to use them, whoever ‘they’ are.”

  “While all this sort-of-information is hopeful, do you really think we should give any credence to rambling comments from Rhys’s grandfather?” Sarah asked dryly.

  “He gave us clues.”

  “So put them together and fix this,” Sarah said. “We need to rescue the doggo and make sure that building never hurts anyone again.”

  “We can’t fix it yet,” I snarled, raking my fingers through my hair, “but we will.”

  “Yup,” Rhys said. “Cece, Maddy, and I all picked up items during our bizarre jaunt through Wadsworth. They have to tie together somehow. They’re the keys to...I don’t know, fixing this, as Sarah says.”

  “The thing I don’t understand is, why would the building give them to us if we could use them against it?” I asked.

  Cece grunted. “That’s what we need to discover.” Her fingers traced across the dragon on her pin, and I swore the stone winked. So many mysteries yet to be solved.

  Lightning cracked overhead, making me jump. The flash of light was followed by a torrential downpour, as if nature were determined to wash away every sin committed since Adam and Eve.

  “It’s getting late. We need to find someplace to spend the night,” Aidan said. “Then we can figure out what we need to do.

  I wasn’t sure we’d ever know what we needed to do. We might just need to wing it, like we’d done every other time we’d taken on Wadsworth.

  “Anyone have cash?” Cece asked.

  I remembered Rhys’s mom saying she’d put some money in the glove compartment. I flipped it open and pawed around inside the tiny space, shoving aside the registration and owner’s manual. Underneath the thick, vinyl-covered book, I found a simple white business envelope. Pulling it out, I slid my fingernail along the top to break the seal.

  “Good news, guys,” I said, staring at the contents. “Somebody robbed a bank.”

  “Mom comes through every time,” Rhys said, flopping back against his seat. He buckled up again and started backing out of the space. “I know a place one town over from Wadsworth that takes cash and doesn’t ask questions.”

  Sarah’s lips thinned. “Sounds lovely. If we’re lucky, we’ll get bed bugs.” She shuddered.

  If she felt that way, we could drop her off, as far as I was concerned. She could do whatever she wanted after that.

  “Sarah’s part of the solution, too,” Cece said, as if she’d read my mind.

  Rhys drove farther, sticking to back roads as rain continued to slap the vehicle. It got darker, though it was sort of hard to tell with the storm. Eventually, he pulled into a parking lot with a squat row of quaint little buildings. A big, faded sign showing a little girl with curly hair sitting at a table with three brownish blobs surrounding her blinked on and off; half the interior light bulbs were burned out.

  “‘Three Little Bears Adventure Motel’?” Sarah said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s a theme hotel,” Rhys said, parking in front of a white building with a crooked sign by the door stating Office . “Or it was. It was sold about ten years ago, and the theme stuff has kind of fallen apart. Rumor has it the new owners deal most often with hourly rentals.”

  Sarah grumbled and ground her back into her seat, her arms linking across her chest.

  “I’ll go in and get a couple of rooms,” Aidan said.

  “I want my own,” Sarah said. “I’m not sharing a bed, and I can’t sleep if someone is snoring.”

  My eyebrows lifted and I sighed.

  Aidan wasn’t gone for long. He tugged Cece out of the back seat and handed me a key. “I’ll let you decide if you’re sharing with Sarah or Rhys.”

  “Rhys,” I said, my eyes meeting his. He nodded.

  Aidan tossed a key to Sarah. “Guess you get to snore by yourself, then, Sleeping Beauty.”

  She huffed and got out of the car.

  I squinted at the plastic tag attached to the key. Two Dwarves , it said in chipped, scrolling writing. I guessed seven dwarves in one room would be too much.

  We trooped along the walkway in front of the connected, single-story buildings, gaping at the fantasy false fronts on each room. Cece and Aidan entered a room with a sign dangling over the door: House of Charming. Just beyond, Rhys and I stopped at Two Dwarves .

  Sarah continued, leaving us without a word.

  “You’re sure you want to share?” Rhys asked.

  “I am.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair, then stuffed the key into the lock. Swinging the door open, he waved for me to go inside.

  Quaint. And worn. But cute, too. A big bed frame made of polished fence posts held a squishy-looking mattress covered with a patchwork quilt. A matching fence-post framed desk, chair, and coffee table completed the furniture. The faded mural on the wall showed Snow White sitting at a bountiful table with all the dwarves, not just the two designated for this room.

  I bumped the door shut with my butt, locked it, then crossed the room to sit on the bed.

  Rhys, standing near the door, flexed his hand. “I imagine there are complimentary toiletries in the bathroom. Toothbrush, plus those little bottles of shampoo and a mini-soap.”

  “And we can raid the back of the SUV. Your mom mentioned provisions.”

  “Good idea.” He dropped the bag with our clothing on the low, fence-post framed table. “You can have the bathroom first if you want. I’ll run out to the car and see what’s there.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I ducked into the tiny room and shut the door.

  ***

  Early the next morning, I woke to Rhys spooning me. He stroked my hair and nudged it to the side, kissing the back of my neck. Softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb me.

  I savored his warmth and the momentary feeling of safety, knowing it wouldn’t last.

  I must’ve drifted off again, because I woke to the shower running. Rhys emerged from the bathroom dressed, steam swirling behind him.

  “Morning,” I said, feeling shy, though I had no reason to feel uncomfortable. We’d slept. He’d kissed the back of my neck.

  “Morning.” Leaning over me, he gave me a quick kiss.

  After showering, I met him in the room. “I’ll go see if Cece and Aidan are ready,” I said.

  “I’ll bang on Sarah’s door.” His gaze lingered on me as I walked toward Cece’s room.

  I knocked. When no one answered, I hit the door harder. “Cece? You awake? We need to get going.”

  Nothing.

  I wasn’t sure why I tried the knob. They’d have locked the door, right? But when I turned it, the door swung open.

  The bed looked rumpled. Silence ruled in the room and the bathroom, which I rushed to check next.

  My pulse shot into overdrive, and I swallowed the lump of panic lodged in my throat. “Cece?”

  There was no reply.

  My sister was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Cece

  I shot awake in bed to find the bright blue glow on the clock telling me it was six a.m.

  Breathing hard, I tried to sneak out of the bed without waking Aidan. I needed a minute alone, the stress of everything that had happened pressing down on my chest. I’d barely made it out from under the comforter before his arm snapped out and looped around my waist.

  “Where are you going, little witch?”

  “I need some air.”

  He let me go and launched out of the bed. “I’ll go with you.”

  Knowing that an argument would be futile at best—and that wandering off on my own wasn’t
the smartest idea ever—I nodded as I headed for the door. In silence, we walked through the parking lot to a little concrete retaining wall at the back. I hopped up on the moss-covered ledge and took a deep breath as he settled in beside me.

  “So…” I dared a glance out of the corner of my eye to find him staring at me intently. My cheeks flushed under the intensity of his gaze. “Do you want to talk about everything that happened?”

  “No,” he replied, “but you apparently need to, if my skeletons woke you up this early.”

  “In fairness, I think hunger woke me up more than anything. I feel like I haven’t eaten for years.”

  “Traversing worlds takes a lot out of you.” A tiny smile tugged at his lips, and my heart fluttered. That smile coming from him meant everything, especially after all we’d been through. What he’d nearly sacrificed to keep me safe—to keep me alive. “I’ll bet summoning dragons does, too.”

  “I still don’t know what the deal is with that,” I muttered under my breath.

  Aidan reached across to brush the pin on my chest. “Yes, you do,” he said softly, his breath rustling the wisps of hair on my face. “There has to be something inside of you—something that’s always been there. Something this pin helped you tap into. I mean, your sister is a dragon shifter, and your empath abilities let you reach her beast. That can’t be coincidence.”

  “Especially considering that she’s the only dragon on our side of the veil, at least until recently,” I said, waving the rolled-up portrait in my hand.

  “It could probably clarify some of those enigmatic messages the original dragon in the painting gave you.”

  “Maybe. It’s just really strange to suddenly have this power I never did before—something that makes me special, like Maddy.”

  The back of his hand trailed down the side of my face. “You’ve always had something that makes you special.”

  My cheeks flushed hotter.

  “Like my crazy-colored hair?”