Smoke and Mist (The Academy Book 1)

by Kate Hall

  He drops his book and runs to the stairs, but he stumbles when another cut streaks through. There should be an upside-down star when he looks at his upper arm, but there’s no blood coming through his button-up shirt. He sucks in a ragged breath and gets up as many stairs as he can, bracing himself for more pain.

  When he reaches the front door, he has to hold the handle tight as something else is carving over his collar, the invisible knife scraping into the bone. His blood is cold with fear, but he keeps going the moment he can stand it.

  When the cold air hits him, so does a single sharp image—a wall with a stag atop.

  He runs to the front gate, a shout ripping through him as another slice goes into his left arm, and the front gate is in sight when he feels the fifth motion on his left wrist.

  I’m coming, he tells Cynthia. It’s going to be okay.

  Thank you for not letting me be alone, she replies. By the time he gets to the gate, he can no longer feel her. The sky has gone from grey to pale gold, and the light shines on the slick blood that now adorns the pavement.

  Cynthia is worse than he could have imagined. She’s tied to the gate by gleaming silver chains that bite into her too-pale skin. A figure leans toward her, obscured by swirling black shadow. The person turns to look at Alex, so he twists to throw what little flame he can at her, but she disappears in a dark cloud of smoke before the meager fire hits her.

  He runs over to Cynthia, lifting her head. His eyes are drawn to a series of symbols that have been drawn across her body, spanning from her right arm to the end of her left.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says, this time out loud, a whisper. His eyes blur with tears as his hands melt the chains so that he can bring her down. The crippling pain that consumed him moments ago is already fading, like the ache of a once-broken bone. Her eyes are distant, her body cold and unmoving. Still, he holds her close until sirens assault his senses and someone pulls her away from him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sarah

  DESPITE THE FIREPLACE RUNNING, SARAH wakes up to a frigid morning, and the hot water isn’t working during her shower. Mark shivers under his tweed jacket when they pull out of the driveway, so he suggests picking up a hot breakfast before school. Sarah doesn’t object, assuming they’d just pick up fast food before jumping on the interstate.

  Instead, they end up downtown, the car crawling through early-morning traffic while they eat bagels from Mark’s favorite coffee shop.

  “Why did you guys take me?” Sarah asks, watching men in black and gray and navy suits rush along the sidewalks to enter different glass-and-steel buildings.

  Mark looks away, she thinks to avoid the question, but then she realizes that he’s just trying to merge into the left lane. After his move is successful, he answers, “When Elizabeth found out about your parents, she wanted to vie for custody.”

  Sarah is stunned at this information. Her hands freeze, her bagel halfway back to her lips. Her parents were never close with their extended family, and Uncle John had rarely spoken about his daughter and her husband, so finding out that they knew anything about her before she moved in with them is a shock. She looks at Mark and studies his face, searching for something in it.

  “We weren’t in a situation where we could take care of a kid, though. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and we weren’t even married yet. I thought you’d be better off with John, so we held off.” He makes a left by an out-of-place cathedral before continuing, “Then, last month, John had a stroke, and we have a house now. Not a great house, but a house. I can’t have biological children, so I guess it sort of worked out.” His eyes widen when he says that. “Not that I’m glad about John getting sick. It’s just—“

  Sarah interrupts him before he can ramble too much. “No, I get it. And yeah, John is a huge dick. Anytime he mentioned you guys, he was a huge transphobe about everything.”

  Mark seems stuck in a shocked silence. “So I guess you know about that, too.”

  Sarah shrugs, letting her eyes fall back to the sidewalk. Since they’re talking about family, she wants to mention last weekend. She’s almost certain that she’ll get grounded for sneaking out of the house, but she needs to tell someone about the woman she keeps seeing. Maybe Mark and Elizabeth will find her a good therapist. Or even a mid-range one.

  When they come to a stoplight, Sarah is caught by a tangle of red hair atop a woman in all black. She’s facing away from the Pontiac, waiting to cross the street.

  Sarah keeps her eyes on the woman, and when the light turns green, she waits for the car to get far enough past to see her face.

  Sarah has to crane her neck around as they pass, and she’s only able to get a short glimpse. However, she instantly recognizes the square jawline that runs on her father’s side of the family, and her nose, like Sarah’s, is slightly too large for her face. There are no bloody hands, no black eyes.

  “Stop the car,” Sarah says, but the sound isn’t much more than a whisper as her blood runs cold. She says it again, louder. She looks at Mark, and she can feel her throat bubbling with emotion.

  “Why?” he asks, his neck turned to try to see whatever she’s looking at. He has to slam on the brake to avoid hitting the car in front of them, and she takes that opportunity to leap out, narrowly avoiding a silver Mercedes in the right lane. “Sarah!” Mark yells, but she’s sprinting to the sidewalk. Although Sarah is tall, she can’t see past the crowd of business people. In her desperation, she trips over the curb, and someone’s heel crushes her hand, either because they don’t see her, or because they don’t care.

  Someone lays on their car horn as she shoves her way along the now crowded sidewalk, caressing her hurt hand to her chest. She takes a good look at every stranger’s face before continuing on. Mark is still calling to her, but she ignores it. “Have you seen a redheaded woman?” she asks a few of the suits, but nobody answers besides a puzzled stare.

  The woman had been so close, but Sarah can’t find her. Her fingers are going numb with the morning air, and the wind tears into her, a shudder making its way down her body. She moves over to the edge of the sidewalk, right at the corner. If she can get higher, she can see where the woman went.

  Just as she grabs the wide pole that holds up a stoplight, a hand wraps around her upper arm. She twists around, ready to defend herself against an attacker, or perhaps demand an explanation from the woman she’s searching for, but Mark is standing there, his eyebrows bunched together, his breathing labored.

  “What are you doing?” he demands. It takes a moment for him to realize that he’s got a tight grip on Sarah’s arm, and he releases her as though she’s on fire. Her throat tightens. She looks around the street, which is suddenly close to empty, only a few people walking down the sidewalks—a woman in a pencil skirt and navy blouse, a gay couple with a stroller rushing toward a Starbucks, and a man in an ill-fitting black suit yelling at someone over the phone.

  She continues to search for the woman, but the only redhead she can see is Mark. She opens her mouth, looks around, then closes it again.

  “Sarah, what’s going on?” Mark asks, his tone shakey. He wraps one arm around his torso as the cold air embraces them, and he looks around to find whatever she’s searching for. A siren sounds somewhere in the distance. “I’m sorry I grabbed you. Can we please get back in the car?”

  A lump forms in her throat, and she lets out a breath to deflate. Mark’s car is parked in front of a fire hydrant, one tire propped up on the curb—she’s almost surprised he didn’t hit any of the people who had been crowding the sidewalk just moments ago. She’d been in such a rush to find the woman that she hadn’t even shut the door. She looks down, and the pavement at her feet is speckled with teardrops.

  “I saw...” She pauses, unsure if she should say anything. The woman has been missing for seven years, but Sarah knows that she didn’t imagine it. She has to take a moment to breathe so that she doesn’t choke on her own words. Finally, she says, “M
y aunt Helen was here. But she disappeared the same night as our accident. Everyone said she was dead.”

  THE ENTIRE WAY TO SCHOOL, MARK IS ON THE phone with the police. If he didn’t have to work, she’s certain he would have turned around and driven her straight home, but he pulls into the parking lot at seven-thirty. A police officer waves them away from the main road that goes into the school, so they have to enter the parking lot through the side gate by the dorms. Instead of walking around the front of the building by herself once they’re parked, Sarah huddles close to Mark through the employee entrance and then weaves back to the front to tell Gabby what she’d seen.

  Gabby is waiting just inside the front entrance, her knuckles white as she grips her backpack straps. She’s wearing a long black peacoat, the collar up to block out the wind that comes in every time the doors open. Sarah gets her attention from the side hallway where they first met.

  “You’re late,” Gabby says, her voice coming out with a rush of relief. “I thought you’d been murdered.”

  Sarah barks out a laugh, but the sound is a bit off. Her heart is still racing from seeing Helen, and she finds herself looking down a corridor, waiting for her aunt to appear in the throng of the morning rush. There’s nothing except students milling around as they avoid going to class. About half of them are wearing layers over the school uniform, scarves around their necks or jackets on their shoulders to keep the abnormally cold early September weather at bay.

  “No, really,” Gabby insists, not humored. She moves closer, and her amber eyes penetrate Sarah’s. “Didn’t you hear? A body was found near here this morning.”

  Sarah stops in her tracks. It takes her a moment to comprehend what she means. Death isn’t uncommon in St. Louis, but there’s something about the way Gabby said it that makes Sarah’s shoulders tense and her throat dry. The combination of the out-of-season cold, seeing Helen, and now a body renders her unable to move. A shiver runs down her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. There had been a police officer blocking the front entrance.

  “A body?” she asks, her voice hushed, and her ears begin to catch hints of the conversation around them. It’s only now that she realizes that it’s too quiet here. Normally, the halls are a cacophony of sound, her senses bombarded with voices. Today is a stark contrast; everyone is whispering, their eyes darting around as they discuss the body.

  Gabby lowers her voice, sensing Sarah’s apprehension. “Alex Locklear found a girl hanging on the gate. A St. Merlin’s student.”

  Sarah’s vision goes spotty, her head spinning, and she grabs at Gabby, but she’s too far away. The fall seems eternal before Sarah crashes to the ground.

  Her ears are ringing, and Gabby’s voice seems far away when she says, “Oh my god!” Her voice rises in pitch as she continues. “Sarah, are you okay?” Sarah has to blink a few times to see Gabby leaning over her, hands fluttering like she doesn’t know what to do.

  Sarah tries to speak, but her mouth is dry and doesn’t want to move right. She slowly sits up, trying to ignore the twenty or more pairs of eyes watching her, the conversation now at a complete halt. When she’s taken a few steady breaths, she mumbles, “I don’t think I’ve ever fainted before.”

  Gabby helps her stand, and Sarah has to lean on her friend to make sure she’s not going to fall again. Her head is spinning, and lights gently dot her vision. She waits for the nausea to pass before letting go.

  “Sorry,” she breathes.

  Instead of speaking, Gabby runs her hands over Sarah’s hair, smoothing it down from the fall. When she’s done, she says, “We’d better go.” Sarah expects her to spin on her heal and leave her behind, but she takes Sarah by her still slightly sore hand and pulls her past the gawking freshmen and across the courtyard. Instead of going to Literature class, they spend the hour in Mark’s office so that Sarah can breathe and explain her experience seeing Helen this morning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gabby

  GABBY DOESN’T SHOW IT, BUT SHE IS PANICKING hard by the time the school holds an assembly rather than second-hour classes. Rumors have spread throughout the school in that short time, and nobody, not even the teachers, seem to know whether the murder was real or not. It’s as if the whole place is under some sort of spell—it just isn’t real if the adults don’t acknowledge it.

  Students are crammed like cattle into the auditorium, and Gabby is separated from Sarah before they make it in. She sends Sarah a text to let her know that she’ll meet her afterwards if possible. The crowd pushes in, and she gulps in deep breaths. She can get through this. It will be fine.

  It takes a few minutes for everyone to take their seats, and the dean takes a spot at the podium for his speech. By then, anxiety and fear and, from a few students, boredom, are all vying for attention in Gabby’s head. She tries to shove them out, but the more she tries, the more they filter through.

  A squat man with a receding hairline and bushy eyebrows walks on stage, his usually pristine suit ruffled like feathers. Gabby has only ever seen Dean McKinley at official school hosted events, like the benefactor dinner her parents made her attend before the start of this semester. “I’m sure you have all heard the rumors,” he says, his voice reverberating throughout the auditorium without even needing a microphone. “It is with a troubled heart that I confirm that Cynthia Rowell was murdered on campus this morning.” His voice shakes as he says this last part. Dean McKinley has never sounded unsure of himself, but right now, while Gabby focuses on his voice, she feels her heart stop and a lump form in her throat. He’s terrified, and now, so is she.

  Every voice in the auditorium goes up at once, and Gabby covers her ears and duck down to get them out. It doesn’t work. Anguish, fear, and nervous energy all flood through her, and it takes all of her self control to not claw at her skull and pull her hair out.

  When the Dean tries to speak again, everyone goes silent. Everyone wants to know exactly what happened, although he doesn’t go into any detail. Gabby is already nauseous enough, so this is a small mercy. “The family has been notified, and we will be working with the police to ensure the safety of every student here, but—“

  A shout in the front row interrupts him. Gabby shakily sits up to see the commotion; Hannah Murphy is standing up. “This is your fault! You knew it was happening! You could have stopped it! She wouldn’t be dead if you weren’t such a coward!” The boy behind her is Alex Locklear. She throws something at him—a spiral-bound notebook. He doesn’t flinch, but he closes his eyes for a moment when it hits him. His face is stoic, his eyes planted on the stage while he’s being screamed at. When Gabby is finally able to focus on him, pain crashes through her, crippling her. She wants to scream, to apologize, to run away.

  Alex doesn’t defend himself—he lets Hannah take her anger out on him. He just sits there, his face a statue, the perfect essence of calm.

  Gabby’s ears ring, and all the voices around her fade while Hannah gets dragged out of the auditorium by the counselor.

  You’re just as afraid as anyone else! Gabby wants to shout at the counselor as he tells Hannah that she needs to calm down. Liars! You’re all liars! Instead, she stays quiet like everyone else. She has no idea how Alex isn’t shattering in front of everyone, though.

  The dean goes on for another thirty minutes about school safety, new rules, and mentions that St. Merlin’s will be bringing in a team of psychologists that anyone can speak with about this incident. He doesn’t say her name again, but Gabby is picturing that morning in the breakfast atrium, the one where Cynthia was pining for Vince Palmer. She’d been sad. Desperately sad, but resigned. Gabby had assumed it had to do with Vince, but now, she isn’t so sure.

  Cynthia was a psychic. Had she known she was going to die?

  INSTEAD OF GOING BACK TO CLASS, GABBY AND Sarah hide out in Mark’s office after the assembly. Since the teachers’ offices are far from the noise and bustle of classes and students, Gabby uses the opportunity to lie down on the
couch, and Sarah sits in Mark’s office chair. Instead of talking about anything going on, they sit in comfortable silence. After a few minutes, Sarah’s breathing gets slow and heavy; somehow, she was able to fall asleep in the cramped chair.

  Gabby wonders if her parents will even notice the disturbance. They’re too busy fawning over Jasmine, who’s about to get a law degree from Yale, and worrying over Rudy, who’s in a mental health facility in Chicago since he had a breakdown in college that ended with getting found and returned by Toronto police after a week-long disappearance. It isn’t hard for Gabby to see why they ignore her. The moment she came out to them, told them she was in love with her best friend, something shifted in their emotions. Instead of getting angry, they just gave up. There was more important stuff for them to focus on.

  She wonders if they might have noticed if she had been the one to get murdered on the front gate. The thought of nobody showing up to her assembly, her funeral, makes her nauseous.

  She’s starting to spiral, so she scrolls through Instagram, the monotony of her feed helping to slow her heart rate. She mostly follows National Park rangers and full-time travelers, the hipsters who live out of vans and take photos over cliffsides or in front of mountains. If she doesn’t think about anything stressful for long enough, then maybe she will melt back into the ground. She offhandedly thinks that she would be a much better tree than she does a human. She’d want to be one of those giant trees in a west-coast forest, untouchable by man or nature. Trees don’t have much to worry about, and they’re a great deal more important than her.

  She double taps on the post of a park ranger in Calaveras Big Trees State Park—the girl is reading a book at the base of a sequoia with a bigger radius than the length of Gabby’s massive car.

  Maybe she’ll move there when she graduates. There’s sure to be a college around there that will let her become a park ranger. Mom says that’s a waste of the expensive St. Merlin’s education, but Gabby didn’t want to go to a private school in the first place. Mom was too busy caring about her siblings to push it.