Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3)

by Ketley Allison

  Falyn’s eyes grow small. “Then how about this, possum? Chase was once the most sought-after guy in school. Every guy wanted to be him. All girls wanted to do him. And he could choose whatever he wanted in life—who he fucked, where he went after graduation, what top ten company to work for or what billion-dollar start-up he wanted to create. He couldn’t afford to show weakness. He ruled this school through intimidation, control, and power. But now? He’s in a closed-off room somewhere, hyperventilating and looking weak, because of you. You ruined the most popular guy in school, merely by existing in his proximity. You’re poison, possum. No, you’re toxic waste, and it’s high time you realized it.”

  Her invisible knife slips through the spaces between my ribs. My heart doesn’t feel the blade at first—but it’s so sharp, so expertly cut, that once it does, the blood pours.

  Falyn dumps her champagne down my dress.

  I gasp, but not at the liquid soaking through the gauze and the fumes going up my nose. I’m gulping for breath because what she says is true.

  “Falyn!” Ivy cries.

  Falyn shoves her empty flute at Violet, who fumbles to keep it from falling to the ground. “You’re next, Princess. Better keep an eye on your position and make sure this rodent doesn’t nuke it like she did Piper and Chase.”

  Falyn flounces away, gesturing at her friends to follow.

  Willow, not to be excluded, also dumps her drink down my chest, and this time I gasp in surprise.

  Giggling, she departs on a wave, but Violet pauses and unties her cloak.

  “Here,” she says, “to help you dry off.”

  My response comes out as an accusation. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Because there was a time when I was you. And I wish I’d had someone to be kind to me in between all the cruelty.”

  “Then why do you stay?” I ask, while Ivy helps me wipe my chest with Violet’s heavy cloak.

  Violet’s voice goes quiet, almost impossible to hear over the surrounding music and voices. “You heard Falyn. There’s nowhere to go but up.”

  Falyn calls for Violet, a snappish, impatient sound. Violet drifts away, but I watch her departure with a sodden weight against my chest, unrelated to spilled champagne.

  “Falyn’s jealous she’s wasn’t chosen as the princess after Piper,” Ivy says, swooping in and blocking my view of Violet. “And she’s pissed she wasn’t chosen as the crew captain after Piper, then Addisyn.”

  I collect more folds of fabric, wiping at my arms. “That’s pretty misdirected rage, if Falyn’s taking it all out on me. No—this is something else. She can’t stand me and has hated me since the minute I walked into Briarcliff. It’s Violet I’m most concerned about. She doesn’t belong with them, does she?”

  Ivy pauses with her dabbing long enough to peer over her shoulder. “She’s too sweet for all this.”

  “Then why was she chosen?”

  “She’s beautiful and innocent. A lot of men would pay five figures for a night with a girl like that.”

  My hands freeze. My blood turns ice cold. “No,” I whisper.

  “It’s not going to happen. She graduates this year and will no longer be an option.”

  “That’s a relief,” I breathe out, my heart rate leveling. But I’ve always questioned the chances of luck. “If that’s why she was initiated, why hasn’t Sabine used her?”

  “Because I took her place.”

  And just like that, my heart crashes to the ground. I wrap my fingers around Ivy’s wrists, stalling her from her busy-work and forcing her gaze back up. “I’m not mad at you. Okay? I’m fucking terrified for you. We have to stop this.”

  Her answering smile is wane. Empty. “I meet the bill for pretty innocence, too.”

  I fold her into a hard, hard hug. If I could absorb her, I would. If I could steal her away from this room, this world, I’d do it.

  My chin digs into her hair, the wildflower wisps of it tickling my nose. Ivy wraps her arms around my waist, accepting the embrace, her chest heaving against mine. But no tears come.

  I’m sure she learned her tears were wasted a long time ago.

  A tug of warning prickles against my bare shoulders, and I lift my gaze. It doesn’t take long to locate the source of my unease.

  Sabine stands with Daniel at the front, toasting the room, everyone’s masks off and faces on display. But as Daniel’s warm tone embraces all the members, Sabine keeps her eyes on mine.

  She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t smile.

  All she does is stare as I hold Ivy close.

  Ivy and I manage to escape the Societal Ball without too much notice, after pretending to join in on the festivities and fake-drinking as much as the rest of them.

  When Cloaks started splitting off and coupling against the walls or passing out in corners, one look from me and Ivy was more than eager to follow me up the stairs and through the hidden door into the Wolf’s Den.

  Sabine didn’t stop us, but that’s not a win. She got what she wanted from me tonight, but I’ve learned it will never be enough.

  Ivy and I split up at Thorne House, Ivy assuring me that we’ll talk tomorrow after class. With the horrors of tonight under our belts, neither of us feel like more confessions for forgiveness by candlelight.

  My dorm room is silent when I close the door behind me, Emma’s light off and bedroom door shut. I don’t wake her for the same reasons I let Ivy go.

  We all need to rest.

  After stripping off my ruined dress, I kick it into the corner, hating the sight of it. I’m also happy to shower off the stench of tonight, and I wonder if I’ll ever acquire the same taste for champagne ever again.

  The pink flannel pajamas Lynda sent me never looked so good, and I slip inside them, hugging the comfort close to my chest. It’s with a pang of grief that I kiss the picture of my mom on my desk before switching off the lamp and tumbling into bed.

  But do I sleep?

  My tangled sheets and the pillow tossed across the room would tell you no. All I can think of is Chase. Every moment that passes has me wondering if he’s tasted the salt of his tears for the first time in years.

  I can’t do this. I can’t leave him.

  I fumble my light back on and shove on my boots and winter coat. A hat and mittens soon follow. I throw my door open, and—

  Run straight into Emma.

  My resulting scream loosens all the remaining tension from my chest. Emma stumbles away in shock but regains her composure enough to clamp a hand across my mouth.

  “Are you asking to bring Mr. Rent-A-Night-Cop to our door?”

  I shake my head under her firm grip. She releases me, and I gulp in a breath.

  “You scared me,” I say tonelessly.

  “Good. Stay scared. Because tonight is just the start of it.”

  I rub my eyes with my mittened hands. “I failed so bad, Emma.”

  “It wasn’t just you.” Emma places her hands on her plaid flannel hips. “It was goddamned Ivy and her inability to stay strong under pressure, and my cocky-ass brother who thinks he can take any punishment and survive, and fucking Eden for shrinking to the size of a mouse, instead of warning me, when Sabine burst through the library doors.” Emma pauses. “And me. For being a pathetic waste of lard who couldn’t bring her dreams of pummeling Sabine into a pulp to fruition as soon as she locked eyes with me. We’re all fucking losers.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Emma’s despondent speech sets my shoulders. “We underestimated her, but we haven’t lost, yet.”

  “That’s the problem. She keeps outsmarting me.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  Emma sighs as she takes in my outdoor gear. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not leaving him to—”

  “Relax. This is me supporting you. I don’t want my brother hyperventilating alone any more than you do. And you’re smaller than me, otherwise I’d go to him, too.”

  My brows crunch down. �
�What does my size have to do with it?”

  “You can’t go in the same way you left. Sabine’ll kill you. Chase is in the old tombs, right?”

  I nod, not bothering to ask her how she knew, since this is Emma, a former Stone and Virtuous princess. She knows things.

  “It neighbors their old chapel,” she continues. “A piece of the wall swings open just enough to fit you, if you shed your jacket. You can get in and out through there.”

  “A swinging wall?”

  “Chase and his crew sneak in there often to smoke up. James likes to take girls there to terrify them into screwing him.”

  I work like mad to memorize her instructions to a place I’ve never been before, shuffling them in with other morbid pieces I’ve had the bad fortune of collecting today. “Emma, Ivy showed me the bedroom.”

  Emma’s features go flat. “Go. You only have so much time before James sobers up enough to figure out that’s a route you might take. He’s fast becoming Sabine’s preferred righthand man, but nobody will leave the ball for a while yet.”

  “Thank you,” I say, though our conversation is far from over.

  “Use the key you swam under the docks for; it still works on a Virtue passageway at the academy. You remember the chemistry room?”

  “Yep.” My lips pop on the p, as I not so happily linger on the memories as to why I’m so familiar with it.

  “There’s a false door at the back. Find the row of textbooks published in the early 1900s Briarcliff likes to display as a sign of respect to the founders. The third spine has a tiny lock in the center. Slip your key in, turn, go down the stairs, and you should end up at the Nobles’ tomb. Push on the third skull from the ground, and that’ll lead you to where Chase is held.”

  “How am I supposed to gain access to the academy? After the chem lab was vandalized, Marron locked up tight.”

  Emma gives a sly smile. “Your Virtue key works on the side door, too.”

  She shoos me away, and I leave the dorm as fast and soundless as I possibly can.

  It’s with the help of my phone’s flashlight that I make it to the academy through all the snow, and I use my Virtue key to open the side door at the east wing.

  Puffing and shivering from cold, I scurry into the warmth of the silent halls, fly to the chem lab, reach the back where the line of books is, and—

  Halt at the many, many spines facing out on a shelf above chemistry supplies.

  I rip my hat off and toss it on the floor with a curse of frustration, but then think, fuck it. What do I have to lose by using my phone’s flashlight to find a tiny, tiny keyhole in one of them?

  Shockingly, I find it in the first two minutes, right when I’m about to text Emma if she remembers which book.

  Probably because Sabine planned for this moment.

  I don’t care. I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care.

  Chase is suffering, and he’s alone. I am not going to discard him. I won’t.

  When I push the false door open, I grab my hat and run through, wasting no time and following the secret stairs nestled between the school walls until I hit the bottom.

  It takes a few missteps and a lot of flashlight to navigate the pitch-black corridors. I don’t give up, and on the fourth try, I make it into what most resembles a neglected chapel—if a chapel decided on a skull-lined hearth as its centerpiece.

  “So fucked up,” I mutter as I peel off my jacket, but count the skulls and settle on the fourth one on the right.

  It works. A slim, vertical piece of the wall swings open, and I slip through until it flips shut behind me.

  I come to a stop in the honeycomb room I was in hours before, even though it seems like painful decades.

  I shed my mittens and sprint first to the pile of broken wood. I choose one, then rest it against the door on an angle. If someone is standing guard, hears me, and tries to come in, the panel will crash to the ground, creating a cloud of dust. I’ll be alerted and escape the way I came, ideally before I’m discovered.

  After setting the boobytrap, I race over to the lever I saw Daniel use. I twist and pull and use my entire bodyweight to bring the rusted spike down…

  And watch as the chains begin to clink. As they start to pull up the middle cage.

  As Chase is slowly revealed.

  23

  At first, all I see is an empty cage.

  The spaces between the bars are clear. There’s no sign of Chase.

  Did he escape?

  That’d be insane. And amazing.

  The pulleys keep whirring, but I’ve stopped searching the cage and debate running out of here, instead. What if this was all a trap? What if Chase was in on this the whole time and never expected to be punished?

  That would explain his guileless demeanor as he allowed his father to lock him in. His casual insults to his future stepmother, his fuck you attitude to the room, and his sweet, calming assurances that it’ll be all right, Callie.

  A groan snaps my attention back to center. I didn’t register the cage coming to a stop or the fading clink of chains.

  Something shifts near the bottom, a dark, hunched-over form.

  “I’m here.” I rush over, falling to my knees and clinging to the bars. “You’re not alone. I’m right next to you.”

  Another muffled sound comes from his collapsed form, a mix between a moan and a sigh. He shifts, his hands, originally wrapped around the back of his neck as he folded down, falling listless by his head.

  “Chase, it’s me,” I whisper. “Can you hear me?”

  His head lulls to the side. Half his profile comes into view, blotched, yet bloodless. His eyelashes flutter, as if coming back to consciousness. “C…Callie?”

  “Yes.” I pull myself flush against the bars, wishing I were boneless and could squeeze through. “I’m right here.”

  “You … you shouldn’t have come.”

  “I couldn’t leave you.”

  “T-trouble…”

  I glance up at each corner of the room. There are no blinking lights, no eerie black lens staring down. There may be a log of my mindless rush through the maze of corridors, but I doubt it. If the dust and decay is anything to go by, the original, hidden hallways and rooms of the academy haven’t been updated in a long time.

  I think of Sabine’s secret bedroom. It’s not just the Virtues who want to keep certain blueprints private.

  I reach through the bars as much as I can, stroking his back, tracing the curve of his ear. “Breathe,” I say. “Listen to my breaths. Follow them. In … and out.”

  Chase’s jaw spasms with the effort. “I c-can’t open my eyes.”

  “You can. It’s all open space here. Or keep your eyes closed and envision a field, or the peak of a mountain or—or a lake! You’re on the water, just you and your scull. Breathe.”

  Chase’s brows crash down. His chest seizes with forced, small inhales.

  I rip in two at the sight of him, this unflappable force of will who’ll gladly take punches to the jaw and withstand insidious insults by his father. This boy who will risk everything to avenge his sister and face his worst fear to protect … someone who doesn’t deserve it. Me.

  I keep my voice calm, my inhales and exhales measured and leveled. Slowly, with great effort, he starts mimicking my breathing.

  “Good,” I say. “You’re doing great.”

  “You need to … leave. Before…”

  “I’m not here to break you out.” I swallow, staring at the thick, metal padlock keeping him in.

  Chase follows my attention and gives a weak smile. “You’d sear that off with laser beam eyes if you could.”

  “Without a thought.” I give him a resolute stare, but it crumbles the longer I take him in.

  Chase trembles, pieces of hair stuck to his forehead with dried sweat. The snippets of voice I’m hearing from him sound raw and damaged.

  “I put you in here.” I can’t keep the pain from my voice.

  “No.” Chase’s throat mo
ves with a hard swallow as he struggles to sit up. It reminds me, and I crawl over to my discarded jacket and pull out a water bottle.

  His eyes spark with life, and he accepts the bottle and puts it to his lips, gulping greedily.

  “Gently,” I say, but scan his space between the bars. “Although, I’d piss all over this shit hole if I could, too.”

  Chase’s lips curve over the bottle, then he lowers it, wiping his mouth with his tuxedo’s sleeve. “This isn’t your fault.”

  I cock my head. “That’s sweet, coming from a boy trapped in a cage from the Medieval Times because of my botched plan.”

  “You think I would’ve avoided this if it weren’t for you?”

  I nod.

  “Not true, sweet possum. Tempest told you about my claustrophobia because I asked him to.”

  I stare at him.

  “There would come a time when Sabine or my father would force someone into a choice like this, pitting my sister and me against each other, and you against all of us.”

  “But…” I take in his sallow pallor, the red rimming his eyes, and the hoarseness surrounding his voice. “You are afraid of small spaces.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why…?”

  “Sabine asked if you knew our fears. Tell me, if you didn’t know mine, would you have chosen me? Or would you have gone with Emma, who fears being trapped in a fire, or Eden, who is terrified of exposing herself to the entire school? What do you think Sabine would’ve made them do?”

  “They’re not members,” I reason. “They wouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence. They’d suffer. Sabine wouldn’t tolerate any less.”

  “That woman,” I seethe. “The second you’re released, I’ll throw my fucking Virtues’ key in her eyeball.”

  “Callie.” Shadows creep along the terrible hollows in his face, making him appear skeletal. “I will come out of this unscathed.”

  I catch my lower lip between my teeth. “You’re suffering.”

  “Nothing I haven’t been doing since the ripe old age of nine. Now go, sweet possum. Before my father comes and checks on his deplorable son.”