Grimmstead Academy: A Villainous Introduction

by Candace Wondrak

  Midway down the hall, someone appeared before me, his figure illuminated by lightning. I skidded to a halt, my heart wild in my chest. Was it Bram? No, I could tell by the way he walked—or maybe more like glided—he wasn’t Bram. He was someone else, and it called to mind one of the first strange occurrences here, when I’d seen someone walking into a wall.

  Thin shoulders dressed in black, a head I couldn’t really see that well due to the darkness. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was on wheelies as he rolled away from me. I couldn’t see his legs moving, though I could hardly see anything at this point. When another bolt of lightning lit the sky outside, I would’ve sworn I saw no face at all as he turned onto the stairwell, heading down—same direction as me.

  Was he leading me?

  I almost hesitated to go after him, but I supposed in the end I had no choice. The moment I reached the stairs, I stumbled to a halt. Though I could’ve sworn I’d seen him go down the stairs, he was gone. Nothing but blackness ahead of me, no other person in sight.

  My stomach was in knots now, not liking the strange direction this day was taking. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but this place…this place almost made me a believer.

  My feet took me down the stairs to the ground floor level, and I immediately turned to go to Lucien’s office. I heard not a single sound except the storm raging outside. This place was a maze in the darkness; if Lucien wasn’t in his office, where the heck would he be? And Payne…

  No bad thoughts. I wouldn’t let the negativity and the what-ifs take over.

  As I neared his office, I saw the door sat wide open. And, what was even stranger, an orange light emanated from it. And orange light and…heat?

  Stomach hardening, my feet drew me into his office—and then, suddenly and strangely, I was transported somewhere else. It was like I walked out of one of Grimmstead’s halls and into a memory.

  The room that sat around me was no longer Lucien’s office. It was a different office, meticulously clean. Nothing was out of place, not even a single paper. A smaller desk, modern in its design, along with a huge floor-to-ceiling window directly behind it. The dean’s office at my old college.

  I blinked, and then, quite literally in the blink of an eye, the office was on fire. My dean’s office, burning up. The books on the few bookcases caught fire easily, and I stood there, watching, feeling a sense of deja vu.

  Oh, yeah, I’d seen this before.

  I’d set the fire, which was the reason I got expelled.

  Why did I do it? At this point, I still didn’t know. The simple answer was: because I wanted to. Because I felt like it. Because I took issue with how the college was run and what it spent its money on—tuition prices were sky-high, but for what? To build a new sports stadium? How stupid.

  I did it because I could, because I liked fire. Because fire was the most beautiful, destructive thing out there.

  The world around me shifted, throwing me off-balance. I had to close my eyes to gather myself, and when I opened them, I found that I now stood in Lucien’s office…which was also on fire.

  Mostly his desk.

  A big, beautiful flame sat on his desk, burning anything that lay atop it, along with the mahogany wood underneath. I found myself inching closer, my need to be nearer to it not something I could fight. I swore, if there was one thing I’d let myself die from, it was fire. I didn’t want to die, of course, but when the flames looked so entrancing, how could I deny the power it held over me?

  I loved fire. I thought about it a lot. I set a lot of fires, too. The one I’d set in the dean’s office was just the most recent. There were others…worse ones, too. Ones that could not simply boil down to property damage.

  I’d closed the distance between me and the desk within a matter of moments, my eyes enraptured by the fire. I saw nothing else. The walls could be bleeding maroon, and I wouldn’t have noticed. The only thing I saw was the fire.

  God, I wanted to feel it. I wanted to touch it. I wanted that fire inside my soul.

  Before I knew what I was doing, before I could reason with myself that touching fire would only burn, I extended a hand to the flames. Almost immediately, my nerves yelled at me, and I winced and I pulled my hand back.

  Only for a few seconds. My hand had touched the fire for only a few seconds before the pain had become too much. If only I didn’t feel pain…

  I glanced down at my hand, cradling it against my wet dress. With the light from the fire, I saw that my palm was already red, the skin singed and bubbly. It throbbed with a steady pain, and I closed my eyes, willing the pain to go away.

  Now was not the time to lose myself. I had to find Lucien, had to find Payne, before Bram did.

  Slowly I opened my eyes, realizing that I no longer felt the heat from the fire. It was just gone, as if the fire had never been on the desk to begin with—although my aching, pained hand would say otherwise.

  And then I saw that I wasn’t alone in the office. Someone sat in the chair across from me. The room was dark, nothing but grey sky and pounding rain on the windows behind the leather chair, but I knew. I knew even before that flash of lightning who it was that sat in the chair, and I knew before I saw the blood staining his clothes that he was dead.

  Chapter Seventeen – Lucien

  I sat in the red velvet chair, my pants undone just enough for my cock to be free. She was on my lap, riding me, moving her body so that my length slid in and out of her. Her body took mine easily, her entire form naked and spectacular. She was, quite honestly, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  She was my weakness. As much as a lie could have a weakness, she was mine.

  And I was a lie. I wasn’t myself. I was…lost. Eternally lost.

  Her body didn’t feel warm this time. This time she felt as she usually did: room temperature. It called to mind that one time, when she’d walked around the chair, looking so pure. So good and beautiful.

  Felice didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong here with us in this crazy place.

  Why did she have to be real?

  The Felice-who-was-not-Felice picked up her pace, riding me until I came. Searing hot pleasure shot through every nerve in my body as my hands tightened on her sides. A groan escaped me, thunderous like the sounds outside. I came inside of her, but instead of letting her go, instead of releasing her right away, I held her close.

  “You’re not warm this time,” I whispered, sounding quite sad.

  Felice practically hummed in my ear, “You’re only warm if you’re real.”

  I said nothing, though my hold on her hips did loosen. My cock was still inside of her, still semi-erect, but those words gave me pause. You were only warm if you were real. Was she saying—

  The girl on my lap let her lips curl into a smirk, and then, just like that, she vanished from sight, leaving me to wonder just what she’d meant.

  Surely she didn’t mean…

  The ground below me shook, and I immediately got up and put myself away. An earthquake in this place was never good, and I didn’t mean because of the age of the building. The ground shook because something was happening. Grimmstead didn’t have earthquakes.

  I exited the room and locked it, tossing a quick look around. I was alone, alone with my racing thoughts as I walked to my office.

  You were only warm if you were real. Did that mean that night had been the real Felice? I couldn’t even say why I’d woken up in the middle of the night and needed to see her. It was almost like something took hold of my capacities and made me go to the room.

  But, no. The room was locked when I arrived, and I had the key. The only key. There was no possible way that I’d fucked the real Felice that night.

  No. No fucking way.

  The earth shook again the moment I entered my office—and this one was worse. This one I had to grip the doorframe to keep myself steady. This one was so strong it could knock you down if you weren’t careful. I’d thought, until now, I was always careful. I thought I knew
what this place could do…

  Now I was coming to realize that I’d been so very wrong.

  The electricity cut out, and it was only when I was sure the ground would not move again on me that I stumbled away from the door, moving around my desk and practically throwing myself in the chair.

  No.

  No, it couldn’t have been the real Felice.

  I dug the old iron key out of my pocket, staring at it in my hand. Lightning and thunder hissed outside, lighting up the room temporarily. The key felt heavy in my hand, too cold, as if even the key itself was trying to tell me the truth.

  The truth? The truth that I’d slept with Felice and hadn’t even known it? Damn it. Did she? Did she know, or did this house make it seem like some kind of dream to her?

  I heard heavy footsteps in the hall, and I hurriedly put away the key in its rightful spot, no longer liking how weighted it was. I needed to talk to Felice, to gage where she was at. I needed to speak to her to find out what she thought about it. God, I never wanted to cross that line with her, never thought I’d…

  Never thought I’d be so stupid to believe it. To hope that maybe she could love me, flaws and all.

  Koda walked in the room, looking a bit out of sorts. Water dripped from his frame as he came through the two chairs facing my desk. Instantly I knew something was wrong. I stood up, slowly walking around my desk.

  “Koda,” I spoke, unable to see the glimmer of his eyes in the darkness, “were you outside in this weather? What—” Pain shot up from my stomach, and I glanced down, noting that Koda had stabbed me in the gut with what looked like a kitchen knife.

  No, not Koda.

  Bram.

  I met Bram’s eyes, only now seeing the darkness residing in those emerald depths with the help of lightning. I didn’t see the knife until it was too late, and now I was too shocked, too startled, to do much of anything but stare, my mouth partially agape.

  Bram’s lips curled into a smug grin of satisfaction as he twisted the knife in my gut, causing new pain to shoot up my spine. Before I was able to regain myself, before I could grab him—do something—he yanked the knife out of my abdomen and slashed through the air.

  Sharp metal connected with the tender flesh of my neck, slicing through my throat as if it were nothing but butter.

  I stumbled back, gripping my neck to stop the flow of blood, or slow it down, at least. My body felt weak, tired from it all, swallowed up by the hot misery that was agony incarnate. I fell backwards onto my chair, breathing hard. Each and every breath felt like one less I’d breathe in the future.

  The blood wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t keep holding onto my neck, not for much longer, and the wound in my abdomen…it cut deep, slicing through organs, surely.

  “Now she’s all mine,” Bram muttered, turning his back to me as he left, the knife dripping with my blood.

  She.

  Felice.

  This was about Felice? I’d be damned if I let that monster near her—but, fuck, I couldn’t get up. My body was slowing down, growing colder in spite of the warm blood gushing from my throat.

  I didn’t know how long I sat there until I could no longer hold my neck, until my arm fell to the side. Who could say? Sometimes death came for you even when you weren’t ready. Sometimes you had no choice but to throw your arms open and welcome it.

  Death. Death was no more a cruel mistress than life was.

  Chapter Eighteen – Felice

  The moment I saw Lucien’s still body in the chair, I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet as my heart sped up even more in my chest. No. No, no, no. This was not happening. This wasn’t—

  I had to hold onto one of the chairs behind me for support as I stared at the still body across from me, cradling my injured hand to my chest. My heart was liable to leap right out of its cage and run away, because this…this couldn’t be happening. Lucien couldn’t be dead.

  Dead.

  The word rang over and over in my mind as I slowly got to my feet, hearing my heartbeat in my ears. Yellow lightning flashed outside, thunder following it—but the added light let me see Lucien in his full gory glory.

  His neck was slashed, blood covering the top half of his suit and the shirt underneath. He’d also been stabbed in the gut, a wound of dark red on his abdomen. There was no more blood flow, meaning his heart had already stopped. His eyes, normally such a beautiful hazel, were dilated and glazed over, wide open as he stared off vacantly.

  He was dead, and there would be no saving him.

  Lucien was dead.

  Pangs of sorrow pierced my heart, and I slowly gathered myself to get to my feet. No longer did I feel the pain from having touched the fire—which was gone, as if the flames had never touched the desk or any of the papers on it to begin with. The only thing I felt was a hollow feeling inside, a feeling of loss so deep I instantly wanted to weep.

  A low growling sound came from the floor, and through the darkness I watched as Midnight hopped onto Lucien’s lap, his golden eyes seeming to glow as he turned them on me. The cat sat on Lucien’s lap, growling…at me?

  I couldn’t look at Lucien anymore, could hardly think straight. I turned, rushing out of the room, feeling the urgent need to vomit. My feet took me from his office, away from his corpse, his still body and the horrible, relaxed expression on his face.

  Lucien was dead. Was it Bram?

  I stumbled onto the carpet that led from the front vestibule to the grand staircase, slowing to a halt as I felt the creeping notion that I was no longer alone. Anxiety pumped through my veins as I turned to face the staircase, spotting someone standing on its first landing, holding two things. I couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but I could see the outline of what he held onto.

  A knife…and something quite large and round.

  Lightning flashed, and I stood thirty feet away from Bram himself. He wore a cruel smile, and he tossed the round thing at me, flinging it down the stairs.

  It came right toward me, and I winced as I caught it with my injured hand. Both, actually, because it was about the size of a basketball, maybe smaller. And then I saw just what it was, what I held onto and how it dripped red onto the carpet below.

  A fucking head.

  Payne’s fucking head, to be exact.

  I could hardly stand to look at the face that stared up at me from my hands, and I dropped the head, as disrespectful as it might be. Both Payne and Lucien were dead. Bram killed them. I had to get out of here. If I stayed, I’d be next, there was no doubt about it.

  As Payne’s severed head rolled away, I spun on my heel and made a quick dash to the front door. Bram, for his part, took on the serial killer walk perfectly. Slow and steady, he knew he’d reach me. He didn’t need to try hard.

  No. He wouldn’t get me. He wouldn’t.

  My hands pulled at the door, but it was locked. Right. This was what had started all of it. A locked door. I glanced over my shoulder, finding that he was already halfway down the stairs. My nerves were fried as I reached for the lock and flung the deadbolt open. I pulled open the door just enough to squeeze through, and then I was out, running as fast as I could down the front steps and onto the concrete pathway that led to the gate.

  The rain had let up, a mere light drizzle as I ran, constantly throwing looks behind me. I didn’t care; I’d climb that damned gate if I had to.

  But, I saw as I neared the gate, I wouldn’t have to climb. The gate sat wide open, the metal bars pulled into the property, as if someone had known I’d need to make a quick escape. Good, because I wasn’t sure if I could actually climb anything in this wet dress.

  I picked up the pace, sprinting as fast as my body could go, as hard as my lungs would allow. I knew if I slowed, if I stopped or tripped, Bram would get me. He’d already killed Lucien and Payne—who knew whether Dagen and Ian were okay at this point. Right now, I had to focus on getting myself out of here, on notifying the police. Doing something that didn’t involve having that knife impale any part
of my body.

  Mere moments before my feet drew me past the gates, I tossed one more look behind me. Bram was there, walking, holding onto that bloodied knife. The rain dripped off his chin, and he breathed out of his mouth. Far away, but not nearly far enough for me to feel safe.

  My head snapped forward, and I practically lunged as I hauled myself off the property.

  Only…I didn’t.

  My feet skidded to a halt, and I nearly took a tumble as my eyes widened. I should’ve stood staring at the road, but I didn’t. I stood staring at Grimmstead’s towering stone walls, as if I never tried to leave the property to begin with. Bram was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t stop me from shaking my head and taking another step back, turning again to leave.

  I turned and took a step forward, only to see Grimmstead before me still.

  My heart thudded in my chest, and a scared “What?” left me. “How?” My voice almost got carried away by the drizzling rain, and I turned yet again.

  Over and over, around and around I spun, hoping to leave this maze and find some help, but it would seem that leaving was impossible. The world around me grew fuzzy, and my brain had such a hard time putting it all together that I let my nerves get the better of me. I ran my hands through my hair, hurting my injured hand in the process, my top half bending over as I lost my balance.

  Oh, and I also threw up. A bit.

  I landed on my knees, the pain of landing on the concrete barely registering in my brain, nothing around me making sense. I didn’t run in a circle. I walked in a straight line, and yet still here I was, on Grimmstead property instead of the road it sat on. My hands fell to the pavement, avoiding my puke, and I couldn’t even wince when my burned hand came in contact with the cold, hard concrete.

  My mind spun. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand. How could this be possible?

  Yet, it wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself that question after arriving here.

  I stayed hunched over, knowing if Bram was still coming, he’d get me. He’d get me, and then that’d be it. I’d be dead, following Lucien and Payne’s lead. Bram would kill us all. Coming to Grimmstead was a death sentence; it just took me this long to realize it.