Almost Dead (Blackwell Academy Book 1)

by Rae Hendricks

  "Good job. I was sure you were going to freak out this time," Ms. Aberdeen praised, but I was hardly holding it together. I was forcing myself to look and see the damage caused by the grandfather of the boy I had been spending so much of my time with up until he’d gone cold on me. I was still upset by it. Hurt, even. It wasn't like I had a right to be. Nothing had ever been defined between us, and I couldn’t say for sure had we kept going down the same path if it ever would. He was a vampire, on this Earth for more than 200 years, if I did the math right. So, he had seen all kinds of girls and women. I couldn’t be that special in the grand scheme.

  But that didn’t mean he hadn’t wormed his way into a special place in my head...and maybe my heart too. It was hard to know for sure when I had never been in love. I had never even had a boyfriend. I was always the good girl, focused on school, good grades, and a few friends that were good influences like me. It wasn't until Michael that I got the guts to act on a crush or was even told in any way that someone had liked me back.

  "Now, why don’t you try asking one or all of them a question and see if any of them respond? There is no point in having this power unless you use it for good."

  Her voice broke through my desperate thoughts about Desmond Grey. I had too many thoughts of him lately, especially in comparison to how often I saw him now - which was not at all.

  "Umm...how many of you were killed during the Reign of Terror by Constantine Grey?" It was the only question I could think of on short notice, and I could feel Ms. Aberdeen shooting a look of disapproval my way. I probably didn’t want to know the answer, but I watched as the crowd of ghosts began to separate, sorting themselves out into three distinct groups. Part of me hoped the group I could count on my hands was the correct one, but I knew better.

  One of the ghosts stepped forward, luckily looking like a young woman, maybe a few years older than me. Maybe she had been a staff member or something. "The two groups to your right were both killed because of the Reign of Terror. The larger group was killed directly by the hands of Constantine while the group near the center was killed by someone or something else as a result of the events that took place."

  She stepped back and took her place among those that were collateral damage, leaving me to assume the small group were those who died at a different time or possibly of natural causes.

  "A lot of lives were lost during those years." Ms. Aberdeen’s voice was full of sympathy for me, but I didn’t want it. I needed to understand what had happened in the past so that it could be prevented in the future. That was the whole point of teaching history.

  "I don’t understand why the founder of a school would then kill the students in that school."

  "He didn’t kill all of them, but he was an evil man hung up on purity, class, and lording his power over others, even his own son."

  I nodded. It had been his own son to kill him. It was the only reason I wanted to give Desmond a chance to explain because he didn’t seem like he was that type of guy. I couldn’t imagine him hurting me, but before I got in deeper, I needed to know the truth. I needed to know if I could trust him or not.

  The training continued, and many times I had to force myself to look at all the dead and desensitize myself. It was the only way. I wondered if the military had to do something kind of like this so that they could look a bunch of other young men in the eye as they shot at them or dropped bombs on them from the air and hoped they didn’t get any innocents in the process.

  "Ms. Aberdeen!" a familiar voice called, and I turned to see my best friend, Charlotte, running our way. I knew something was wrong immediately - her glasses missing from her face and the paleness of her skin.

  "Miss Granger, you know that classes are n session and that I am -"

  "Please!" she screamed, interrupting Ms. Aberdeen as she fell to her knees on the ground. Not knowing what had my friend so distraught, I joined her on the ground and held her as she began to shake with sobs. "She's dead. Another student is dead. I went to borrow a book from one of my classrooms during lunch, and there she was. I dropped my glasses with her body. I couldn’t...I...couldn’t bring myself to pick them back up. Oh my god, I saw a dead body!" she wailed.

  I looked up at Ms. Aberdeen for instructions, anger flaring in me. That was the third student death since I came to Blackwell. Either the school was not as safe as they had preached, or something very wrong was going on and I was the target. I had to be. If it started when I came, and the deaths looked like I had caused them, someone had it out for me. I needed to know why, and I just might be the person who could find out. Maybe my power was useful after all.

  "Let's get her to the office," Ms. Aberdeen said quietly, and I helped Charlotte to her feet and walked with her the back way to the office so she didn’t have to see anyone who might be still moving from class to class or who would also see the body when they got to the classroom.

  Ms. Aberdeen had me take Charlotte straight to Principal Brown, and we sat there and listened to her story of how she found the girl, one she didn’t know, face down on the floor and covered in blood. I held her hand the whole time not knowing how else I could comfort her. When all was said and done, two of the deans took her back to her dorm, leaving me alone with Ms. Aberdeen. I didn’t know how I was supposed to resume the last hour of class this way, but what choice did I have? I had become a slave to this routine all because someone was framing me for murder.

  "Ms. Aberdeen, can I ask you something?" I spoke up, my voice coming out exasperated.

  She motioned for me to take a seat at her desk as se busied herself with paperwork. I didn’t know how she was finding the time to tutor me and finish her regular job duties, and that old guilt of mine came creeping up like a long lost relative.

  "With my power, is there a way to call upon a specific dead person?" I almost laughed at my words. I didn’t know what better way to refer to someone who was dead and had become a ghost, but the idea of speaking to dead people was still ridiculous even if I had proven without a doubt I could do it.

  "I suppose you could, but you should know not every spirit lingers. I am guessing this has to do with the murders? It is not your job to solve this, Anastasia."

  I shook my head. "I am being suspected of these deaths. What better way to clear my name than to get the right information from one of the dead.”? The idea of seeing Brady again made me cringe, but he would be the most likely, in my mind, to stick around. With his reputation and the suddenness of it, he would stick around wanting revenge. Or maybe he would feel bad I was getting blamed when he knew I had nothing to do with it. My Papa wanted me to always see the best in people even if they didn’t deserve it, though Brady was a rare case that was proving to be difficult to accept as a fellow human being.

  "Just be careful, and you should probably get up there with your friend. She needs you. Monday, I want you to resume classes. I think it is clear now you didn’t do this." She gave me a pointed stare, and I wasn’t about to argue. I ran like a bat out of hell to my freedom and toward my best friend. She did need me.

  But as I passed the inevitable Champion Hall, I heard a voice I was sure I would never hear again. "It's me you want to find, isn’t it?"

  I paused in my tracks, nearly tumbling to the ground as I saw Brady Huntington leaned against a building.

  "Yes." There was no point in lying, and I was in shock that he was actually here, not alive or fully dead. He looked the same as he had before, only, a little transparent.

  "You need to stay away from Grey, Anastasia. I know I was a jerk to you, but he could be so much more than that. He could really hurt you."

  And then he was gone.

  22

  Time is Short

  Desmond

  The last conversation I had with Anastasia was playing in my head on a loop as I frantically stopped every student I could find inside of Chief Hall to ask them where I could find the dorm belonging to her friend, Charlotte. The rumor spread like wildfire across the campus - that Charlo
tte had run screaming and crying during her lunch hour after finding the body of another student. This one was a girl from Chief Hall - a short girl with dark brown hair. Charlotte had not been seen since then, and I was sure of the worst.

  Whoever had been after Anastasia, the Circle or someone else, had gotten to her. I had heard from others through their whispers that the scene was a bloody one, not like the others. I couldn’t recall a time I had cried since the grieving period after the death of the only family I had on this earth, but if my anger ran out of fuel, I was sure the tears would find their way out.

  I had been mean to her - selfish, rude, just because she had questions. just because she had shared her life with me, but I had yet to share mine with her.

  But I didn’t know how to do that. I never had done that. I had looked into a woman's eyes and seen her body. I wouldn’t deny that, especially in the early days when I was left alone on this campus without purpose. It was the only reason I didn’t fight anyone on the rumors about me. At one point, that had been me, but only because I had been bitter about my situation. And then the numbness came.

  It had been Anastasia that woke me up, and now I was afraid that I would never be able to turn it off again even though I had lost her. But first I would find out what had happened. Sad or not, Charlotte Granger was going to tell me everything.

  I found her door and began to bang on it, knowing I could very well knock the thing right off its hinges. I didn’t care. I wanted to make sure she knew she was answering this door.

  "Open up now, Granger! I want answers!" I yelled as I tried again.

  The door finally swung open, and I blinked, my anger subsiding into something entirely different as I looked into the big, brown and now angry eyes of the girl I thought I had allowed to slip between my fingers.

  "What the hell are you doing?" she cursed at me, but I had never been so happy to see someone so upset. "You need to go. Charlotte is too upset right now to talk about it, and I don’t see what it has to do with you unless she was one of your human blood suppliers."

  Any other time, her comment would have sent me into a rage, but I didn’t have it in me.

  Not caring who was watching or if she would kick me in the balls, I pulled her to me before she could slam the door in my face, my lips crashing against hers for the first time. I had gone over and over a moment like this in my head, but it had never been reason enough for me to follow through. I always thought she would be disgusted or that I would get out of control. But control didn’t matter anymore. All I wanted was to do this at least once even if she hated me for taking it.

  I pulled away, my lips swollen from the hardness I put into the kiss, and she looked at me for a moment as if her brain as trying to catch up with what just happened.

  "What was that?" she asked, seemingly out of breath.

  "I am sorry for what I said. You told me everything about what happened to you, and I kept who I am from you. You probably hate me, but life is just too short. I thought...I thought that the body Charlotte found was you."

  She came fully out the door and leaned her back against the wall outside the dorm room. It had to be a good sign she wasn’t screaming or running, but as my fangs insisted on rearing their heads, I wasn’t holding my breath either.

  Her eyes searched my face for a moment before she said, "It's only my life that's too short." She quirked one side of her mouth up in dark amusement before she fisted my shirt in her hands and yanked at me. I made myself pliable, putty in her hands even though I could crush her as easily as a human could squash a beetle.

  Her lips were on mine again, and my mind left my body. It was a euphoric escape as she let my hands trail down the sides of her body, finding her hips through the uniform that would be so easy to get underneath if I was willing to go that far.

  But not today.

  I had to rein it back in.

  But when I tried to pull away, her hands went to my hair, my messy ponytail ripped out as her hand tangled there, her mouth grasping desperately at mine. I couldn’t tell whose breath was whose as we gasped for air in between lip locks. My body pressed against hers, desperate for the heat to warm my broken, cold soul, and my thumbs hooked just under the edge of her skirt.

  Without thinking, I nipped at her lip only to taste blood in my mouth, but she didn’t stop me, not even when I let out a moan at the sweet flavor as it ran down my throat.

  Finally, I willed myself to pull away, the hardest thing I had ever done, as I trailed my finger along her swollen lip with a tiny puncture wound in it. There was no going back now, I could feel it, and it would likely serve to come biting me in the ass later. I wanted to capture this moment and bottle it so I could remember it when the darkness settled in.

  The clearing of a throat broke my eyes away from her beautiful face for a moment as I noticed Charlotte had caught us.

  "Sorry, Charlotte, for what you had to see. Are you okay?" I asked her, trying to find my voice again.

  "I don’t know. I mean, can anyone be okay after seeing that? But I am in good hands." She nodded toward Anastasia who I was still pressed into like I was trying to meld us into one.

  I tried to be kind even though I simply wanted to relive what had just happened. This person was a friend to the girl that had changed my world. "I'll be around if you ever feel unsafe."

  "Thanks."

  "I'll be in there in just a sec," Anastasia told her friend, and Charlotte shut the door, leaving us alone once more. the hallway had since cleared, probably not wanting to see our heavy make out session even if it was interesting to see a vampire and a human together.

  "I would say I am sorry, but I am not," I told her, my hand running idly through her long hair.

  She shook her head. "Me either."

  23

  The Stalker

  Desmond

  I walked the campus as the sun went down and found myself to be utterly alone. A skeleton staff stayed on campus during the holidays for those students who couldn’t or didn’t want to go visit their families as well as to prepare for the semester ahead, but it left a usually bustling campus quiet.

  It felt even more eerily empty without Anastasia. She had gone home to her parents, nervous about facing them after her mother had found out just what she could do. She had worried over it for hours while Charlotte and I had our last hurrahs with her before she left. I didn’t expect to miss her so much. I found that while I didn’t need her, her absence left an uncomfortable hole even though she had only been a part of my existence for a blip on a screen.

  That pulsing darkness I had begun to feel around me never ended now, and the knife seemed to pulse right along with it. I had my theories on what could be causing it but didn’t want to be shot down again if I went to those we should trust to keep the school safe. And I didn’t like speculation. I dealt in truths and logics in all areas but one now - my love life. Even though, my brain was fighting for me to do the right thing, the sane thing, and let her go. She didn’t need me. I wasn’t good for her. She would be better without me. Those were the words that echoed through my skull in the silence day and night now, but I didn’t have the strength, yet to fully listen. Part of me hoped I would always be a coward.

  All I did know was that the school was now imbued with dark magic much as it once was when I first came, but I didn’t recognize it then. I had been too young and eager. A golden boy from a golden family just following a legacy into a new horizon created for me. But that all crumpled to dust the moment Constantine and Alastair began to disagree on how the world should go round.

  The Circle could feel something crawling closer too because they kept hounding me even though I had nothing to share. The knife was my little secret and would stay that way until the very moment it was needed. Maybe I could find a way even then to make sure it was useless in any other hands but my own. I had never been a good study of magic, though, seeing as I was devoid of most of it. I was the product of a vampire and a human, still undead but diluted. I had l
imits.

  My phone rang - private number - but I could easily make an assumption about who it was. I had been dodging calls when I could get away with it, but I was running out of excuses seeing as the school was on break and all.

  "Hello." I was sure to sound bored, unaffected. If they got a whiff of eagerness or dissent, either would put me in a position where they had too much power over me.

  "Desmond, so nice to hear your voice." So, it was Elizabeth. She was still running the show, at least on my end of things. I hadn’t decided yet if the leader of the Circle would be this open or not.

  "I would return the sentiment, but it's not my style."

  "I would expect no different from a Grey. I think it's time I gave you a better idea of what we are trying to do and where the girl comes in, though I have honestly been waiting for you to put the pieces together. You are a smart man."

  She drew out the word man as if it was meant to be some kind of compliment. I rolled my eyes but kept my distaste to myself. I wasn't interested in her games. Ether she could tell me something of value or not. It didn’t matter as long as all roads still led to my freedom and an end to any contracts. I didn’t want to owe anyone anything ever again.

  "I have had my ideas, but I don’t make assumptions. You know what they say about those..."

  "Well, if you have got us figured out, then you must realize how important the girl is for us. Is there a way you can get to her and get her to us? The time is coming close when we need her. You get us the girl. then, you will get us the knife and win your freedom." The tone was dramatic as if I was listening to an ad at a movie theatre, but the idea of being allowed to leave and go anywhere I wanted was too strong a need to scoff at her tactics.

  "The problem is, from what I can tell, she is not ready. She doesn’t do that well in classes, and I hear that if she levitates it tires her out. If you use her before she is ready, you could just squander your chances. Are you even sure she is the one? Can she do anything you expected her to?" I tried my damndest to throw them off her trail, though a lot of what I said was true. Her powers were just blooming, part of it held back by her own fear of what she was. The more I got to know her, the more I could sense that about her.