Zelda swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “I have been so shaken since that day, Ivy. Watching my back in every direction. Wondering if something like that might happen again. It’s been destroying me, Ivy. And there’s also this horrible guilt I have about all of it. I know that I’ve made your life hell. It didn’t start that day. It’s been going on for a long time. I can’t believe what me and Riley and especially Margot have done to you.”
I wanted to snap at her. I wanted to tell her too-little, too-late, and to fuck off. But at that moment, strung-out from the strange conversation with Professor Binion and exhausted after all the events of the day, I couldn’t muster the energy.
“Whatever, Zelda. It doesn’t matter,” I scoffed.
“It really does, though,” Zelda insisted.
“No. Not in the grand scheme of everything else,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
I turned toward the staircase and grabbed the railing. The moment I did, Zelda said, in a strange, panicked whisper, “Wait!”
For whatever reason, this piqued my curiosity. I turned and looked down at her, my brow arched. “What is it?”
“I need to pay you back. For saving my life,” Zelda insisted.
It took everything in me not to roll my eyes. “No, you don’t,” I said. “Really. It’s...”
“I know who’s been trying to kill you,” Zelda blurted.
My jaw dropped. I wasn’t sure if it had been common knowledge that someone had been trying to kill me, but the way Zelda said it felt heavy with truth.
“Really. I do,” Zelda insisted. She stepped even closer to me, and her eyes glittered. “I want to protect you, but you have to trust me.”
I turned now and crossed my arms over my chest. “Tell me who it is.”
“I can’t do it here,” Zelda said. She glanced to the side, as though she watched for something.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“You must know this is so much bigger than that,” Zelda insisted. “You must know there are beings that hear every single thing that occurs on this campus. The idea that this is one of the safest places in the world is absolutely outrageous. Nay, it’s bunk.”
Zelda landed that last with even more of an English accent than normal. I shivered my eyebrows low.
“Where do we have to go?” I asked.
“I know of a safe area. A place they can’t hear us. You have to trust me on this, Ivy. I know you have almost no reason to trust me whatsoever. I know that we’ve been through so much. But Ivy, we’re both students at Origins. I just want everything to go back to the way things always were. And if you know who’s after you, we can make the first steps toward making that happen.”
God, her words sounded good. I just want everything to go back to the way things always were. Whatever that meant to her, I knew what it meant to me. And she was right: I did want to get to the bottom of all this. Whoever was after me could be in trouble—or deserved to pay. Either way, I needed to know.
“You have to follow me,” Zelda said again. She reached for the candle that hung on the wall beside her in the foyer, then yanked it off its stand. Without waiting for me to respond, she spun toward the back hallway of the foyer, then entered a dark staircase that led downward.
I’d never been down there before. I’d always assumed it was extra storage, something that only the professors needed to worry about. But Zelda paused at the top of the staircase, raised her brow. She looked so ominous, with the candlelight flickering around her in the opening.
“Come on,” Zelda hissed.
Technically, this wasn’t outside of what Professor Binion had told me to do. He’d said: stay inside. He’d said: keep curfew. Here we were, still inside the girls’ dormitory, just heading into the basement.
We went down the rickety stone staircase, lit up only with Zelda’s candle. The staircase was much longer than I’d expected.
“How deep does this go?” I asked, and my voice echoed through the staircase and barreled into the ground below.
“It’s not much longer,” Zelda insisted.
These were the last words that were spoken for approximately five minutes. Finally, I heard Zelda’s foot land on something soft, like mud, below. I followed after her to find a low tunnel, lined with bricks and mud and stone. We could only see a few feet ahead of us.
“Where does this lead?” I asked.
We weren’t exactly obeying curfew any longer.
“It brings us to the edge of the academy property without anyone noticing,” Zelda said.
“Why do we want to go all the way to the edge of the property?” I asked, my voice rising just a little bit.
Zelda whipped around again, showing me her face for the first time in what seemed like ages. Her fangs glinted. “That’s where she is.”
“What? Who are you talking about?” I demanded.
But Zelda didn’t answer. We were now too deep into the tunnel for me to turn back. I would have had to make my way back in the darkness, which left the possibility that I might miss the staircase altogether. I imagined myself wandering through these underground tunnels for hours, days, as long as it took for me to fade away.
No.
I wouldn’t let any of this happen.
Actually, fuck this.
Suddenly, I lurched forward and grabbed Zelda’s shoulder and whipped her around. “Listen, Zelda. If you don’t start telling me the truth, I swear I...”
But Zelda’s eyes were different. Strange. Glinting evilly in the light of the candles. Suddenly, she spoke in a language I’d never heard before—
“Schwarmerei entendri, doppel triusi.”
I balked at her, completely shocked. “What the fuck...” But before I could say another word, I felt every single limb on my body stiffen up. My wrists yanked themselves together and then my ankles followed so that I was stiff as a board and straight up and down. I couldn’t very well keep myself standing like that. Suddenly, I was cast forward and fell onto the soil. I rolled onto my back and blinked up at Zelda, who still held the candle aloft.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I’d never seen a vampire do any kind of spell-like that before. I opened my mouth and prepared to yell and scream, but then remembered how deep underground we were. It wasn’t like anyone on the planet could hear me. It was just me and Zelda and whatever the hell Zelda had planned.
It seemed so stupid to be brought down by Zelda. After all the bullshit I’d been through, here I was next to Zelda, latched together by my wrists and my ankles, already buried under the dirt. “Fuck you,” I said, my voice as low as a snarl. “I never should have trusted you. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, but...”
Suddenly, Zelda’s face contorted. She dropped to her knees next to me and burst into tears. She nearly dropped the candle—something that would have really fucked us over. Luckily, as she flooded her cheeks with rain, she held her grip. To her credit, she looked genuinely miserable, like she’d just gone through the wringer of whatever life had had to throw at her and barely knew how to survive.
“I’m sorry!” Zelda cried finally, her face still all twisted. “I really am, Ivy! I never wanted to be involved with all of this. I never...”
Oh. Fuck. I closed my eyelids and slowly rolled my eyes back, realizing what had happened. Zelda filled in the blanks for me as I lay there in the dirt, absolutely mortified and also, obviously, fully pissed at myself.
“The bounty hunters. They found my parents in England. It seemed way easier to approach outside the States; I guess since the professors here had kind of an eye on everyone in the country.”
Fuck.
“The bounty hunters broke into our house over Thanksgiving break. It was so fucked up. They promised...” Here, she started gulping for air and coughing, like she couldn’t control her own voice. “They promised to kill all of us if I didn’t bring you, Ivy Whitestone, outside the academy walls. I guess they couldn’t get you while you were still in here and...”
Again, Zelda’s entire body shook with fear and sadness. Of course, I pitied her. This was an insane thing to go through. Zelda probably had lived in fear ever since that day, knowing that she had to somehow get me out of the academy grounds. Knowing that she had to destroy me in order to keep her entire family safe.
But also—fuck this. Fuck this so hard.
“Ivy, I’m so sorry,” Zelda said. She continued to shake. I genuinely thought she might lose her mind. “They taught me this spell and they told me about the tunnels underground. And Ivy, they were so mad at me for not bringing you out before Christmas. They wanted you as soon as possible. But I dragged my feet and—and they sent me even more threats and...and they said if I didn’t do it this week, they’d kill my dog first and then work their way up and...”
Zelda bit down on her lower lip, too hard with her fangs, so that blood oozed out and dripped down her chin.
Jesus Christ. I didn’t ask for any of this.
“Just stop talking,” I said suddenly. “I don’t want to hear it anymore. Just do whatever you have to do.”
I felt totally pissed off, totally enraged—but I just didn’t want to listen to her sob story another moment. Zelda fumbled as she reached for my wrists. She then yanked them over my head so that I stretched out on my back on the weird tunnel ground. She planned to drag me all the way out to the academy walls. My only saving grace, really, was that most of the floor seemed to be soft, with intermittent stones throughout. Maybe I wouldn’t get completely bruised up. Maybe it wouldn’t be completely painful.
But what the hell did it matter? Once we arrived, I would be passed over to bounty hunters, who'd been instructed to kill me.
There was a ticking time bomb on this stupid thing I’d been able to call my life. It had been a chaotic one. A stupid one. And now, it would just end. Like that. Poof.
The second Zelda began to drag me; there was the sound of chaos from down the hall, where we’d come from. There was a light, flickering against the tunnel wall. I had zero reasons to hope. I half-assumed that Zelda’s bounty hunters had found a way through the tunnel to get me sooner. I almost welcomed this. I wanted it all over with.
Whoever came toward us came quickly. When they were close, it was obvious there was more than one of them: and they were powerful, large. Zelda stopped dragging me, but still held onto my wrists and shook violently. It seemed obvious that she had no clue who was coming.
Zelda whipped her candle forward to flashlight across the three creatures in the tunnel. In the light, a massive Lycan stepped forward: muscular and enormous, his eyes bright blue and terribly familiar. Behind him came Ezra, and beside Ezra was Quintin—who seemed volatile and willing to change, except there wasn’t enough space. When he huffed, fire and smoke beamed out of his nostrils.
Of course.
The locket.
It burned brightly on my chest, and I saw it reflected on each of the bracelets of the three boys.
My god. I was saved. My heart jumped into my throat as I cried, “Raphael! Ezra! Quintin! Please...”
Zelda dropped me immediately. She stared at Raphael with huge, frightened eyes. In old lore, Lycans and vampires had never gotten along—and you could feel it reflected back in her face. Her worst childhood nightmare was probably being ripped apart by someone like Raphael.
Zelda stretched out her free palm, while still clinging to the candle. She stuttered, “Please. Please, don’t hurt me. Please, I had to do it. You don’t understand. I...”
Slowly, Raphael shrunk back to his human form. He remained shirtless, his muscles gleaming in the candlelight. Beside him, Ezra and Quintin continued to glower at Zelda.
“I think she’s telling the truth,” I told them. “At the end of this tunnel, bounty hunters wait for us. They’ve told her that if she doesn’t turn me in, they’ll kill her entire family.”
Zelda hiccuped at this. Raphael and Quintin and Ezra exchanged glances. My heart leaped into my throat. Confusion enveloped me. Why the hell was I still on the ground? Why hadn’t Raphael torn Zelda to shreds? What the hell had they meant about protecting me, if they hadn’t saved me from this yet?
“How much longer until the end of the tunnel?” Ezra asked, his voice low.
When Zelda didn’t answer right away, he stepped toward her menacingly. “Tell me, Zelda. How much longer.”
Zelda’s lower lip quivered as she answered. “I think about the length of a football field. Something like that.”
Fuck.
“Continue to drag her,” Ezra said. “Just as you would have if we weren’t here.”
Zelda glanced down at me, almost as confused as I was. My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone and I pressed my lips together and struggled hard not to emit any sort of tearful cries.
Why the fuck hadn’t the boys rescued me yet. Why the fuck did they let Zelda drop down and grab my wrists again, why, now, was I being dragged the length of a football field, all the way to some bounty hunters who wanted to kill me?
No. No. The past months had been nothing but a farce. I swam in this realization: that the boys had never cared for me. That all this love I’d brewed for them meant nothing. I would have to die knowing that I’d never been truly loved; that nobody had ever really cared for me, outside of Aunt Maria and Celeste. They were all I had. I said a small meditative prayer for them—to who knows what—hoping that somehow, someway, they’d be safe in all of this. I guess it benefitted both of them that they didn’t know where I was taken just then. This would be a mystery.
“Where’s Ivy Whitestone?”
“She vanished off the face of the earth. Nobody has seen her. One day, she was here, and the next day, poof. She left all her stuff, which probably means....”
“Somebody took her. Somebody must have gotten to her.”
“But nobody knows.”
The dragging seemed to take forever. Hell, I’d never imagined myself to have to be dragged the length of a fucking football field. I could feel the pain of it across my lower back. My feet bumped along behind me. Frankly, I was mesmerized at Zelda’s strength, although I’d always heard that vampires were much stronger than they looked. (Normally, they looked like thin Europeans who wore very nice clothes—but like Raphael or Quintin, who looked like bodybuilders. This didn’t mean that Ezra didn’t have a gorgeous body; it was just different.)
As I was dragged along, I forced myself not to look up at the three boys. They walked at a good distance behind us. Not once did I feel their eyes on me, either. I knew that if I wanted to, I could probably dip into each of their minds and figure out what was going on. But I really feared the worst. I imagined dropping into Raphael’s thought process and discovering a simmering hatred for me, one that had always lurked beneath the surface.
I couldn’t handle anything like that. Not at the end of my life.
As we approached the end of the tunnel, the soil and mud gave way to complete and total stones—like whoever had built it had given up part of the way in and just let the earth take over. I could hardly breathe. Zelda yanked me harder, and the boys kind of receded behind us—like they didn’t want to keep up, or only wanted to keep up just enough to make sure that I was delivered safely to the bounty hunters.
I’d never felt so low in my life. I made my eyes enormous and blinked out at Raphael and Ezra and Quintin, trying to give them the last of me. They would be the final people I’d known to see me alive. They’d delivered me; they’d falsely protected me. Again, my locket burned so brightly against my chest that I thought I was burned. I felt totally consumed by the horrors of this life.
And I knew there was no way to escape.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At the end of the tunnel, light-drenched us. I turned my head just slightly to see that the tunnel erupted into a large dungeon area, which probably served as the basement to some kind of bounty-hunter safe house just outside the academy grounds. Zelda kept up her wild shaking, a fact that enraged me. Why the fuck should she be frighte
ned? She’d done what she had to do. Her family would be safe. All would be well. Probably this time next year, she’d do only a little bit of thinking about what she’d done. I mean, at her core, she was a horrible bully—a vampire just-changed who’d really latched onto Margot and Riley and worked to tear my life to shreds.
How wonderful for her that she could have the last say in how I’d gone down.
“Hey. Good evening,” Zelda said, her voice a little bright.
I yanked my head around more violently to see two men emerge from the other side of the dungeon.
“You’re late,” one of them boomed. His voice was from the deep-south, probably somewhere around Hillside Falls.
“I know. But I’m here, aren’t I?” Zelda spat back.
There she was. That horrible teenage girl I’d always known.
I tried to size up the bounty hunters. One was much taller than the other, lanky with arms that seemed to drop all the way to his knees. The other was short but way more muscular, the classic trope. Both had gloved hands and had covered their heads with thick hats, which came over their eyebrows and part of their eyes, making them difficult to identify. It wasn’t like I ever thought I’d have the chance to identify them. I’d given up on that.
Zelda dropped my wrists to the ground. It came so suddenly that I didn’t have time to prepare, and my hands smashed against the rock. I cried out in shock and pain, and the two bounty hunters chuckled. It was almost too evil.
“All right. Let’s take her,” the taller bounty hunter blared.
Zelda stood between them and me, her chin lifted. “Promise me that my family will be safe. Promise that this will all be over...”
“Yeah, yeah, Miss England. You’ve done good,” the other bounty hunter said. “We’ll put your face up on the wall as an employee of the month. We swear.”
The other chuckled. The swept toward me; their big arms were outstretched. I wondered if it would all be over now; if there in that dungeon beneath the ground, I would be murdered. I braced myself for it: thinking about this other side and whatever it meant, whether or not my parents were there waiting for me. I wasn’t sure what I believed. But in those terrifying moments, I had to face these thoughts. I had to prepare myself.
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