by Katie May
“You’re disgusting.” With that, I began to walk faster. Despite my brisk pace, his long legs were able to eat up the distance between us.
“I missed you, little sister,” he said mockingly. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and every muscle in my body tensed.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Why?” He tilted his head to the side curiously. His smile was snake-like, venomous. Deadly. “You weren’t complaining last time.”
I felt sick to my stomach. What little I had eaten threatened to come right back out.
“Don’t,” I warned, furious when my voice quivered. I couldn’t say one fucking word to him without reverting to a scared child.
A scared, defenseless child that he had taken advantage of.
“Don’t what?” he asked, a smirk still firmly etched into place. “Don’t talk to my little sister?”
I recoiled from him as if his touch was toxic, seeping into my skin and slowly killing me. That wasn’t an inaccurate comparison, in all actuality. Dylan was toxic, poison, deadly. He wielded his weapon with an expertise and finesse that hinted at years of use. He had been a monster long before he had attacked me, long before he had turned into my monster.
“You’re mad,” he observed. “Why are you mad, little sister?”
His touch was burning through my clothes, burning away my skin, until I was stripped bare for this monster to see. My heart continued to beat, my lungs continued to take in air, but I was dead to the world. This fucking monster had killed me with just a touch.
Desperate, I began to run, distantly aware of his laughter echoing behind me. I had no destination in mind, only away.
My footsteps pounded over the carpeting, down a spiral staircase, and outside. The sunlight belied how cold the day had become, my thin jacket doing little to quell the chill. Still, I ran. Past the carefully planted flower beds. Past the ornamental roundabout with the stone statue. Past the academic building.
My breathing sawed in and out, my heartbeat ricocheting.
Pulling my jacket tighter around my shoulders, I became distinctly aware of a low moan. No, not a moan. A cry. A strange combination between a scream and a sob. Masculine.
I had run farther than I had thought, stopping just in front of a minuscule shed with distressed wooden walls, faded white paint, and a collapsed roof. Row after row of unwashed windows greeted me, and the doorway was balancing precariously on its hinges. Weeds and ivy climbed up the structure; the grass was overgrown, completely obscuring the pebbled pathway.
The sound—the hiccuped cry—was coming from in there.
My mind warred within me, curiosity fighting against my rational sensibilities. My curiosity won out, and I found myself slowly venturing toward the building, hands shaking with nerves. The air was cold, but that was not the cause of the goosebumps erupting on my skin. My tongue snaked out to lick my suddenly dry lips as I pushed open the rusty door. Steady hands belied my fear when I looked around the sparsely furnished dark room. The only light came from the blighted sunlight, peeking through the gray clouds.
There was no furniture besides a worktable carrying a handful of unfamiliar tools. Opposite that, yellow tape announced a section of the room as “in construction”—a fact that I found immensely odd considering it was mere inches from the wall. What could possibly be added when a fence was adjacent to it just through the faded wood? The second thing I noticed was the shock of garnet hair and piercing eyes. Those eyes effectively trapped and ensnared my own.
They were red-rimmed, tears suspended from his abnormally thick lashes. His nose was just as puffy, as were his cheeks.
“Kace?” I asked, shocked. My eyes automatically roamed his body for injuries. Had the professors gotten to him? Hurt him? The mere prospect had me seeing red. I had never considered myself nurturing or protective before, but something about Kace made me want to kill every last person who dared hurt him. Dared to make him cry as he was. I couldn’t understand my own emotions, my own feelings. I told myself that I hated him and his friends, hated everything that he stood for, hated what he had done to me, but a sly voice whispered something else entirely.
After all, what had Kace done besides take the fall for me? If I should hate anyone, it should be Tanner and Aiden. Aiden specifically. There was no denying that he was the instigator of everything that had happened—the drugs, the lies Tanner told me, the constant bullying.
“Kace?” I ventured a tentative step forward. He reminded me of a cornered animal preparing to run. His wide eyes flitted, never sticking on one thing in particular. After that initial eye contact, he made a point of not meeting my gaze again.
“Go away,” he whispered harshly. Succinctly. His words were as sharp as a whip marring flesh.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Why do you fucking care?”
His words momentarily stunned me. Because he was right, of course. I had no reason to care, no reason to want to comfort him. Not after everything we had been through.
Those assholes had drugged me and lied to me, made me believe that I was trapped at this magical school—scoff—but Kace’s vulnerability called to me and my protective instincts. Before I could second guess myself, I crouched down beside him.
I didn’t touch him—I had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate the gesture—but I allowed him to know that I was with him.
“Did the professors hurt you?” I asked softly.
He snorted, lips curving into a cruel sneer. “Everybody hurts everybody in this world. That’s just the nature of life, Bianaca.” His voice turned hoarse, each word nearly indecipherable. “I have hurt so many people.”
“You have,” I agreed with an offhand shrug. When his head snapped toward my face, I smiled unapologetically. “What do you want me to say? Lie? We both know that would do no good.”
“I hurt you,” he continued brokenly. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because you also saved my ass,” I pointed out. “You took the blame for me. And besides, you weren’t the one bullying me. That was Aiden and Tanner.”
He looked so despondent that my heart physically ached for him. I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, but I balled my hands into fists to resist the urge.
“I should’ve stopped them.” He bobbed his head decisively as if agreeing with his own statement. “I knew you had nothing to do with Josie’s disappearance, but the others…” He raked a hand through his hair causing the red strands to become even more disheveled. “Josie was a sister to all of us, but she was related to Aiden by blood. Her death…disappearance…” His voice fumbled over that word before he cleared his throat and continued doggedly, “It shattered him. Aiden, as you may have guessed, had never been the sanest person to begin with. He lost the final shred of his humanity when she went missing, and I don’t know if he’ll ever get it back.”
My legs throbbed from holding myself up, and I allowed myself to sink onto the dusty wooden floor. Curling my legs to my chest, I wrapped an arm around them. Holding myself together.
“What happened?”
Kace dropped back to the ground, sprawling himself spread-eagle. He stared up at the ceiling as if he found one of the wooden boards particularly interesting. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did speak, after a long moment of silence, his voice was subdued. Soft. Devoid of any feeling.
“What you saw at the cafeteria. They began calling names. Aiden was absent during that time—probably fucking his latest conquest. We were sitting at our usual table—Tanner, me, Josie, and Olivia—when Olivia’s name was called. At this time, we had already deduced that the school wasn’t what it appeared to be. We didn’t know everything, but we knew that any name called was fated for death.
“Josie freaked out. That was the only word for it. She screamed, cried, attacked.” His lips puffed out. “The teachers were shocked. The food they gave us—some magical blend maybe? Or a science experiment?—assured that we were good students. Good prisoners.” Tears welled
in his eyes once more, and I watched as one slid down his cheek. “They took her with Olivia. By the time we were able to look for them, they were gone. Vanished. Disappeared.”
The only sound was the wind howling against the windows. I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees.
“Her room remained empty for months…until you showed up. The girl that haunted our…” he trailed off, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to say.
I, myself, didn’t know how to respond to such a story. In a way, it confirmed exactly what Tanner had told me. That the school was some sort of…paranormal academy? Hell? The verdict was still out on that one. It also conjured up images of my dream with Kelly, the professors, Ali, and the monster.
Unless…
The prospect of it being more than a dream very nearly had me collapsing. It unraveled me, greedily grabbing at a thread and pulling until I was nothing but a puddle of string. I could hear my breathing turn shallow.
“Was Tanner telling the truth?” I whispered. I hated when my voice cracked.
Kace, finally, turned his head to meet my eyes. Those auburn streaks in his hair caught in the minuscule shaft of sunlight.
When he didn’t answer right away, I continued, “What day is it today?”
Understanding dawned quickly.
“The rest of the school thinks it’s Saturday or Sunday,” Kace answered. His eyes watched me intently, gauging my reaction. “But time moves differently here. The food they give us warps our perception of reality.”
No. No. No.
“This better not be a sick joke,” I managed to sputter out. My hands gripped at my hair, pulling on the strands as if I could physically remove them from my scalp.
Kace’s expression turned sympathetic and then mocking. Cruel. Not toward me, I realized, but toward himself. Self-loathing emitted from him in waves.
“Maybe it is. Maybe this entire thing is one sick joke.” He turned to face the ceiling once more. “If that’s the case, then we’re all the butt of this joke as well. Fucking hilarious.”
I scrambled to my feet, grit and other unsavory substances sticking to my legs and butt. I helplessly wiped my hands down my sides in a pathetic attempt to remove them. I felt dirty, disgusting, as if I was plunged headfirst into a pile of garbage. There was no eliminating the sickly sensation creeping down my arms, across my chest, settling inside of me, bone-deep.
Wariness crept over me, and all I could do was stare at Kace. “I’m losing my mind.”
Broken. Pathetic. A slight hitch to my voice.
This school was slowly breaking me in a way I had never allowed Dylan to do before. These men were. I no longer knew what was real and what was some twisted game. My head throbbed, unable to collect and articulate every damn answer to the numerous questions I had.
And Kace…
Crying in an abandoned shack at the edge of the school, directly adjacent to a fence. His predicament was just another question with no answer. Or perhaps it was an answer with no question. I didn’t even know where to begin with this, with him, with everything.
I could feel the beginning tendrils of anxiety and depression snaking its way to my heart, clasping the organ in its meaty embrace and holding it hostage. It had been too long since I felt like that, felt like the world and everyone in it was killing me. Months.
Now, it came back with a vengeance.
“Wait,” Kace whispered as I backed up. The backs of my legs collided with the work table, and I heard something clatter to the ground.
With a strangled gasp, I spun on my heel and ran as fast as my legs could carry me.
In the wind, I could’ve sworn I heard Kace’s voice cry, “Don’t leave me.”
But that was probably my imagination as well.
14
Bianaca
Angry, gray storm clouds obscured the sun from view. As the sky opened up, releasing its torrent of rain, I remained huddled beneath the bough of the largest tree. The canopy provided minimal shelter from the raging storm, but I eagerly welcomed each raindrop cascading down my cheek.
The icy rain reminded me that I was still breathing.
My mind raced, formulating more questions than answers. Each new number to this fucked up equation caused a piercing headache to appear behind my eyes.
Hell. Supernatural. Experiment.
So many scenarios.
I tried to piece together what little I knew. Tanner was right. I, along with the others, had arrived in a cab. I hadn’t had one conversation with any of the professors, though I did see them often gliding through the hallways. Students were being plucked from the school and being fed to a…monster? Even to my own ears, that sounded insane.
Insane.
Insane.
That one word reverberated through my head, pounding my skull like a sledgehammer. It was killing me slowly from the inside out, demolishing my defenses until I was nothing more than a trembling pile of discarded waste.
Insane.
Insane.
Was that what I was?
Insane?
The idea held merit. More merit than anything else I could conjure up.
Placing my head in my hands, I let out an anguished cry. It echoed in the surrounding forest, this chaotic battle scream.
Insane.
Insane.
Insane.
I released my head and clenched my hands. My fingernails dug into my palms, and blood welled. Still, I pressed down harder, relishing in the blistering pain running up my veins. My nails continued to pierce my skin, tiny crescent-shaped indents, but I didn’t relent. My hold tightened.
More. I needed more.
More answers. More pain.
More pain.
Blood cascaded down in red rivulets, staining my pristine gray uniform. Pain continued to assault me, each stab a wound I wasn’t sure I could recover from.
“What are you doing?” I heard the voice, somewhat distantly, come up from behind me, but I paid it no heed. Instead, I dug my fingers farther into the flesh of my arm. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I couldn’t separate them from the rain pelting my face.
In the distance, lightning struck, a giant spotlight being flickered on. The light was snatched away, and gray darkness returned.
Pain.
More.
I needed it.
“Fucking damn. Stop!”
A rough, calloused hand grabbed my own, wrenching my offending nails away from my skin. I glanced up in shock, surprised to see Aiden inches from my face. Rain matted his dark black hair to his scalp, and his lip and eyebrow piercing glimmered each time a new strike of lightning erupted overhead.
He was breathing heavily, chest heaving, but his eyes were focused as they rested on mine.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
Tears, once more, spurted in my eyes, but I angrily brushed them away.
“Why do you care?” I asked just as bitterly. Each word was a slash of a whip, succinct and penetrating. His eyes narrowed on me, but his hand was surprisingly gentle as it held my own.
“I don’t. But for some reason, I don’t like seeing a female sitting in the rain, hurting herself. Excuse me if I’m a bleeding heart.”
I snorted, wrenching my hand away from his. Or, at least, attempted to. Instead of breaking free, he held me tighter. His long fingers clasped my wrist with a familiarity and tenderness that took me off guard. All I could do was stare at where we touched, the sky continuing to fall apart around us.
“Fuck off, Aiden,” I whispered. I wondered if he could hear my words over the rumble of thunder and cacophony of rain.
“Why are you doing this?” he continued, ignoring me. His gaze was fixated on the stream of pink cascading down my hand. His thumb traced each jagged mark on my skin before pushing my sleeve up higher. His eyes flashed dangerously when he took in the now healed, self-inflicted scars taking up residence on my upper arm.
With bated breath, I watched him. Watched his tantalizingly light finger
trace the area above each scar, never touching. Watched his lips part, a puff of air escaping. Watched the banked fire in his eyes grow to an inferno. He looked as if he was seconds away from either screaming at me, crying with me, or throwing me over his shoulder and locking me in his room.
I couldn’t understand why, though. Aiden hated me. Not only that, but he blamed me for the disappearance of his sister. There was no reasonable explanation for the protectiveness tightening his features. The compassion in his dark eyes.
“Because I’m going insane,” I breathily replied, glancing up at him through my fringe of lashes. He didn’t pull his attention away from my arm.
“You’re not going insane.” His tone was just as soft as mine, just as husky, and I wondered if my presence was affecting him as his affected me. The thought made me feel empowered, tiny licks of fire dancing through my veins.
“I’m seeing things, believing things, that can’t be real.” My broken confession finally had his eyes flickering upward. For a long moment, I could see nothing but indecision in his gaze. He chewed on his lower lip, tongue swirling around that enticing lip ring. I couldn’t look away, utterly enthralled.
“Come with me,” he said after a long moment of silence. Without waiting for me to respond, he jumped to his feet and extended a hand. I eyed the proffered hand warily. This was the moment, I realized, when I had to decide whether or not I would trust him. Whether or not I would let him past my carefully constructed walls.
They were made of iron and stone, sure, but Aiden was a cannon. He came charging through my defenses, blow after blow. Surprisingly, I allowed him to.
With a stiff nod, I captured his hand with my own, and he pulled me to my feet. His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t quite comprehend before that was replaced by calm indifference.
“Come.” He squeezed my hand and pulled me to a familiar building.
The hut I had found Kace in only an hour before.
This time, however, when he opened the creaking door, there was no sign of the eccentric man. I couldn’t understand why I felt disappointed.
Aiden ducked beneath a loose ceiling board before stopping in front of the yellow tape indicating that particular part of the building was under construction.
