by Katie May
Did Kelly have answers? If she did, I needed to figure out how to get them from her. She was willing to answer my questions in her own obscure way. It was my job to piece together the puzzle.
Her hand still tight on my wrist, she pulled me off the bed. I came willingly, feet muffled by my fuzzy socks I had slept in.
“Between. Between. Between.” Her free hand curled into a fist that she rammed repeatedly into her head. Immediately, I attempted to restrain the offending limb.
“Stop,” I said desperately. Wide, tear-filled eyes met mine once more, and I was struck by the despondency in them. They weren’t the eyes of a child. They were the eyes of someone who had seen too much, lived through too much, yet was forced to repeatedly act as if she was okay.
She yanked at my hand, pulling me down so we were eye-level. Her voice was raspy with suppressed emotion when she spoke next. “Once you escape your monsters, you find new ones.”
“What does that mean, sweetie?” I asked gently. I implored her with my eyes to explain, to help me solve this damning puzzle, to trust me with her secrets. The unshed tears in her eyes heightened the blue color, stagnant tears hanging suspended on her lashes.
“Between. Between. Between. Between.” She released my wrist as if it was toxic, pulling open my bedroom door and slamming it shut. Terror for her slithered down my back, and I desperately reopened the door. Memories of the clicking sound replayed in my head on a loop.
The monster had been hunting these halls.
But one glance in both directions confirmed that they were empty. No monsters. No Kelly.
It was the latter observation that had me stepping outside, into the darkness that cloaked the halls like a cauldron of spilled ink. Only the light from my opened window allowed me to see my hand in front of my face.
Had it always been this dark?
I didn’t think so.
“Kelly?” I whispered tersely. She couldn’t have disappeared so quickly. Even if she was running, the halls were long enough for me to have spotted her before she turned the corner.
Did she sneak inside one of the other rooms?
I hadn’t heard any doors beside mine slam shut, and I knew for a fact that her room wasn’t on this hall.
Where had she gone?
That minuscule seedling of fear sprouted into a full-grown tree. The darkness only provided substance to the damn fear plant, helping it grow.
“Kelly?” I whispered harshly. I took an automatic step back into my room. Despite my fear for Kelly, I wasn’t stupid enough to wander these halls. The last thing I wanted was to end up like Ali, sacrificed to an unknown monster.
Goosebumps erupted on my skin at the thought.
Monster.
The word itself sounded crazy, ethereal. Something you would hear in movies or read in books. Monsters weren’t supposed to exist in real life. At least, not the stereotypical scaly beings that hid under beds.
No, those monsters were reserved solely for novels, not reality.
With one last glance down the empty hall, I shut my bedroom door. My heart was in my throat, choking me, but I refused to suffocate. Not this time.
With more determination than I felt, I grabbed a notebook out of my desk drawer and wrote down what I knew.
Masked, murderous professors.
Sacrificial offerings to some monster…god?
Asshole men.
No escape.
Between.
I circled the final word multiple times. Between what? I knew once I deciphered that definition, the rest would fall into place. I would have to be smart about how I went about it. My usual method of confrontation wouldn’t work with Kelly’s delicate mental state.
With one last glance at the paper, I placed it on my nightstand and slipped under the heavy blankets. At least in my room, I was safe.
Right?
Right?
Unbidden, my eyes snapped shut.
Morning dew graced the green grass. The air was cold, near freezing, but the sun hung high in the sky, belying the frigid day. I moved stiffly, weakly, unable to formulate any thought besides “run.”
Run away. Run from him.
I dared a glance at a puddle of water and gasped at my reflection. My clothes were in tatters, my hair wildly disheveled, and fresh bruises darkened my pasty skin. I didn’t look like the girl I once was. This person, this female with sunken skin and haunted eyes, was a stranger.
Still, I kept walking. Houses blurred, a combination of whites, browns, and grays. There was a noticeable lack of clouds in the sky, so despite the wind, the sun glared down on me. It did little to unthaw my frigid body.
My dead one.
Beau was exactly where I had told him to meet me. His golden hair glinted in the sunlight, and his hands were shoved into his jacket pockets. He hadn’t noticed me yet, so I took the opportunity to study him unobserved. He looked beautiful and radiant standing beside the park bench. A knight in shining armor brought to life. His lips were pulled back into an easy grin as he tilted his face upward toward the sun. He looked so serene, enjoying life and everything it had to offer. I hated to pop his happy bubble.
He glanced in my direction, as if feeling my eyes grazing his back, and the content expression disappeared to be replaced by something darker. In three long strides, he was in front of me, gently placing his hands on my shoulders.
And that was when I exploded. Sobs shook me, tears cascading down my cheeks. I desperately clung to Beau as if he was a life preserver and I was a sailor lost at sea. His hand cupped the back of my head as he crushed me to him. Despite the gentleness of his embrace, his body was as taut as a violin. Tension seeped from every pore in his body, waiting with bated breath for a target.
Finally, he pulled me away from him and met my eyes. His were dark with promise. Promise of pain and vengeance and death. In his gaze, one word reverberated.
Who.
“Dylan,” I sobbed, wrapping my arms around my body. “Dylan.”
Dylan.
Dylan.
Dylan.
I woke up with Dylan’s name a scream on my lips.
17
Aiden
I didn’t know I was a sucker for pretty blonds with doe-like eyes. Honestly, I had preferred dark-haired, exotic beauties.
But it was those damn eyes…
Those were eyes that hid years of pain behind a faux smile. An innocence and inner radiance that shone through whenever she smiled.
Not that she smiled a lot.
There was something…haunting about Bianaca. She was a beautifully wrapped present I was determined to pick apart, piece by piece. If I happened to destroy her in the unwrapping process, well, I never said I was a saint.
I just couldn’t get the damn girl out of my head.
Pressing my ear to the door, I waited with bated breath for the telltale sign of clicking. The Monster only made its rounds every half hour, the precise moment the grandfather clock in the hallway pierced the silence.
“You coming?” I asked Kace tersely. He remained on his bed, curled up in a ball and eyes absently fixed on the far wall. “Asshole, get the fuck up.”
Again, not even a twitch.
There was only so much I could do for him when he got like that. Booze and fucking were the two main ones. We were never shy of female company, and we both lived to make their wildest fantasies come true.
Taking her to the precipice of pleasure, both of us working her body in tandem.
The image of our last hookup contorted in my mind. Instead of the red-head whose name I couldn’t recall, it was Bianaca pressed between us. Kace ducked his head to nibble on her collarbone while I brushed a hand down her bare ass. I reached over her pale shoulder and pulled Kace’s lips down to mine in a bruising kiss, never taking my eyes off of her.
Fuck.
Even the fantasy was making me rock-hard. Uncomfortably hard.
Both Kace and I weren’t gay. Hell, we weren’t even bi. However, we were not afraid
to be sexual with one another if it was what the lady desired. Kissing Kace didn’t do anything for me, but listening to the woman’s breathy moans? Her staggered breaths?
That was icing on the fucking cake.
I wondered how Bianaca would sound…
Shaking my head once more, I turned back toward my roommate and best friend.
“Do you want me to grab someone?”
By someone, I meant a female.
Kace surprised me by shaking his head vehemently.
“No,” he said coldly. He still did not break his intense staring contest with the wall. “Just go.”
I hated to leave him like that, but there wasn’t anything I could do that didn’t involve physically dragging him down the hall. Been there, done that, ended up with a bruise to the eye.
Sighing, I opened the door a crack and peeked into the hallway.
Empty.
Padding my bare feet softly over the wooden tiles, I raced to the front door. This pathway was as familiar to me as the one in my own room. There was only one fork in the hall, the right leading to the exit and the left leading to the girl’s wing.
For a brief second, I considered heading to the left. The need was almost pressing, but I shook it off. I would dissect it at a later time. And by later, I meant way later. Like, never. Maybe in twenty years. But now, I had someone I had to meet.
Stealing one last glance down the darkened hall, I raced out the front door.
The chill, as always, startled me. It was yet another thing that set this school apart from the others. It was always abnormally frigid, even in the supposed summer months. I tugged my jacket closed and raced down the narrow, grassy pathway.
It was easy to believe that no one suspected what we were up to. Because if they did…
No, I had to remain firm in my conviction that none of the professors had caught wind of our activities. I was still alive, still breathing, still left with more questions than answers at this shit school.
Unlike Josie.
Her name felt like lead in my stomach, tangling with the jumble of nerves. There was no escaping the pain of her absence. She was my little sister, one of the few people I loved.
Until the day I died, I would grieve her.
Her disappearance—kidnapping—was only one of many mysteries. Why her?
Was it because she had uncovered something important? She had been the one to discover the drugs in the food and the antidote to stop the illusions. How had she even discovered something so…outlandish?
My selfless little sister. Risking her life to save all of ours. Stupidly. I didn’t deserve her sacrifice.
And then there were the dreams…
With Bianaca.
I touched my lips with the tip of my tongue.
“You’re late,” Tanner said lazily, but he sounded like he couldn’t give two shits either way. He leaned against the shed wall smoking a cigarette. How he got a surplus of that shit remained a mystery. It just randomly kept appearing in his room. “Where’s Kace?”
I shook my head once, and that eloquent gesture was answer enough.
Tanner allowed me to lead the way into the dilapidated shed with the rickety doorway and hole-ridden roof. Under the yellow “caution - keep out” tape. Into the door and down the staircase.
I could tell why Bianaca had freaked out. I, too, would believe that I was being sent to my death. There was something uncanny about a darkness that clung to you like a second skin. The phantom tendrils of monsters clawing at your wrists. The disembodied sensation where you weren’t aware of where your hands were.
Darkness.
Utter and complete darkness.
Only when we were at the bottom did we dare switch on a light.
That superstition was silly, if it could even be classified as one. Ever since we had first discovered the diminutive shack and staircase, we had been terrified to even breathe let alone shine a light. That fear had ebbed after we had gotten an idea of where the guards were going to be and when, but the cautious gestures—like keeping the lights off—did not.
The light illuminated a damp, dusky corridor. Gray, slate walls surrounded the perimeter and only a single table sat in the very center. Behind the table, a large tunnel branched out.
It was wide enough to fit two of me side by side and smelled vaguely of mildew and mold. The walls were entirely made of rock, clunkily chipped away. The slates of rock haphazardly sat on one another.
The tunnel was obviously manmade.
The creator or creators—the structure looked as if it’d been years in the making—had come to the same conclusion we had after discovering the horrors of this school. If you couldn’t go over the gate and you couldn’t go through it, then you had to go under it.
“She didn’t believe you?” Tanner asked, removing his shirt. I removed mine as well, but unlike him, I carefully folded it and set it on the table.
“She didn’t come down the staircase.”
We stepped into the tunnel, relying on the thin beam of the flashlight. We had to get new batteries soon. Maybe I could fuck one of the student workers from res-life.
Even as I thought that, a shudder went through me. An option that would’ve once sounded immensely appealing now held the same appeal as stabbing myself in the eye with a rusty spoon.
“That’s because you’re a psychopathic monster,” Tanner pointed out helpfully, and I snorted.
“We’ve been over this. Psychopaths mimic emotions.” And I just felt everything too much.
Waving a hand dismissively, Tanner moved to the edge of the cave where a blockade of rock remained. It was the last obstacle between us and freedom, us and home.
Me and my sister.
The second I was out of this hell hole would be the same second I began my search. Josie was still alive.
She had to be.
A couple of tools littered the floor, all of which were stolen from the woodshop classroom. Why a school that didn’t teach any classes had such an elaborate set up remained a mystery to me.
“She hates us, you know that, right?” Tanner said, picking up a hammer. It wasn’t our preferred tool, but it was the best we had.
Now came the hard part of breaking the seemingly impenetrable blockade of rocks without the entire cave falling on our heads.
Fun.
“You sound upset,” I pointed out, surveying my brother in arms. He swung the hammer in the center of the cave, muscles clenching.
“She’s cool.”
For Tanner to say that, when he hated everyone, even me, was a big ass thing.
Why did I feel…jealous over the fact that he liked Bianaca?
And the fact that she might have liked him back?
Growling, I grabbed the second rusty hammer and surveyed the rocks. We had been working for months and had only managed to make a dent. When I said impenetrable, I wasn’t kidding.
The tunnel was both a beacon of hope and a fucking death sentence.
When we had first found it, we had noted tiny white Xs in certain areas. Tanner believed they were points to use our tools on, designed specifically to break the wall yet keep the ceiling from crumbling.
“So what are you saying?” I asked, swinging again. The Xs had long since disappeared, but our work was far from done. It seemed as if the tunnel of rocks extended forever. “Do you want to keep her?”
“And that’s your fucking problem,” Tanner huffed out through uneven breaths. “You can’t keep a fucking female. You can’t own her.”
My lips curved upward as I swung my hammer. After Josie had disappeared, I found that I hadn’t cared whether or not the ceiling collapsed on me, burying me alive. Suffocating me.
Eventually killing me.
Tanner and Kace felt the same but for entirely different reasons.
Now? I could see a newfound cautiousness in each of Tanner’s swings. His eyes flickered warily to the ceiling, watching a few rocks tinkle down, before slamming the hammer into the wall once more.
“We may not be able to own this girl,” I whispered. “But she may be able to own us.”
18
Bianaca
“Little sister!” Dylan raced down the hall, light eyes glimmering, and put an arm around my shoulder. I tensed immediately beneath his touch but kept my face perfectly apathetic.
It was a technique I had honed, one that my therapist had taught me. If I acted like it didn’t bother me, it would stop.
Only, I feared that nothing would ever stop Dylan.
The school’s hallway was bustling with teens, locker doors slamming shut, laughter from the nearest group of jocks penetrating the chatter.
It was just another day in high school.
Hell would be a better description. Or purgatory—in these halls, I wasn’t quite dead or alive. I just was, floating through the motions in a disembodied state.
“How’s my favorite sister doing?” Dylan asked lightly. He pulled me to his locker, arm still tight around my shoulders, and began to grab his notebook and textbook.
I anxiously scanned the crowded halls. Did anyone see? Did anyone care? How could anyone think this was normal?
But if there was one thing I knew about high school, it was the need for conformity. Nobody dared to break free from the status quo, let alone stand up for what they knew was wrong. They kept their heads buried in the sand like good little pets, choosing to see the world through a warped funhouse mirror.
Me? I was trapped on the other side, ramming my fist against the glass. Blood rained down, staining the skin of my knuckles, but the cage did not break. I was forever trapped, fated to be an observer in my own life.
“Stop touching me,” I whispered to Dylan harshly. I attempted to pull away, but only half-heartedly. It wasn’t as if I wanted him to touch me, but I knew the consequences of my actions. If I embarrassed him, he would seek out his revenge.
“The new kid’s staring at you again,” my stepbrother said conversationally. I stiffened beneath Dylan’s hold, only allowing my eyes to move as I surveyed the teeming throng of students. Sure enough, I met a pair of dark orbs locked on me. I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face, but I would almost describe it as horrified.
