Academy of the Fateful (Cursed Studies Book 3)

by Eva Chase

  I choked on a sob and outright punched him, right in the muzzle. “Get the fuck away from us! You fucking asshole!”

  My voice shook, but even in his monstrous state, something in it must have penetrated the haze of aggression that had come over my foster brother. He shuddered, balked, and then lurched back a few feet, his gleaming eyes never leaving us for an instant.

  Blood dripped from my wounded arm to patter on the floor. Jenson heaved himself partly upright with a wince. “Are you all right?”

  “You should be more worried about yourself.” I sure as hell was. We both needed to wrap up these wounds and stop the bleeding. But it was hard to think beyond the massive dark shape still looming at the other end of the room between us and the door.

  As if to put proof to that worry, a low growl reverberated from the beast’s throat. My body tensed automatically. I shifted so I was directly between it and Jenson.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Just get out of here. Get away from us. I know you can manage that much.”

  The beast didn’t budge, though. And in that moment, as I stared him down, it was suddenly hard to see only a deranged creature that Roseborne’s spirits had created. Those were Cade’s eyes glaring back at me from within their frame of fur. The accusation in them, the defiant tilt of the thing’s head, the unspoken possibility of violence coiled all through its muscled body…

  The staff hadn’t conjured any of that out of nothing. Even if the human part of him wasn’t totally in control, they’d drawn on what was already there in Cade when they’d created this form, hadn’t they? I was looking at a monster, and I was also looking at my foster brother, in a way I’d never let myself see him before.

  The pain had radiated all the way up to my shoulder blade. I clenched my jaw against it and glared right back at Cade. The hope I’d been holding onto all this time, even as it frayed more and more, finally snapped. All the hurt and frustration that had been building since I’d first started to recognize his hold on me rushed to the surface and onto my tongue. And then tumbled out.

  “You know what?” I said. “I was wrong. You are a monster. You go around trying to bully and intimidate everyone into doing what you want, you make them feel like shit if they don’t happen to agree, you batter them if they piss you off enough. You want to talk about loyalty? How loyal are you if you’re going to slice me open the second I show I’m not going to live totally under your thumb anymore, huh?”

  Cade’s ears flattened back on his head. Another growl seeped from between his fangs, but he stayed rigidly still.

  I took a step toward him, my good arm rising, my hand balling into a fist. “You promised to protect me, and you knew I’d do anything to protect you. I came all the way out here and let Roseborne take me for a chance to get you out. I’ve put everything on the line for you before. And in return for that, you pushed me into all kinds of things I didn’t really want to do, you made me constantly afraid that I wouldn’t be good enough, strong enough, willing enough for you to want me around. It doesn’t matter how much I mattered to you that you wanted so badly to make sure I’d stay—it wasn’t right. That’s not how real love works, Cade. It never was, and it never will be.”

  “Trix,” Jenson said quietly. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to warn me, to suggest I’d said enough, or if he was simply acknowledging my pain. Either way, I wasn’t backing down. Not until this monster got the hell out of my way.

  I stepped even closer with a stomp of my foot against the floor. “Didn’t you hear me? Get going! I don’t want you anywhere near me, not like this, maybe not ever. I will…” I cast around and snatched a heavy wrench off the shelf beside me. “I swear if you try to take another bite out of me or Jenson, I’ll hit back with everything I’ve got. I don’t want to, but I will. So don’t fucking try me.”

  The resolve in that threat must have sunk in. Cade shifted his weight on his paws. Then, with a ragged huff of breath, the monster wheeled and barged out of the shed the way it’d come.

  The wrench fell from my fingers to thud on the floor. My shoulders sagged, both with the release of my fears and the rising dizziness I assumed was thanks to the blood still streaming from my wounded arm.

  Fuck. I had to deal with that—I had to help Jenson with his wounds—

  Jenson had staggered to his feet. I opened my mouth to protest, and my legs wobbled. He caught my good arm, and we both slumped onto the edge of the cot.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he’d— I never thought—”

  “Don’t for one second think this is your fault,” Jenson said, his voice taut but the direction of his gaze making it clear any anger he felt was directed at the creature that had vanished beyond the doorway and not me. “Is it safe for us to go out there with him lurking around?”

  “I don’t know.” I sucked in air and grabbed hold of all of the self-control I could summon. “We should bandage ourselves up as well as we can first. Just to stop the bleeding until we can get to someplace where we can wash the wounds and bind them more carefully.” My gaze fell to the surface we were sitting on. The sheet was dingy, but it would be easy enough to cut and fold. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Ignoring the throbbing in my arm, I pushed back to my feet and found the gardening shears where I’d left them after I’d replanted Violet’s rose. How was she handling Roseborne’s current state, as weak as she’d been? I hadn’t had the chance to check in on her.

  I’d get to her when I could. In a few broad snips, I cut off a wide swath of the sheet. Then, with unexpected inspiration, I cut right into the thin mattress. That would do as a makeshift gauze pad.

  I set the chunk of foam stuffing against the gouges on Jenson’s abdomen and tied them there tightly with the strip of sheet. The only sign that the pressure hurt was the twitch of his jaw. He stopped me before I could bandage his shoulder the same way and pressed the second “pad” I’d cut to my arm insistently.

  A different sort of pang, one I didn’t mind, filled my chest. “So stoic,” I said, as much as I dared to tease after what had just happened.

  The corners of Jenson’s mouth quirked up a smidgeon. “Real men show no pain,” he returned.

  The beginnings of a smile faded from his lips as I, with bandaged arm, finally took care of his other wound. When I eased back to examine my work, he studied my face.

  “Did he attack me because I was with you?” he asked, in a tone that was barely a question. “Because we…”

  “Hooked up?” I filled in. Calling what we’d shared less than half an hour ago a “hook-up” felt much too casual for the emotions that had come with it, but “made love” would have sounded too corny and “had sex” too clinical. There just weren’t any good, simple terms to describe what it was like to join your body with a person you cared deeply about that didn’t have a mushy, Grandma’s Harlequins vibe.

  Jenson inclined his head, not quite a nod. I bit my lip as I considered the question.

  Who knew what Cade’s senses could pick up when he was in that monstrous form? I’d already suspected that he’d ramped up his criticisms of the guys after he’d noticed some kind of intimacy between them and me. And since then, I’d made it clear to my foster brother that I had no intention of or interest in doing what I’d done with Jenson with him ever again.

  He’d wanted me wrapped around his finger. That much was becoming clearer every time I was around him. He’d wanted to be able to snap those fingers and know I’d jump. Offering someone else a closeness he thought only he deserved—yeah, that could have enraged him. I couldn’t say I was sure Jensen and I had been quiet enough that his ears wouldn’t have picked up the sounds, especially when I’d left him so close to the edge of the forest.

  But all the same—

  I tucked my arm around Jenson’s. “It doesn’t matter. He was pissed off about something. There’s nothing he could have been pissed off about that would justify that rampage. He doesn
’t own me. He doesn’t get to decide who I spend my time with or what I do with my body. What’s important is making sure he doesn’t hurt you, me, or anyone else like that again.”

  A soft little smile returned to Jenson’s face. “How can I argue with that?” His features tightened against a wince as he leaned toward me, but his kiss was nothing but sweetness. My nerves had still been jumpy in the wake of the attack; his touch settled them.

  When I got up, I grasped his hand to steady him as he followed me. “If Cade’s out there waiting, then we defend ourselves as well as we can. He’s not dictating how I live my life anymore. We need to find Elias and Ryo—we should all be together against… against everything here.”

  I let go of Jenson to pick up the wrench I’d dropped. I didn’t want to come to real blows with Cade again, especially not with a weapon, but I couldn’t be stupid about this conflict either. He’d proven I might need to go that far to defend myself.

  We slipped out into the night. The clouds had finally drawn back, allowing a thin sheen of moonlight to shimmer across the whole lawn. I scanned the area around us warily, but I didn’t see any sign of Cade. Had he slunk all the way back to the forest in his defeat? In his shame? Did he actually recognize that he’d been wrong?

  Another question we’d have to deal with later. For now I was just glad that it looked as though we could leave here unassaulted.

  As we came around the school building, Elias’s broad-shouldered frame had just reached the corner opposite us. He stopped at the sight of us, resting his hand on the bricks, with an expression both relieved and exhausted. From the way he held himself, I suspected the night’s events were wearing down his reserves of strength more than he wanted to admit.

  “Have you seen Ryo?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been in a vision a lot of the time since we were tossed apart. I’m not sure what direction they threw him in.”

  “Over the hills and far away.” Ryo’s familiar mellow voice reached us a moment before he came into view behind Elias. He joined us, walking with a noticeable limp. At the flash of concern that must have shown on my face, he held up his hand to ward off any fussing over his injury. “I landed badly on my ankle. I don’t think it’s too serious.” His gaze paused on Jenson’s and my bandages. “What happened to you two?”

  “It’s… a long story,” I said. “I was hoping we could find better materials to patch ourselves up inside. At least we’ve gotten the four of us back together like we set out to do?”

  “Even if it was a heck of a trial getting there,” Ryo said.

  We climbed up the front steps and stepped into the foyer warily. In an instant, Ryo’s good cheer drained away.

  His eyes had locked on a ghost that was just drifting out of the hallway that led to the staff offices. The translucent young man turned to face him at the same moment, and immediately glided straight toward him. He didn’t look any different than the previous ghosts had seemed to me—but from the sickly cast that had come over Ryo’s face, he might as well have been faced with the Devil himself.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryo

  Somewhere in the back of my head, I’d known this moment was coming. How could it not? The guy moving deliberately toward me as a ghost-like image had lost way more because of my selfishness and carelessness than anyone else in my life, even my parents. And not just him, but the others I’d no doubt see as well once he reached me.

  My stomach flipped over. A clammy sensation had spread over my skin. I didn’t deserve to avoid this, so I wasn’t going to try, but—the most intense urge I’d ever felt twisted through me to tell Trix to stay out. To make sure she never saw just how much ruin my addiction had caused.

  Did I deserve to be spared that either? Hell, no. With the impulse came a rush of shame. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything at all to her, too afraid of what might slip out between my competing emotions. Instead, I stepped across the polished floorboards of the school foyer to meet my fate.

  The glowing wraith with Kadri’s face grasped hold of me from the inside out. The invisible force I’d felt once before flung me away from the grand staircase and the gleaming chandelier overhead, through a churning dark tunnel, and into the driver’s seat of my mom’s silver Toyota Camry.

  My senses jarred at the sudden transition. The world around the car was whipping by with the vibration of the engine pushed twenty miles over the speed limit. A punk rock tune blared from the speakers, almost drowning out the laughter and cheerful shouts of my three friends around me.

  The buzz of a recent high sang through my veins. My head felt as if it were full of crinkling cellophane. Salt laced the air from the fast food drive-through meals we’d picked up a half hour ago. Beside me, Kadri’s head lolled back and then to the side as he said something to me with a goofy grin. I couldn’t hear the remark, but I laughed anyway.

  We were coming up fast on an eighteen wheeler truck rumbling along the highway ahead of us. My foot pushed down even harder on the gas.

  Somewhere inside my head I was screaming. No. Stop. Don’t let it happen again. But my body moved without any heed. I couldn’t force the thoughts from my scattered mind through my nerves to my limbs.

  I’d forgotten how brief the moment of the tragedy had actually been. The space of a breath, of a few heartbeats. We tore past the truck and jerked back into the lane just as another sedan made a left-hand turn out of a side-road.

  I’d been going way too fast to slow down enough, even if my reflexes hadn’t been so burned out it barely occurred to me to shift my foot to the brake. It was a blink, the screech of tires, and the wrenching crunch of smashing steel as our Toyota T-boned the other car smack in the middle.

  I slammed forward, my seatbelt cracking a rib, the blast of the airbag bruising a few more. One tiny habit left over from all the times my parents had drilled safety practices into me in childhood. No one else in our car had their seatbelts on.

  Even through the blaze of pain that wracked my body in that first instant, I registered the shattering of the windshield, the thud of thrown bodies, a strangled cry from someone in the other car. They—father, mother, and two young kids, like an echo of my own family ten years ago—all had their belts on, but that didn’t help you much when a ton and a half of steel moving faster than it was ever really meant to go slammed right into the middle of the vehicle you were riding in.

  In reality, I’d fainted from the shock and pain. The drugs shivering through my system probably hadn’t helped my mental state. The next thing I’d been aware of was the jostling of a stretcher I’d been strapped to as frantic paramedics loaded it into an ambulance. I hadn’t seen the wreckage or the bodies until I’d found the photos on newscasts and the internet days later—and then, more vividly, when the counseling room had thrown the scene at me on a life-size scale.

  None of that compared to actually being here. To tasting the blood where my lip had split, feeling the ache through my cheekbones, as I raised my head and realized this time I was still conscious. The vision hadn’t knocked me out—it hadn’t wanted to.

  I knew without questioning it that no ambulance or other rescuers were coming. This was a private replay just for me, and Roseborne would want me to experience every detail of it I could without interruption.

  The airbag deflated enough that I could turn and shove open my door. I staggered out onto the suddenly silent highway.

  Somewhere in the back of my head I’d started to think I’d gotten the one small mercy of experiencing this catastrophe alone. But the first thing I saw as I emerged was Trix standing on the side of the highway in the overgrown grass just beyond the gravel shoulder, her orange hair flicking this way and that in the warm but sharp wind, her pale green eyes shadowed. Of course the vision had deposited her right here, where she could have a front-row seat to the carnage.

  I couldn’t stand to say anything to her now any more than I had when Kadri’s ghost had been approaching me. Feeling as though a li
ne of knots had been tied through my organs from throat down to gut, I turned to take in the horrific scene I’d created.

  All other vehicles that would have been on the highway had vanished. This might as well have been the only patch of reality left in the entire universe. Mom’s Toyota had swung to the side with the impact, the hood crumpled and jagged pieces of windshield glass glinting around the frame. The other sedan looked as if a giant had punched it through the middle, both of the left-hand doors mashed inward, bumpers twisted, windows hollowed.

  Kadri lay on the pavement several feet away. I only knew it was him because of his neon green T-shirt. The entire upper half of his head had bashed open, scrambled blood and brains leaking onto the road. A stench like raw meat mixed with tar filled my nose, and nausea surged up. I doubled over and gagged, stomach acid searing my mouth.

  The two guys we’d been hanging out with were still in the car, flung against the front seats and the roof, bodies bent and broken. I glanced at them, cringed, and forced myself to step closer to the other car.

  How the fuck did I dare to even continue living if I turned my back on the consequences of my screw-ups—the consequences so many people other than me had ended up paying?

  I couldn’t even make out the father or the kid in the booster seat who’d been on the left side of the car. Well, I could see the ragged stump of an arm here, a splatter of blood and gristle there, but essentially they’d been pulverized on impact.

  The crumpled metal had bashed all the way into the mother and the older kid, pummeling them into the far doors. Blood coated their faces where their skulls had cracked open; their bodies sat twisted at warped angles no living being could have tolerated.

  My stomach lurched again. I hunched over and spat more acid onto the pavement. There was nothing else in there to come up, but my gut kept churning as if trying to work more free. As if maybe if it wrenched hard enough, I could start puking up my lungs and kidneys and spleen to satisfy that urge. Why the hell shouldn’t I, when everyone else here had lost theirs?