Mitch was silent all the way up to our dorm rooms, and when I opened my door, he just walked in like he owned the place, stretched out on the couch and called over, “Next time you want to fall on the knife for a bunch of assholes, can you give me a heads up?”
“I told people tonight, so I could control what people were saying about me…” I trailed off as he gave me a look. Bailey jumped up on the couch, which she totally wasn’t supposed to do, and she stretched out over Mitch.
I reached for the refrigerator door. “They’re not a bunch of assholes.”
Mitch pillowed his head on his hands and closed his eyes. “You sure about that?”
I was sure, but as the hours passed, I got no text messages from the members of the BBC.
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sweat dripped down my face as I crawled across the gym floor on knees and forearms. The smell of my own sweat stung my nose as I inhaled greedily with every second lunge forward. My knees screamed in pain, but I was seconds behind the slowest freshmen in the class for the first time ever.
Maybe it was the feeling of dread I woke up with this morning, but a fire lit in my belly, and I was determined to only be the worst in my freshman class by a small margin.
“Good hustle, Miss Moore! Maybe you’ll pass your fitness midterms next week,” Professor Whitney called out. “To everyone else here, if Miss Moore is catching up to you, you’re not going fast enough.” Professor Whitney went on to critique the form of students who’d already lapped me twice. At the end of the crawl, I collapsed with my face on the filthy mat, raking in air.
“Get up! Review time. Wooden stakes are outside, and I want you to run the obstacle course with your stake, jump down, stab the dummy, repeat. Just like we’ve been doing all semester, just put it together. Go!”
All around me, my classmates jumped to their feet and rushed for the door. Past the glass, I could see Mia and Richard waiting by a structure made of wood and ropes. As each freshman passed them, they handed them a long wooden spike.
It had been two days since I revealed what I was to my friends, and I had yet to get a single call or text. There were brief moments that I was grateful that I was leaving them all behind. If they were all planning on dropping me as a friend simply because I was a dhampir, then they weren’t really my friends in the first place. Other moments, I was sure that I’d screwed everything up, and it was all my fault that I’d lost a group of awesome friends, maybe forever.
Professor Whitney held the door open for me, and she gestured outside. “Get moving, Miss Moore. I want to get to lunch on time today.”
Ahead of me, many of the freshmen were climbing one-handed in this hop motion, but I shoved the wooden stake in my mouth and bit down on the wood as I climbed up the ropes. By the time I reached the first tower of the obstacle course, the last freshman was jumping down from the second structure, and a group of freshmen covered in blue dummy blood followed behind me.
I was going to be holding up the line, just like I did every class, while the freshmen waited for me to navigate the complicated ropes course behind me.
“Keep moving, January,” Mia called up through cupped hands.
Now she was talking to me.
I don’t know what got into me exactly. Maybe it was the fact that this whole world was pressing down on me and I wanted to fly past it, but I fixed my eyes on the next structure, and I jumped.
Wind blew past me as I soared through the air. The structure came flying at me, and I flailed my arms, trying to brace for the impact. My feet slammed into the wood, but instead of stopping, I toppled forward, rolling end over end down the web of ropes and onto the grass before I landed on my knees. I spat the stake out of my mouth.
For a moment, I knelt there, stunned and staring at the stake on the ground.
A hand grabbed my shoulder. “January? Are you okay?”
I looked back at Mia, who gaped down in shock.
“Fine,” I said. My knees ached a bit, but aside from that, I felt more than fine.
“No shortcuts in my class, Miss Moore! But, if you’re going to pull a move like that, you need to keep moving and use your advantage. The vampire is still alive over here. Next time around, go through the exercise just like everyone else.” Professor Whitney called from the blacktop. The burly woman looked entirely unimpressed by the fact I just jumped over half of the obstacle course and landed on my feet. She just shook her head and walked away.
Richard wheeled over in his chair to give me a thumbs up and a nod. “Thought Professor Whitney might be yelling at your corpse. This class isn’t supposed to try that until the second semester.”
Disappointment thrummed through me. For just a second, I thought I used my dhampir power on command, but I just did something the rest of the freshmen would do in a couple of months.
“I got frustrated and wasn’t really thinking,” I said.
“Good to see you survived.” He grinned before turning his chair and headed back toward the rest of the class.
Mia offered me a hand and, when I took it, pulled me up. “Sorry I didn’t text you yesterday.”
“It’s fine.” I dusted off my pants.
“It’s not fine. You dropped a serious truth bomb on us.” She rubbed her forehead. “Look, I meant to reach out, and there’s a good reason why I didn’t, but I can’t get into it right now.”
I honestly didn’t want to hear all the good reasons why she was going to avoid me now, so I said, “No worries.” I lifted up my wooden stake. “Better get to stabbing.”
When I headed for the dummies, Mia jogged alongside me. “We’re doing a BBC study session at the downtown library tonight if you want to join.”
Her invite almost soothed the hurt and insecurities brewing inside me, but I couldn’t go study with them. It wasn’t the first time I’d been invited to hang out with the BBC off campus, and now that the vampire threat had finally cleared, I couldn’t leave campus because of a horde of winged demons.
“I wish. I have this three days’ notice rule, which I’m sure you understand the context of now. They want me guarded at night. It’s a real pain in the ass.”
“Sounds like it.” She grinned. “We’re still doing another movie thing or something this weekend, right?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I really wanted to cancel. I’d rather do that than throw a movie night where no one showed up. I fell into line behind the freshman who’d caught up to me even after my rather unimpressive leap and tumble over the obstacle course. When it was my turn, I ran up to the rubber and bone dummy and stabbed my stake into it with everything I had.
The stake slipped in a couple of inches and stuck. It took me several yanks to dislodge it from the dummy, and my hands were coated in lemon-scented dark-blue, fake blood.
The second time over the obstacle course was harder, and I realized the reason no one else were holding their stakes in their mouth was that the fake blood tasted like bathroom cleaner smelled and immediately burned my tongue. But I just didn’t have the agility to pull it off without biting the stake.
After three more times over the obstacle course, my mouth was numb, my nose ached from the smell, and my arms felt like they’d literally died on me.
“For those of you in Mystical Arts, your next class is canceled. Feel free to use this as a study period!” Professor Whitney called out as I was climbing down the last ropes of the obstacle course.
I tossed my stake into the pile and trudged toward Gregory Hall. As I headed around the backside of the dorm,
Parker emerged from around the bushes and tossed a cigarette butt onto the ground. She exhaled a cloud of smoke, filling the vicinity with the scent of burnt tobacco.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?” she asked as she held up her phone.
On it was the message that I’d sent her through her website: hobo chick.
“I’ll owe you a favor,” I said.
“You don’t even know what you’
re saying.” She grabbed my upper arm and pulled me toward the fifth-floor entrance. “Take me to your room.”
The floor guard stood halfway as we passed. “Hey.”
“It’s fine, Bob,” I said with a wince as we passed by his station. “Parker is just excited.”
“Mr. Walters dropped this off for you,” he said as he held up a thin manila folder with my name scrawled across the front.
As soon as I grabbed it and mumbled thanks, Parker was tugging me past. She didn’t release me until we were closed in my room. As soon as my door was closed, she demanded, “Tell me this isn’t about your boyfriend.”
“Justin is chained in his basement,” I said. “I need to get him out.”
“Are you out of your mind? He’s chained there for a good reason.” Parker rubbed her necklace absently as if she was assuring herself that the silencing stone was there. “What, do you want your boyfriend dead or something?”
“No. Justin and I have a plan. All I need you to do is get him out, and we’ll do the rest,” I said. “We’re going to get those winged demons out of Brightside once and for all. We know how.”
She rolled her eyes. “All you need me to do is get him past a psychic and the half-demon mage that works for her. It’s a big favor, January. Are you ready to repay something like that?
I crossed my arms. “I’ll pay you.”
“With what? Do you mean the restitution money coming from Sebastian Holter? You really think you can use any of that without it being flagged? They think you’re planning an escape, January.” Parker shook her head. “I’ll need money just to bribe my brothers to let that witch out to take down the wards, and I’m not going to do anything out of my pocket.”
“I have other money.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I knew where a couch full of money was that Justin and Mitch had saved up for their escape from the Hawthorn Group. “Stacks of cash. At least fifty thousand, maybe more.”
Parker looked away and tapped her foot. “Is this some plan to escape the Hawthorn Group, because if it is, I’m not going to get anywhere near this.”
“No. I suspected someone in my group of friends was reporting information about me to the Hawthorn Group, so I planted those bus times in my room while I was hanging out with them to see if it was true. The whole escape plan was a fake, but now that you told me that the Hawthorn Group knows, I know that one of my friends is a snitch. I think it’s maybe Mia. Her dad is a high-ranking soldier in the Hawthorn Group. My other friends are scholarship students whose parents don’t know anything about our world.” A pang of guilt thrummed through me as soon as I finished the words, but I pushed the feeling down. I hated to get Parker involved in something based on lies, but I didn’t see any other choice. Hopefully what she didn’t know couldn’t be used against her.
“Parker.” I did my best to keep my voice even, “You were in that car when those demons attacked. You have to be worried that they’ll find you. Justin and I really do have a plan to get rid of them once and for all.”
She looked away and swallowed hard. “I don’t go out at night.”
She was scared. Parker almost looked like the hardened girl I’d helped in my nana’s house, but her hands were trembling, and her shoulders were slumped down.
“I promise you that Justin and I will get rid of the demons. I just need you to help me get him out before sunset on Halloween.”
Parker nodded. “Maybe I can pull this off, but I’m not promising anything.” She pressed a manicured finger into her forehead. “I need a smoke. I’ll contact you if I can do it, but then I’ll need you to get me the money right away.”
“I’ll have the money.”
She headed for the door but stopped before opening it. “Why do I have a feeling that if I do this for you and Justin, you’ll both end up dead?”
“We won’t die, Parker. Our plan is solid.” Even to my own ears, it sounded like a lie, but Parker nodded and headed out of my room.
The moment she was gone, I glanced down at the package from Mr. Walters. Even though it was probably just more papers that he needed me to sign, I took the manila envelope into the bathroom, climbed into the shower, and pulled the curtain.
Inside the package was a stack of forms, most of them were official copies of the legal forms I’d already signed. Halfway down, I found a revised copy of Sebastian’s speech. On the top right corner, there was a heading that said, Hawthorn Office Suite, Conference Center A. The next line read that the speech was at five PM.
This was the exact information the werewolves asked from me. I had the time of Sebastian’s speech, and I knew where it would be held.
I turned the page and stared down at building schematics. Mr. Walters had provided me with the floor plan of the conference center with all of the exits clearly marked.
Sitting down in the tub, I stuffed the papers back in the envelope and closed it. The information was so clearly gift wrapped for me, I couldn’t help but suspect that all of this was a trap. If I gave this information to the werewolves, Mr. Yates and his HG cronies very well could be waiting just outside my stall. Was it even possible that the stars could align so perfectly? Nothing in my life had ever come this easily. If I was caught passing this information along, I would be charged with conspiracy, treason, and attempted murder, and there would be no getting off this time.
No one would show up and take the blame. I would simply disappear into their system at the whim of Mr. Yates.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
As the wrought-iron gate in front of Amber’s house swung open before Mitch’s muscle car Friday at six sharp, I couldn’t help but feel like we were in the first scenes of a horror movie. The metal was so tightly woven together that it hid the mansion beyond. The three-story colonial had a line of white pillars at its front, striping its dark gray exterior. Intricate metal latticework spanned the façade. It gave off a heaviness like it was the site of some great evil and was now haunted by vengeful ghosts.
Or, maybe I was just in a mood as we pulled up in front of the Davenport’s mansion to find Amber and two men waiting on the wrap-around porch.
Mitch reached for his seat belt and paused, staring over at me. He worked his jaw back and forth. “Sorry for being a dick.”
“When were you a dick?” I asked.
“When wasn’t I a dick?”
I blinked at him slowly. “Where is this coming from?”
“I’m dragging you here, aren’t I?”
“Nope.” I was one-hundred percent here voluntarily in order to protect Mitch from Amber’s poisonous claws. Mitch might say that he was immune to her manipulations, but the fact that we were at this foreboding mansion said otherwise.
Mitch nodded and opened his door, letting in the smell of burnt leaves and the chill of the autumn air.
The last thing I wanted to do was follow Mitch. It felt as if the palpable heaviness of the looming house was literally weighing me down, but I took a steadying breath and stepped out of the car. Mitch waited for me before the porch, as if he didn’t want to enter without me or didn’t want to leave me behind.
A man met us halfway with his hands held out. “Mitch! My boy!” he exclaimed as he wrapped Mitch’s giant frame in an embrace. “Welcome back!”
Mitch suffered the embrace with stiff shoulders. “Mr. Davenport.”
“None of this Mr. Davenport business between old friends. You know to call me Lou.” Mr. Davenport patted Mitch’s back as he pulled away and turned to me. “That goes for you too, young lady. I’m Lou. It’s so nice to meet you.”
I tried on a smile, though it felt as rigid as Mitch’s shoulders. Mr. Davenport didn’t look much like his daughter. Instead of flame-red hair, his was a golden wheat color that hadn’t been touched by age. He looked as if he was in his early thirties, even though his son waiting on the porch was likely in his mid-twenties. Lou clearly had a rigorously maintained lean physique and a face that reflected a life without worry, that, or extensive surgical enhancement.
Instead of asking to embrace me, Lou Davenport moved in like a snake, wrapping me up in his lean but strong arms before I could object. The hug was thankfully short, and I just kept my arms at my side before stepping back.
“Welcome, welcome. You’ll have to forgive my exuberance. Amber never wants to bring her friends around the house anymore.” He beamed over at me, standing so close that I could smell his spicy cinnamon toothpaste.
I sidestepped the man and backed toward Mitch. “Thank you for inviting me. Sorry I didn’t realize this was dressy.”
Mitch clearly forgot to tell me that his dinner was a formal thing, and he was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. Both men were in a suit, and Amber wore a cocktail dress. But something about the way Lou Davenport hovered over me made me thank my lucky stars that I was in a baggy, paint-stained sweatshirt and equally baggy jeans.
Lou’s hands settled on my shoulders. “I’m sure my daughter has something you can change into.”
“Uh…” I stepped away from Lou’s hands, and almost as if we rehearsed it, Mitch stepped in to take my place, managing to get between the Davenport patriarch and me.
“January’s outfit is fine. We probably can’t stay long, anyway.” Mitch nodded into the house. “I’m wearing jeans.”
“Us men can get away with looking like slobs, but girls should look nice.”
“January does look nice,” Mitch insisted. “She’s fine.”
Clearly, along with being a creep, Mr. Davenport was a sexist pig. I had a choice of calling Lou Davenport out on his blatant misogyny or staying silent and playing along while my insides roiled. Even though the first choice was oh, so tempting, I just wanted to get this night over with, and I needed to get away from the older man’s casual touches.
Lou chuckled and nodded to his daughter. “Amber.”
Amber leaned against the porch railing, and her gaze fixed on mine. It could have been that my perspective on her had shifted, but she seemed off. People were usually more comfortable in their house, but she was anything but at ease. “January. Won’t you come with me?”
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