Hell High

by Cindi Madsen

  Bile rose in my throat, and for what seemed like the hundredth time since I’d arrived in this godforsaken place, I fought the urge to puke.

  Dad gestured to the man with the gun. “You really want him to get away with that? And what about the boss who sent him to do it? A man, I might add, who’s given dozens of kill orders like this one. Men, women, and children—doesn’t matter to him, as long as he keeps making money.”

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t pull my gaze off the blood pouring from the giant hole in the eradicated witness’s head, his one lifeless eye facing the screen. I wrapped my arms around my waist and dry heaved.

  “I can show you worse,” Dad said. “Much, much worse. A side of humanity that you don’t even know exists.”

  I took a shaky step back. “No need. I get it.” Not only did I get it. I wanted the shooter and his boss to get what was coming to them. If they’d killed innocent people, they deserved to burn in Hell. Deserved chains and spikes and blades.

  “Perhaps you want to see what your fellow Tempter Training classmates have done,” Dad said, tapping a key that made the image on the screen fade. “After you find out what they’re capable of, we’ll see how much of your sympathy remains.”

  I adamantly shook my head. “I don’t want to see anymore. There are bad people out there; I know that. Unlike you, though, I didn’t take any pleasure in what you showed me.”

  “Yes, but tell me you don’t hate that man. Tell me that you wouldn’t like to see the man who beats his wife get what’s coming to him.” Dad abandoned the controls and walked toward me. “You probably even hate me for showing you those scenes.” He leaned closer, taunting me and basking in my misery. “I can feel it coming off you. Don’t fight it.” The toes of his shoes hit mine as he put his face in mine. “Let it wash over you, my dear.”

  I shoved him in the chest, pushing him away from me.

  And he smiled. Smiled!

  My hatred grew, and my hands formed fists, the desire to hit him overwhelming my system. He’d probably still grin like the demented villain he was, but it’d be so satisfying.

  Fuming, I charged out of the room and stormed up the stairs, not stopping until I was safe inside my room.

  A tiny part of me wished I would’ve stayed and found out what my classmates had done. Namely what Tristan had done. Dad would’ve found a way to use it against me, though. Besides, Temptress Training was torturous enough without knowing every bad thing the people surrounding me had done.

  Surely Tristan hadn’t done anything truly awful. He seemed too nice for that, even when he hated my guts.

  But why would he be here then?

  And why, after all I’d just seen, did my thoughts automatically go to him?

  Fifteen

  Having two days off from Hell High was nice, but it wasn’t like I had anything to do. I just moped around the house. Then school started again, and I drifted from class to class, doing my best to ignore everyone.

  Big surprise, no one tried to talk to me.

  But once in a while Tristan’s eyes would meet mine. His hostility faded with each passing day, and as pathetic as it was, the times he held my gaze for a couple seconds before looking away were always the highlights of my day.

  Since I couldn’t deal with the emotional ups and downs the boy put me through, I told myself that no matter what, I wouldn’t get wrapped up in him again, even for a second.

  The goal remained the same as when I first arrived: survive my year and return to Earth and the people I cared about.

  By the time Friday rolled around again, I was just glad another week was behind me.

  I walked into the castle and tossed my backpack off to the side. As usual, when I passed the large archway of the living room, Dad sat in his wingback chair, flipping through file folders.

  I quickly looked away, eyes on the prize—AKA not having to talk to him.

  “Is your plan honestly to simply ignore me forever?” Dad asked, setting aside his folders.

  Nothing about him was simple or honest. I sighed, nice and loud so he’d get how much I didn’t want to have this conversation. “Not forever. Just 353 more days. And then forever after that, but at least I won’t have the forced proximity issue.”

  Dad leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. The fact that he wasn’t wearing a tie and had a couple of buttons undone meant he didn’t have any important meetings outside the castle today. “What am I supposed to do? Is it so bad that I want to get to know my only daughter? You know, you’re one in a million. I’m not exaggerating. It was about that many women before—”

  “Could we always, always skip that part of the conversation? Jeez!”

  He steepled his fingers and placed them underneath his chin. “All I’m saying is that you’re an anomaly. I was never meant to have a child. But I’m glad I had one, and I’m glad you’re finally here with me for more than a few weeks. However…” He straightened and morphed into the threatening, stern man everyone around here bowed to. “I will only take so much of your disrespect. Any father would draw the line somewhere, and I’ve been very lenient.”

  I crossed my arms. “Okay, so maybe I haven’t been very nice, but was showing me all those horrible images really your idea of good parenting?”

  “I was showing you that your world—the world you can’t wait to get back to—isn’t such a great place. You needed to know.”

  “I know the world has bad in it. That doesn’t mean I want to see it. But my little world with Mom, Hailey, and Dom, it was a good place to be. I liked it there. I miss it and them every day. I don’t have any friends here.”

  Dad’s forehead crinkled as if that were odd, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought I shouldn’t care about friends or if he was truly surprised people weren’t attracted to my magnetic personality. “What about Charon?” he asked.

  “Grim? He’s great, but he’s missing half his face and ferries people to Hell. He’s not exactly cheery. And it’s not like we can sit around braiding each other’s hair.”

  “Abigor would give you anything you asked for.”

  The mere mention of his name caused that dark soul-sucking feeling to creep across my skin, and goose bumps came along for the ride. “All he cares about is the way I look and that I have power. He doesn’t even know me.”

  “That never stopped you with Dominic.”

  I clenched my jaw, hot bursts going through my bloodstream while sorrow bound my lungs. And Dad wondered why I’d ignored him all week. “Dom knew me, and he cared about me. Maybe I accidentally influenced him once, but he’s not even close to Abigor.”

  “If you say so,” Dad said in that annoyingly calm voice.

  “I do. And I want to call him right now. He’s probably wondering why I haven’t already. At least let me say a short hello. To him and then Hailey.” I brought my hands together. “Please, Dad. I just need to talk to my friends.”

  “I will take you to the tech room, and if after you’ve seen what I have to show you, you still want to call them, you can.”

  I smelled a trap, but the bait was too alluring to walk away from. I narrowed my eyes at him, wishing I could pull information out of him like he’d done to me. “What do you mean, if? Of course I’ll want to call them.”

  Without answering, he started down the hallway of doom. A sense of dread rose as I followed him, and this time it wasn’t even because of the macabre pictures.

  Dad hesitated by the door. “Are you sure you want to go in here again? Since our last visit inside, you’ve hardly said a word to me.”

  “Are you going to show me more murders?”

  “I’ll only show you your friends, and then I will hook up the satellite phone. If you want me to.”

  There was that damn if again. Still smelled like a trick, so I tried not to let the excitement tumbling through me gather too much steam. But I couldn’t help it. A chat with Dom and Hailey was exactly what I needed. I’d talk to my real friends, get the reminder I s
o desperately needed that not everyone loathed me with the fire of a thousand hellacious suns, and then I’d use that to help me get through another week.

  Once inside the room, Dad spoke loud and clear. “Bring up Dominic Vargas.”

  His image appeared on the screen, and as usual, he looked smokin’ hot. I wanted to reach out and run my hand over his stubbled cheek and inhale his leather-jacket-and-motorcycle-fumes scent.

  Words appeared on the screen underneath his profile pic.

  Weaknesses: smoking, gambling, beautiful women, thrill seeking.

  “You were the last three all wrapped into one,” Dad said.

  I crossed my arms. “Nothing about me says thrill. And I’m not a gamble.”

  Dad waved his hand through the air. “You exude a certain dangerous quality. And you asked him to run away with you. Not that he remembers that part.”

  “We had something,” I said, trying to convince myself now.

  “Oh, and he took a gamble asking you out, when most other guys had struck out with you, not to mention his womanizing reputation. He was also gambling that if he bided his time, you would eventually have sex with him. But he also has a lot of gambling debt from online poker and the like.”

  Ugh, the urge to face punch Dad was back. Every dude gambled a woman they were seeing would eventually sleep with them. Unless they were into dudes, and then that was a gamble as well. Dating was one big gamble. No, it wasn’t great that he was in debt from all the online poker—he’d told me it was a video game with “fake cash,” and I did my best to suppress the thread of irritation that he’d lied to my face.

  “This is the day after you left,” Dad said.

  Dominic sat with his friend, Will, playing video games. Will kicked out his foot, bumping his sneaker into Dom’s motorcycle boots. “Dude, snap out of it. Yeah, Lily was hot, but did you ever even tap that?”

  Dom’s thumbs continued to press buttons on the PlayStation controller. Poor guy did look pretty sad, all mopey and cute, and I’d like to smooth that crinkle between his eyebrows. “I was about to,” Dom said, “but then she had to leave.”

  “And you still couldn’t close the deal? Lame.” The round of their game ended, and Will tossed his controller aside. “I could get some girls over here. Remember Jasmine? She keeps asking about you.”

  The feed sped up. A group of girls arrived. One of them—Jasmine, assumedly—went into the bedroom with Dom. She kissed him, and I hoped he’d push her away despite us technically being broken up or on a break or whatever it was when someone was forced to leave and closure wasn’t an option.

  At first he didn’t participate in the kiss, but then he wrapped his arms around her and their mouths began moving together.

  Clothes started coming off, forming a quickly growing pile on the floor.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I said, doing my best to ignore the toxic churning in my belly.

  Dad used the fast-forward motion, skipping ahead large segments at a time. “This is a few days later.”

  A different girl appeared on the screen, making out with Dominic, and they were really going at it, hands groping, tongues tangling.

  “And this is from a couple hours ago…”

  Hailey and Dom sat in Hailey’s bedroom, on the foot of Hailey’s bed. He curled his hand around her knee, and she curled closer and batted her eyes at him.

  No. They’re just comforting each other. They’re—

  Hailey initiated the kiss, and like last time I thought he’d pull away or she would and at least one of them would protest.

  But then the clothes started coming off, and it was a naked-bodies wreck I couldn’t look away from. An awful repeat of what’d happened with the two other girls.

  Only the girl in this scene was supposed to be my best friend.

  “That is your friend, Hailey, right?” Dad asked as if he didn’t know. “Well, at least they waited almost two weeks. Almost,” he softly repeated, and the words stabbed deeper. He paused the feed and turned toward me. “I’m sorry, Lily, but you were an adventure and a quest. A thrill. Don’t get me wrong, Dominic didn’t want you to leave town, but as you can see, he has a weakness for women. Most anyone will do.”

  “Don’t say any more,” I said, my throat painfully tight with too many emotions. “It wasn’t like that. He didn’t even…” My voice cracked as the world I thought I knew unraveled at my feet.

  “Didn’t even what? Do anything but talk about your looks and your body, spend every second kissing you and pushing his physical limits?” Dad tilted his head and gave me a condescending expression that screamed poor naive Lily.

  “Trust me, I know guys, and that’s about all they think about. Sure, there’s caring about someone, too, but…” Dad clamped his lips together and shook his head. “I didn’t do this to be mean. I only thought you should know.”

  Tears pricked my eyes and, refusing to let him see me cry over what he’d shown me, I fled the room. I charged down the hall and pushed out the door of the castle. With no destination in mind, I ran until my lungs hurt worse than my heart.

  I didn’t expect Dom to wait for me forever. But I thought he’d truly cared about me. That I’d been more than a blip on his girl radar.

  And Hailey.

  Unless she’d lied to me, that was her first time. She’d lost her virginity to my boyfriend.

  When my legs threatened to give out, I stopped where I was and flopped down on the dusty gray ground. I gasped for air and hugged my knees to my chest. Intense loneliness settled over me, like a thick fog I’d never be able to find my way out of.

  My friends had already moved on.

  My mother never would completely, but she’d go on living her life, the ache of missing me dulling with time.

  A crow cawed as he swooped overhead and settled on the nearest tree, the grating noise fitting for my mood. Crows were right up there with water and spiders on my avoid-at-all-costs list. They were the only birds in Hell, and they were super sinister. They’d sit on a branch and stare at you like they wanted you to hurry up and die so they could pick the flesh off your bones.

  I was contemplating moving, simply to avoid being eyeballed by a hungry purgatory bird, but footsteps and voices drew my attention. I glanced toward the noise, and my heart sank. Tristan and three other guys I recognized from the training program were walking in my direction.

  I sniffed, preparing to plaster on an I-don’t-care-if-you-ignore-me face.

  Tristan spotted me and slowed, his apprehension obvious. The short brunet dude next to him looked at me, his eyes going wide. “Is that…?”

  Tristan clapped him on the shoulder. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  The group of boys walked on by, gawking at me as they did so, and then Tristan came over and sat next to me. “Nice view.”

  I stared out at the flat and dreary landscape, one pathetic deformed tree the only thing breaking it up. I didn’t think I could make a joke about it without crying, so I just nodded.

  The dim light from the sky lit up Tristan’s dirt-streaked face. His arms were streaked, too, and his hands were raw. Obviously he’d been doing some kind of physical labor.

  I dug the toe of my used-to-be-pink Vans in the dust, creating a small circle design as I tried to think of something to say. Just sitting next to someone, regardless of how few words were spoken, at least made me feel like I wasn’t completely alone in the universe.

  Tristan leaned back, bracing his hands on the ground, and shot me a sidelong glance. “It’s getting to you, isn’t it? This place?”

  I nodded. “How can you tell?”

  “It’s been five whole minutes and you haven’t said anything sarcastic, even when I set you up with the scenery bit.”

  I snickered.

  Then promptly started to cry.

  Embarrassment washed over me in a wave, and I dropped my head in my hands, trying in vain to get the tears to stop.

  Tristan placed his hand on the ce
nter of my back. He didn’t say anything, simply sat there beside me until I pulled it together.

  I sniffed. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Don’t. People here get depressed from time to time.”

  “Gee, I wonder why. Maybe it’s the whole eternal-damnation motif they decided to go with. Me, I’d add a smidge more color. Maybe plant some trees that actually have leaves, get one of those art pieces people say are brilliant, in spite of never being able to tell you what makes them so great…”

  A teasing of teeth flashed white against the drab background as a smile curved his lips and brought out an adorable indentation in his cheek. “There’s the humor I was waiting for.” He nudged me with his elbow. “I knew it was still in there somewhere.”

  Tingles broke out across my skin and settled over the spot where my heart began to beat again. For half a second I felt like a hypocrite, getting upset about Dom when I was sitting here flirting with Tristan. But okay, flirting, not jumping into bed with.

  That thought brought a shirtless image of Tristan to mind, and the temperature grew even warmer. All my blood rushed to the spot where his palm had settled on my back, and I twisted toward him. My gaze dipped to the pouty lips I’d admired before. They looked soft and completely kissable. All I would have to do was lean forward the tiniest bit and—

  “Lilith? Lilith, are you out here?”

  I jerked away, my blood running cold at Abigor’s too-familiar voice. Obviously he was out here looking for me. And seriously, how many times had I asked him to call me Lily?

  “Thanks for the chat,” I whispered to Tristan, “but it sounds like I’ve got to go.”

  I stood and could barely make out Abigor’s outline in the darkness. I power walked in his direction, wondering if my influence was strong enough to make someone like him go away. “I’m right here.”

  Abigor rushed over and yanked me into a bone-crushing hug. “Oh, thank all that is evil. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  “My home isn’t here,” I said, but he either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore it.