“You can stay out here,” Aidan said, his voice low and quiet. “You don’t have to do this.”
I took a deep breath. “No...I really do.” I took hold of the door Rhys offered and pulled it wide to walk through. But the second I moved, a strange feeling came over me. I felt the cool metal handle flare hot and a damp wind gust from within the room of death. And I felt the pulse of magic wrack through my body as the door slammed closed.
CHAPTER THREE
Maddy
The slamming of the door was followed by the jarring click of the lock.
I spun and banged on the metal surface. “What’s going on? Cece? Open the door.” Concern made my voice squeak. “Please?”
“I didn’t...” she shouted, her voice muffled. “The door closed all on its own! I don’t understand what happened, but don’t worry. We’ll get it open.”
While the key jiggled in the lock, I winced at Rhys and took in the squishy white walls topped with a speckled tile ceiling.
“So, this is doomsville,” I said, keeping my voice soft and even. If there was something here we couldn’t see, I didn’t want to…disturb it. My heart rose up in my throat, making swallowing a challenge. “Rather stark accommodations.”
“The padded walls do fit the cover of a Sensory Deprivation Room, don’t you think?” he said.
“Probably.” But why bother? I doubted the magical Council sent inspectors. They could do whatever they wanted with us in here. “How does this place work?” I asked as I plodded across the small space, my sneakers nearly silent on the equally-padded floor. “I thought…” Actually, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d expected to find if I was ever sent here. “I guess I assumed, from the way Cece described it, there would be some sort of obvious device. Or an energy-sucking demon like the one in the basement.” Last night, I’d been haunted by dreams of the demon oozing toward me, its shifting limbs outstretched. Shuddering, I pinched my eyes shut to block out the memory.
“I don’t think you’re far off with that belief,” Rhys said. “My grandfather visited a few times when they were adding the new sections, and he had some interesting stories to share.”
“That’s right. Your family used to own this place.”
“Just the original estate.” He frowned and stared down in thought. “From what I’ve heard, whatever they put inside this space incorporated spells, though I have no idea what kind or their purpose. But it must work on malums since...”
“Good thing it’s out to lunch.” I wrapped my arms around my waist and shivered. “Or wherever it has disappeared to. I’m not eager to let it have a taste.”
“Not while I’m here.” He gripped my arms and his eyes met mine, lending assurance. “To change the subject, since the idea of something draining us in here is much too exciting for me to handle, what was up with the headmaster?”
“He acted as if nothing happened. He should be dead, or somehow merged with the power mass in the basement, yet there he was, behaving like we were students stopping by to chat. Talk about a one-eighty...it was creepy.”
“I expected him to yank our heads off our shoulders or call the keepers to haul us away.”
Frowning, I tapped my chin. “Do you think it was a game, or does he truly not remember?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
While Rhys turned and slumped to the floor beside the door, stretching out his legs, I paced the room. I stopped when faint writing appeared on the wall to my right. So, that’s creepy. Cringing, I tiptoed over toward it. In the short time it took me to reach the wall, the writing disappeared. Or I’d been mistaken when I thought I’d seen it. Turning, I walked to the door and banged on it.
“How’s it going out there?” I called.
Silence reigned on the other side of the panel, and dread cast a pall over my tenuous mood.
“Cece?” Panic shot through my bones. What if we were stuck here?
“What?” she said sharply. “I’m trying! Stop nagging. You sound like your mother.” A thud was followed by, “Jeez, Aidan. Would you stop that?”
“What’s he doing?” I yelled. Did she want me to smack him for her? I’d have no problem carrying out the deed because he irked me. Sure, she seemed to tolerate him, and I had a feeling she might even like him—a little—but if he wasn’t good to her, or if he did anything to upset her, he’d feel the wrath of my beast.
“He’s, um…being extra Aidan-y,” Cece replied with a put-upon sigh.
“You mean he’s being a bossy jerk?” I pressed myself against the door, wishing I could step through.
“Something like that,” she huffed. “Stop worrying about me and let us work on this, okay? Just keep your pants on. And I mean that literally.”
“God, Cece. This isn’t exactly the time or the place.” Growling, I braced my forehead on the door. The cold surface should’ve felt like a balm to my stressed brain, but it only made me feel more freaked out.
Because…room of doom. And…me, malum. Let alone Rhys, who wasn’t malum and could be harmed in here.
The headmaster locked kids up in this room to make us behave. No, to screw with our minds—and to drain our power. While I’d yet to be sent here for ‘sensory deprivation’, it was just a matter of time.
Turning, I dropped down beside Rhys and leaned against his shoulder. His arm slid around my waist, and he sighed.
“Why are we in here, anyway?” I groused. “This was Cece’s idea.”
“Because you’re the type of girl who will charge ahead to save her sister.”
“She’d do the same for me.”
“Yup. And that’s why we’re in here and she’s out there. I’d hoped to find something that would lead us to whatever’s happening at the Reformatory, but nothing’s ever easy at Wadsworth, right? I guess we’ll just have to hang out and soak in the deprivation.”
I laughed, but my cheer faded when I remembered what had happened during breakfast. “What do you think my wonky eye-color change meant?”
“Ah, well, see...” His gaze flitted to me before fleeing. “I think—”
I held up my hand to stop that thought because the writing had reappeared on the wall. Rising, I hurried over to it. It was made up of unfamiliar letters, and I couldn’t read it. I lifted my hand to touch it but jerked it back. What if it was a trick?
I turned to Rhys. “Do you see this? It’s really weird. Writing appeared here on the wall, then disappeared, and—”
A tile slid to the side in the middle of the ceiling, and a crystal sphere about the size of a soccer ball and suspended on a thin silver chain descended from the opening. It halted when it reached eye level.
“I didn’t do it,” I sputtered defensively, pointing at the wall that was—conveniently—blank again. “There was writing over there. I almost touched it, but I swear I didn’t. Then the ceiling opened up and the ball dropped.” Inside, I was worried that I had somehow caused this to happen, though I was clueless as to how I could be to blame. “This has bad news written all over it. If I know this place, the ball will glow and pulsate and start trying to take over the witching world.” After it killed us.
“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Rhys said, walking around the ball to study it from all angles. “In fact—”
There was a pop, and the ball lit up from inside. Fingers of lightning flickered toward the surface, like an LED plasma light you’d buy at the mall as a joke to wow your friends. I had a bad feeling about it.
“You order a disco ball?” Rhys asked. “Just so you know, I’m a crappy dancer.”
“It’s okay,” I said with a shaky laugh. “I can lead.”
He leaned in closer to the ball.
I crept up behind him. “Better watch out. It might attack.”
“Hmm,” he said, frowning, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was made up of some sort of aether.”
“If not aether, then what is it made of?” I tiptoed up beside him, careful not to touch the ball. It swaye
d, though there was no breeze in the room. Even more reason to be wary.
“Not sure, but—”
“What?”
His lips curled down. “Too many of us have been harmed here.”
The device had done something so horrible to Cece that it had nearly killed her. We had to stop it before it hurt someone else, but how?
As if it had heard my thought, the light deep inside pulsed brighter, then winked out.
“Anticlimactic,” I said, though I was grateful it hadn’t done anything. “Maybe it only works when a malum is alone.”
“Bonus for both of us,” he said.
My skin crawling and my heart flopping around behind my ribcage, I crossed to the door and banged on it again. “Cece, seriously,” I called out, “what’s the hold-up?” Why wasn’t the key working?
“I think we’ve got it,” she said. “Aidan’s…”
Doing nothing, as far as I could tell.
Turning, I slumped against the door and scowled when I saw that the writing had reappeared on the wall again. I bumped off the door and strode toward it, pointing. “Do you see that?”
Rhys looked around, his face blank. “I don’t see anything other than us and the ball.”
“It’s right there.” I stopped in front of it. “Writing. Here. On the wall.”
He joined me and stared toward where I pointed. “There’s nothing here, just blank pads like the other three walls.”
“So, I’m either going out of my mind, which fits right in with the need for a sensory deprivation room, or something weird is happening here.” I lifted my hand but still didn’t touch the writing. “You really don’t see it? You’re not just fooling with me?”
He shook his head. “Maybe it’s a message only for you.”
Talk about spooky. The unease spiraling inside me couldn’t be denied, but my curiosity won out in that moment. I traced my fingers across the letters.
A screech rang out in the room so loudly that I clapped my hands over my ears. But the noise broke through and I spun, my hands flopping to my sides. I raced across the room, eager to escape, but I smacked into the opposite wall. Rebounding, I tumbled backward, jarring my spine when I landed on the floor.
Beneath the ball.
As I gulped up at it, the chain holding it in place let loose. It dropped toward me, aiming for my belly. With a grunt, I caught it.
“Okay,” Rhys said, coming over to stand beside me, “that’s an interesting development.”
“Bad news, right?” I rose to my feet, still clutching the ball. Cold sunk into my hands from it, as if I’d grabbed a metal pole in the middle of winter. The iciness surged up my arms, and I worried it would hit my heart and freeze it solid.
Behind me, the door banged open, and Cece, followed by Aidan, tumbled inside.
“You all good?” Cece asked urgently, her gaze sliding down me before returning to the ball. “What the hell?”
“Do you think it’s the secret to doomsville?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“Maybe...but why is it in your hands?”
“I tripped and fell backward and it came right at me and...well, I grabbed it.” Cold crept through my body from the ball. My teeth chattered, and my arms went numb. Time to bail on the ball. “Here,” I said to Aidan. “This thing is…I don’t know what, but I bet you can handle it better than I can.”
I tossed it at him, and he caught it. His face tightened but quickly smoothed into his usual indifferent mask.
“It’s not for me,” he said, handing it to Rhys.
Odd word choice on Aidan’s part.
“Hot potato!” Cece said with a jittery laugh, backing toward the open doorway.
Rhys barely touched the ball before flinging it at Cece. As she caught it, he rubbed his hands together, and pure horror filled his face.
“That’s…” His gaze remained on Cece.
She—strangely enough—had caught the crystalline ball and was hugging it like it had no effect on her at all. The last time I’d seen that soft, vulnerable expression on her face, she’d been sitting on the sofa, fresh from a chewing-out by our dad, with her tattered stuffed giraffe clutched to her chest. She’d just turned ten.
The only difference was that, this time, there weren’t tears in her eyes.
She smiled as she gazed down at the ball, stroking her hand lightly across its smooth surface.
Then it disappeared.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cece
I flew into the classroom five minutes tardy and panting, with the ball that appeared invisible to everyone but me—which we’d figured out after a two-minute argument that had sounded a lot like a ‘who’s on first’ comedy skit. By the time they believed I was still holding it, the class bell had rung, and I was officially late, which was only made worse by the fact that I had zero idea where I was supposed to be.
The teacher looked downright horrified as I stumbled into Witchery for the Western World, invisible ball tucked under my arm, babbling about an unfortunate plumbing incident and the janitor’s non-life-threatening injuries sustained in the clean-up. Not surprisingly, he didn’t ask me any further questions and just let me fumble my way to the back of the room, holding the crystal orb that nobody else could see.
Yeah, I looked totally sane.
I shrunk down into my seat and settled the ball into my lap for further investigation. When I placed my hand on it, I let out a long exhale as I remembered the panicked conversation outside the death room.
“What in the hell just happened?” Maddy asked.
“Where did it go?” Rhys added.
I stared at them like they each had two heads. “What do you mean? I’m holding it right here.”
“Your hands are empty,” Aidan said, a note of concern in both his voice and his energy.
“Seriously. It’s. Right. Here.” I held it out to them, as though that would help. But it wasn’t until Maddy’s fingers brushed against what she thought was empty air that it reappeared to them. I knew because the trio started in unison once it did. Then the bell rang, and I panicked. “What do we do?”
“Take it for now,” Aidan said. The set of his jaw told me he wasn’t excited about the idea. “We’ll figure the rest out later.”
Fast-forward to me sitting at my desk wondering what the fuck we were even thinking taking it in the first place.
I mean, yeah, leaving it there would have been a terrible idea. Maybe the headmaster’s brain was fried, but that didn’t mean his mind couldn’t unscramble at any given moment and remember all that had happened. And even if he had forgotten it, we couldn’t chance another malum being sent in there to feed the blob of energy in the basement. The power source scared the shit out of me, if I was being honest. Making it more formidable seemed like a bad call.
“Not quite sure what we’re going to do with you,” I muttered under my breath as I ran my hand across the smooth, glass-like surface of the object that had stolen magic from malums until, over time, nothing was left of them to take. The object that would have killed me had I not been dragged from the death room before it was too late. My mind knew that I should fear this relic, and yet deep down inside my gut, I didn't. It somehow felt too neutral—too benign.
I frowned as I stared down at it. “Sure would be handy if you were a wee bit more portable.”
The ball turned black before a magenta swirl cut through the interior and the surface began to warm. It shook lightly, and I gripped it tighter for fear it might shoot up into the air and announce its presence to the class. Just as my panic began to rise, it stilled. My shoulders relaxed, and I leaned back in my seat.
Then the ball shrunk to the size of an orange.
“What the—”
“Do you have a question, Celine?” the teacher whose name I still didn’t know asked. He pinned me with a gaze that told me I'd better not have one, and I shook my head.
“Nope. All good over here.”
The teacher turned around to write on the boar
d, and I let out a breath.
“Are you sure you’re ‘all good’, little witch?”
Aidan’s sly voice startled me, and I damn near dropped the ball again—literally and figuratively. I looked to my right to find him sitting in a vacant seat, one he didn’t belong in because he wasn’t a witch, which begged the question…
“What are you doing?” I hissed under my breath. The kid in front of me turned to give me an incredulous look. “Sorry! Not you. Him.” I jerked my head toward Aidan, and the witch’s expression rapidly turned to confusion, then concern. His attention returned to the front of the room without a word. Realization slowly settled on my addled brain, and I stifled a groan.
Aidan was glamoured—and I just looked like the crazy girl talking to nobody.
Fanfuckingtastic.
“Where’s the orb?” he asked, leaning in closer. I sat silently in my chair and tried to drown out his persistent presence by actually listening to the class in progress. Witches were interesting, right? I mean, what wasn’t to like? “You can’t ignore me forever.”
“Watch me,” I whispered as I squeezed the now forest green ball in my hand. The more frustration I felt, the greener it grew, until it was as emerald as the lush New Hampshire countryside in summer.
“I am,” he said, lips at my ear. I turned to face him, and our noses nearly brushed.
I bit back a sly retort, deciding to quietly scoot my desk away from him. I was not about to have an argument with the invisible-to-everyone-but-me fairy in the middle of class. Instead, I turned my attention to the khaki-clad, oxford-wearing teacher and tried to ignore the blue-eyed boy staring at me.
“Because your magic is inherent in your DNA,” Mister whatever-his-name-was explained, pointing to a rather complex-looking diagram he’d drawn, “it is yours to control. It should never, under any circumstances, control you.”
“But Mr. Watson,” a girl in the front of the room said as she raised her hand, “what if you have a spike in power as you age?”
“Well, Lea, that's exactly why we’re talking about this. Adolescence all the way up into the early twenties can be a shaky time for a witch’s power.”
Rogue Reformatory: Broken (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 2) Page 3