by S. L. Stacy
“Yes, I know, she’s your cousin, but flying’s faster, and that’s what she needs right now.” Ignoring Max’s sputtered protests, Victoria whisks the psychic girl out the door. I take one last look at the draped cage, now silent and unmoving, before going into the hall.
Locking up behind us, we race back through the kitchen and the living room. Victoria yanks open the glass door and carries a limp, mumbling Vanessa out onto the balcony. Max and I start for the front door.
“Not that way. Take the fire escape,” Victoria says as her wings unfurl. She takes off like a white bullet into the air. Without even a glance back at me, Max runs down the fire escape. I’ve only just placed a foot on the first unstable rung when a familiar voice behind me stops me cold.
“Oh, Siobhan,” Sigma Iota Sam says, shaking his head in disappointment. “Just what is it that you think you’re doing? The Fearless One wasn’t done with her, and now you and your friends have gone and taken her away from him. Tsk-tsk. He’s not going to be pleased.”
“The Fearless One?” I say through a shaky laugh. “You have to be a pansy to worry about the ramblings of a nineteen-year-old girl.”
Sam scowls, red hair flaming in the setting sun. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, you little bitch.”
“You won’t have to,” I assure him, turning and flying down the fire escape, trying to ignore the ominous sway it gives with each quick step. I trip as a hand grabs the back of my shirt, dragging me back up.
“I’m not letting you get away that easily,” he hisses in my ear, forcing his arms around my back like he’s got me in handcuffs. I struggle against his grip. “I’ll lock you up and wait for the Master to deal with you.”
“I thought Jasper was your Master. You minions are a fickle bunch.”
Sam slaps a hand over my mouth. “Quiet. I really don’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no other choice. I thought we were friends. We stood up to the Alpha Rhos for you. We helped you with the sex tape. You should have joined us when you had the chance—” He falters, jumping at the sound of tearing fabric. While Sam has been scolding me, I’ve summoned my wings, which shoot through the rips in my shirt, forcing Sam to lose his grip on me and stumble backwards. I spin around, freeing my dagger at the same time and brandishing it in the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the Greek letters of Psyche’s name engraved in the hilt emitting a brilliant white glow.
“Stay back,” I warn him.
Sam throws back his head, howling with laughter. “It takes a hell of a lot more than a baby with a butter knife to scare me off.”
“Fine. Then come and get me.” My voice is confident and steady while my insides churn with fear. When Sam lunges for me, I channel all of that anxiety into giving my wings a giant flap, lifting myself into the air. I can’t fly as high up or as fast as Victoria, but it’s enough to launch me over Sam’s head as he reaches for empty air.
“Where did you—” He looks around in confusion, finally finding me hovering in the air behind him.
“Let’s try that again,” I say, cringing.
Breathing hard, Sam straightens up. “You might be quick. But you’re fragile. You’ll never be as strong as me. You can’t win this.”
“I’m doing a pretty good job so far—” My words are cut off as Sam flings himself into me like a football player, knocking me out of the air. I scream as my neck and head crack against the concrete floor of the balcony. Sam crushes the entire length of his body into me, keeping my legs and arms down.
“What did I tell you?” Spit splashes my face as he talks. “You. Can’t. Win—”
Letting out an ugly grunt, I free one of my legs and thrust my knee into Sam’s groin. His grip on me slackens as he doubles over, eyes scrunched up in pain. I wriggle the hand holding the dagger out from under him and push upward with that too, lodging it straight into his abdomen and pulling it out just as swiftly.
“That was for calling me a baby,” I tell him. Crying out, Sam rolls off of me, face contorted in pain as he clutches his stomach. Blood seeps out of the wound, staining his suit and dripping onto the concrete. “This is for Vanessa.”
With Sam lying helplessly on the ground, I feel tall and imposing as I tower over him, bringing the dagger down again. He screams as metal meets flesh and muscle. As I crouch over him, the shield pendant dangles outside of my shirt, pulsating and radiating with glee.
“And this is for Genie,” I continue. “And this is for Carly.” After that, I run out of people to avenge, but I keep on stabbing him, losing track of where the dagger strikes, relishing the sounds of Sam’s sobs as he moans my name over and over again, begging me to stop. I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Not even when he grows silent.
Not even when his body goes limp.
“That’s enough!” Victoria’s arms encircle me from behind. I’m just swinging the dagger back for another round when she pulls me off of him, and its blade sends a shower of blood onto the floor. “I think you got him!”
“I…I…” Emerging from my bloodthirsty daze, I look at the dagger, the ground, Sam, then down at myself: Everything is covered with Sam’s warm, scarlet blood. The necklace settles against my skin, cool and lifeless once again. Tears burn behind my eyes. “No. No, no, no, no, no—”
“It’s okay,” my big sister assures me. “You were just defending yourself.”
“Maybe at first, but then I—I lost control somehow.” I wrench out of her arms and crawl frantically toward Sam’s disturbingly still body. “What have I done? Oh, God, what have I done?”
“I know this looks…bad, right now, but it will be fine. I promise. He can’t be dead, remember? He’ll be horribly disfigured for a while, but he won’t die.”
Unconvinced, I feel around his throat for a pulse. When I can’t find one, I hold my hand underneath his nose, like I did with Anna. Only this time, there’s nothing.
“He’s not breathing, Victoria!” I shriek, feeling sick.
“Here,” Victoria sighs, kneeling beside him. Amber eyes narrowing in concern, she sits silently for a moment, telepathically prodding him for signs of life.
Her jaw drops slowly, her eyes widening in disbelief. “No. It can’t be.” Her eyes swing from the dagger, to me, then back to Sam. “He’s dead. But that can’t be!” Victoria holds my gaze for a moment, and what I see there—Victoria’s never looked at me like this before, fascination mixing with horror on her angular face. She mutters something under her breath. I can’t be sure, but I think it’s something like, “What are you?”
“We have to go.” Victoria says it so abruptly that I wonder whether I just imagined the strange look, the terrified whisper. She takes my arm, dragging me toward the fire escape.
“What about Sam’s…body?” I say reluctantly. “We can’t just leave it—him—here.” But when I look back over my shoulder, Sam is gone, and there isn’t a trace of him left, not a drop of blood or a strand of red hair anywhere on the balcony or—I glance down—on myself. Like he was never here at all. I think back to a few weeks ago—to Farrah snapping her fingers, saying, When an Olympian dies, she simply vanishes. Same goes for the demigods. We don’t have souls.
Vanessa’s prophecy…
“This is impossible,” I gasp, knees giving out from underneath me. “Genie didn’t just disappear like that!”
“Genie wasn’t quite done transitioning,” Victoria reminds me.
“So what happened to her?”
She sighs reluctantly. “Her body started decomposing, like a human’s would. As for what was left of her soul—if there was anything left—it went where all of the other souls go, only it couldn’t be recycled.”
“Okay, now what about Sam? Where did he go?”
“He’s gone, Siobhan—”
“You can’t just vanish like that! He has to be somewhere. What about the law of conversation of mass?”
“No more questions,” Victoria pleads with me, tugging on my arm. “We have to hurry. Someone else is on the way.”
But, even though this explanation sounds as logical as anything, I know in my gut it’s not true. Maybe I was in some sort of daze, but it wasn’t like last time, when he made me slit my own throat—I couldn’t feel his presence inside of me. It was all me. I killed Sam.
And I liked it.
I shake myself in hopes it will siphon off my growing sense of dread. I didn’t like killing Sam! That’s ridiculous. I’m being too dramatic. I’ll feel better once we’re back at the house—once I’ve had some food, a shower and a nap.
Later, as we’re walking up the Greek Quad, I realize I won’t get that shower or nap anytime soon. There really is no rest for the wicked.
“Can I help you?” Victoria asks the group of four people poised to knock on the door to our house. One of them is Samantha Carson. I forget the names of the other two women, but they’re familiar faces: One is the dean of students, the other the director of Greek life. I have no idea who the man is, except that he’s wearing a campus security uniform.
“You’re Victoria, president of Gamma Lambda Phi?” the director says. When Victoria nods, she continues, “We need to talk to you about a missing—”
“Where is she?” Samantha interrupts her, grabbing two fistfuls of Victoria’s shirt and shaking her violently. “Where’s Rebecca?”
Chapter 27
Victoria just stands there, lips flapping like a fish’s out of water, letting Samantha shake her.
“Lay off!” I finally shout, beating Samantha’s hands out of the way as the dean and the director pull the two girls apart. “We don’t know where Rebecca is! We didn’t even know she was missing!”
“She does,” Samantha insists, ducking out of the dean’s arms and pointing at Victoria. “Tell them. Tell them where you’re keeping her!”
“I told you, she doesn’t—”
“Why don’t you let your big answer for herself,” Samantha says with a sneer.
“Victoria, tell them.” Doubt creeps into my tone when Victoria turns her back to me, head hanging. “Tell them you don’t know what they’re talking about!”
“Let’s talk about this inside,” the director says. Keeping one wary eye on Victoria, I slide my card key into the lock and hold open the door for them. Farrah, Athena and Apate look up from where they’re standing in the middle of the room, bickering amongst themselves, as we file inside. None of them seem to notice Harriet sitting at the dining room table, consumed with knitting what appears to be a yellow scarf. I feel as though all of the air has been knocked out of my lungs.
This couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“Can I help you?” Farrah asks sweetly, cutting off something Apate was about to say. She sticks out her hand to the dean. “I’m Farrah, the girls’ house mother.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” the dean says curtly, giving Farrah’s hand a stiff shake and her red pleather pants and black halter top a judgmental once-over. She looks over at Athena, whose athletic body is squished into one of Farrah’s slinky dresses. “And you are…?”
“A visitor from…Headquarters,” Athena says, her own smile uneasy. “We’re just checking in with all of our chapters this week—to see how the year’s progressing.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re here.” Eyes darting around the living room, the dean saunters right past Apate like she doesn’t even see her lurking there, grinning impishly. Apate gives me an exaggerated wink. “You see, we’ve been hearing a lot of nasty rumors about the Gamma Lamba Phis lately—especially one circulating around The Grapevine.”
“I didn’t think the administration kept up on trivial campus gossip,” Farrah says.
“I wouldn’t call the safety of our students trivial,” the dean snaps, whirling around.
“Look, Farrah,” the director says reasonably, stepping forward, “a graduate student in the history department went missing a few weeks ago. He was last seen at your house. One of your sisters goes missing during rush. Then, just a few days ago, the Alpha Rhos report their own Rebecca Grey disappeared. We’re not accusing you of anything, of course,” she emphasizes, although the dean flashes her a look that says otherwise. “We’re just trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle. Figure out what happened.”
“You’re not accusing us of anything?” Athena keeps her tone light, but there’s a fierce glint in her dark eyes. She doesn’t need her armor or weaponry to make the director, the dean and the police officer cower. “The way the four of you came barging in here, it certainly doesn’t feel that way. I’m not sure what you propose to do while you’re here. And, until you have more substantive evidence than a few flimsy threads of campus gossip, I suggest you leave.”
“They know where she is!” Samantha protests, sounding on the verge of hysteria. “I know they do!”
“We do not, child. And we would like to help you find your sister. But I do not appreciate this matter being…thrust upon us without any prior warning—” Athena falters as a few desperate bangs resound from the basement below.
“That’s just the pipes—” I start to explain, my voice weak and lacking conviction.
“I told you!” Samantha yells over me, bolting toward our basement stairs. “She’s here! Rebecca! Rebecca!”
“Miss Carson! Wait!” the director cries, fleeing after her. She’s followed by the dean, then the campus cop, whose hand is poised at something on his belt. Exchanging alarmed looks, Athena and Farrah hurry after them. Victoria and I bring up the rear.
“Where is she?” Samantha runs back and forth across the basement, looking under furniture and throwing open closet doors. “I know she’s down here. We all heard her! Rebecca! Rebec—”
“Samantha! Stop this,” the director says, trying to follow Samantha’s erratic trajectory around the basement. “She’s not down here.”
“She has to be.” Pausing in the middle of the room, Samantha’s shoulders fall in defeat. She sniffs back tears. “It was the Gammas. They took her.”
“Look around you.” The director’s arm sweeps the room. Every closet gapes open, empty except for storage boxes and cleaning supplies. “There’s no one down here but us. And they are right. We shouldn’t have just barged in like this.” She pushes Samantha toward the stairs and catches the dean’s gaze. “Let’s go.”
“This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” the dean says, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “We’ve scheduled a special Panhellenic Council meeting for tomorrow morning to discuss your chapter’s recent…misbehavior.” She looks between me and Victoria. “Nine a.m. Engelmann Room in the Student Union. If you decide not to show up, that will be the end of Gamma Lambda Phi at Thurston University.”
“This really isn’t necessary—” Farrah tries to argue.
“Nine a.m. Sharp.” Turning on her heel, the dean of students clops up the stairs. Dropping his hand from his holster in disappointment, the cop trails along behind her.
Once we hear the front door open and bang shut upstairs, the four of us heave a collective sigh of relief. Apate emerges seemingly out of thin air, puffing out her lower lip in annoyance. “You really owe me now,” she says, gazing at something past me. I look over my shoulder, at one of the open, empty closets.
Only it’s not so empty anymore.
“Rebecca?” I whisper, rushing forward and kneeling beside the girl curled up on the closet floor, ankles and wrists bound with rope, whimpering around the gag in her mouth. I remove the gag and claw at the tight knots in the rope with my nails. My body tenses, preparing for Rebecca’s screams for help, but she just smiles weakly, tears bleeding down her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she croaks.
“What is this?” Farrah demands with quiet fury.
&nbs
p; “Oh, Victoria,” Athena gasps. “What have you done?”
“I just—I thought they took Carly!” Victoria wails, crouching beside me. “I only wanted to get some answers! I wasn’t going to hurt her!” She reaches to help me with the knots, flinching when I slap her hand away.
“I’ll handle this,” I grumble, successfully loosening the rope around Rebecca’s wrists.
“Siobhan, I wasn’t going to hurt her. I swear.”
“Tell her that,” I snap, pausing to give Victoria the full force of my rage. “We just saw what Eric did to Vanessa. Now I find out you’ve done the same thing.”
Victoria looks down at the floor. “It’s not the same—”
“Yes. It is.” I busy myself with the rope at Rebecca’s ankles. “You were right. You’re just like the rest of them.” I don’t bother looking up to see what kind of effect my words have on her. I don’t really care.
“Take her upstairs,” Farrah orders. A moment later, Athena comes up behind us and helps Victoria to her feet. I hear them walk up the stairs.
Once I’ve freed Rebecca, Farrah puts an arm around her, coaxing her to stand up. “Go on up,” Farrah tells me. “I’ll take it from here.”
Nodding reluctantly, I turn and make myself walk, my legs feeling like dead weights. Apate is, once again, nowhere in sight, but I stop short when I see Harriet keeping to the shadows by the stairs. She holds her knitting needles in one hand, her unfinished scarf in the other. Except for her large, curious brown eyes, her expression is, as always, unreadable.
“Everyone needs to just stop with the lurking,” I mutter, then cock my head toward the steps. Harriet follows me up.
“Is there anything I can do to—to help?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head. “It’ll be okay. It’s not…usually like this around here.” I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince—her or myself. The way my voice is wavering, I’m probably not convincing either one of us. Strength of the mind, body and heart, my ass. At Gamma Lambda Phi, cowardice and desperation are the new normal.
***