Shunned: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Hazel, I don’t think I’ve introduced you.” Trey indicated his friends with a lazy wave of his hand. “This is Barclay, Arthur, Kenneth, Rupert, and Paul. That’s Mary, Paul’s girlfriend, and Nancy. She’s—”

  “Head cheerleader and captain of the school debating team,” Nancy said, standing up to lean across the table to shake my hand. Her grip was firm and surprisingly warm. “Welcome, Hazel, Greg, Andre.”

  Greg, Andre, and I exchanged a glance. None of this made any sense, but damned if I wasn’t going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  I took a huge bite of my omelette, Trey’s fingers rubbing warm circles on my back. Beside me, Quinn and Ayaz argued back and forth about some obscure Russian science fiction book they both loved, while Nancy and Mary chatted about the latest collection from some hot designer. Greg chimed in and soon they were chatting like old friends.

  Across the room, Loretta was still sitting with Courtney and her cronies. They bent their heads together, occasionally sending a glare in our direction and then laughing – I assumed the laughter was at my expense.

  A strange mix of hurt and triumph welled up inside me. I was happy Loretta was back, but that meant Headmistress West had told me the truth. There was no conspiracy. There was no plot by the school to kick out scholarship students.

  Or was there?

  Why did it take Loretta only a day to get over her family tragedy? A day was barely enough time to even make it down the peninsula on that death road. And why had she come back sounding like a robot and sitting with the Queens? Why wasn’t she back in our dorm room? What wasn’t Mrs. West telling me?

  Why did the Kings tell me all that stuff if it wasn’t true? Were they trying to scare me again?

  I knew I was missing something important. But what? Why did Loretta’s sudden transformation and my sudden rise to the top dinner table feel like part of a sinister plot?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “So, Hazel, any secrets you’d like to share with the group?” Greg leaned against my locker after the last class of the day, all smiles and sweetness. Behind him, Andre gave me a curious once-over, as if he were seeing me for the first time.

  Something fucked up is going on in this school and it centers around the scholaship program.

  “Nope.” I shoved Greg out of the way and stacked my books on the top shelf.

  “Yes, you do. Like, why we’re suddenly sitting at the monarchs’ table?”

  “You’ll have to take that up with Trey. He seems to be the authority on seating arrangements.”

  “Come on, just tell me,” Greg begged. “You know I’m a gossip whore. This is the juiciest morsel I’ve had all year, and you’re teasing me with it.”

  “I really don’t know, okay? I think it has something to do with Loretta disappearing and suddenly coming back.” I lowered my voice as Loretta and Courtney strode past, arm in arm. Here in the corridor with all the noise, no way would anyone overhear us. “This morning, the Kings told me that there was something sinister happening at this school. They said they’d given me the points so that I wouldn’t be sent away. Apparently, the school kicks out the lowest-performing scholarship student every semester, so by the end of the year there’s only one left. Because I wasn’t the lowest anymore, Loretta was sent in my place.”

  “What?” Greg gasped. Andre’s eyes were wide as saucers. “I was never told that.”

  Andre shook his head.

  “Me neither. It’s gross, but fine, okay. It’s their school, their scholarship program, their rules. But then why is Loretta back? Whatever they did to her, she’s come back completely different.”

  “I’ll say,” Greg’s eyes followed Loretta as she hitched up her skirt another inch. “Did you hear she got a room in the dormitory wing?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Her own private suite with a four-poster bed and ensuite and everything. Maybe her grandparents inherited a fortune from whatever relative just died.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think that’s it. Have either of you managed to talk to Loretta? She’s clearly got a bone to pick with me, but she always had time for both of you.”

  Andre scribbled a note and passed it to me. “I waved to her in physics and she just ignored me,” it said.

  “Same here.” Greg leaned against the lockers. “I know people change when they become popular. I just didn’t think it happened overnight.”

  Greg’s eyes swam, and I know he was thinking of something in his past. Loretta wasn’t the only one who hadn’t divulged many details about their life before Derleth. His eyes followed Loretta as she walked with Courtney toward study hall, her skirt flying up to reveal a pair of lacy black panties. I knew he was wondering what secrets she had sold Courtney in exchange for her friendship.

  Truthfully, I wondered, too.

  “Should we try to talk to her again?” Greg asked.

  “I can’t. I have to go back to my room before my study session with Ayaz,” I rolled my eyes.

  “That project still going on?”

  “Yeah. Our final presentation is the first week of the second quarter, so we’re want to make it perfect now so we don’t have to work over the holidays.” The end of the quarter was only a week away.

  “Okay, catch you at dinner tonight. Andre and I are going to shoot some arrows. I was going to see if you wanted to come, but you’re just too popular for us.” Greg, Andre and I had been heading out for archery every chance we got. Something about the THWACK of arrows smacking into a target that I imagined was Courtney’s face made heading out in the freezing cold worthwhile.

  “I’d hardly call my forced proximity to Ayaz ‘popularity’, but whatever. You guys have fun. If you go out this weekend, I’ll happily join you,” I grinned as I headed back toward the dorms. I made my way down the narrow staircase, flicking the light on once I reached the bottom.

  A dark shape wearing a black robe – a little like an academic dress – fled across the hallway.

  “Loretta?”

  It had to be her. The shape and the clip-clop of heels told me it was a woman, and who else would come down here apart from Loretta? Maybe she came to talk, and I wasn’t here. I leaped down the last three steps. “Hey, Loretta! Stop, please, I just want to talk to you.”

  Black robes billowed out as the figure disappeared into shadow. The storeroom door slammed on its hinges. I raced down the hall, my shoes echoing on the cold stone floor. I yanked the door open and flicked the light switch.

  The dark square of the secret passage gaped back at me. The hidden door was open. Footsteps scrambled up the stairs toward freedom.

  “Loretta? Are you up there?” Without a light, I didn’t dare move from the door.

  Only stony silence answered me.

  My heart pounded in my ears. I had no idea Loretta knew about the passage. Quinn knew about it, but none of the other Queen’s seemed to. It was weird she was using it now, in the middle of the afternoon, when she was supposed to be in class.

  I turned around to head back to my room. My body froze as I noticed a box on top of a stack beside the door. It had been slashed open and the contents pulled out and strewn across the floor. I was so preoccupied with Loretta that I hadn’t even noticed it.

  I bent down and picked up the papers. They were pages and articles cut from newspapers, old and yellowed at the edges. I held up a front page of the Arkham Gazette under the light. The date in the corner was November 1st, twenty years ago.

  TRAGIC FIRE CLAIMS LIVES OF STUDENTS

  A large picture showed a fire blazing from Derleth Academy. Flames billowed from the tower windows, and the stone bridge between the dormitory and the academic wing had collapsed. Smoke obscured the sky, so it was impossible to tell if the image was taken at night or during the day. My fingers flew to the scar on my wrist as I scanned the words of the article.

  Firefighters battled all night to halt the blaze at Miskatonic Preparatory School but were unable to save the lives of the 245 students who were trapped
inside.

  That was weird. The caption called the school a different name, but the building in the picture was Derleth Academy. I recognized the distinctive crenelations on the top of the dormitory tower. In the background, I could just make out the rolling green sports fields. It was definitely Derleth.

  All those dead students… I thought back to what Quinn had said about that tiny graveyard near the pleasure garden. Were they buried there? How could they just start up the school again like this never happened? The whole thing was all kinds of creepy.

  Because it’s a school for rich people, of course. If people like Vincent Bloomberg II and Damon Delacorte wanted the school to remain open, then oceans would part to make it happen.

  The more pressing question was, why had I never heard about this? You’d think a fire killing 245 teenagers at my school was something that might have come up.

  After the scholarship administrator visited me, I did some extensive internet sleuthing about Derleth Academy, trying to find out everything I could. There wasn’t much information – a flashy website and some social media profiles of celebrated alumni – prominent sports stars, philanthropists, writers, politicians, and businessmen I’d never heard of. Nothing about a fire that killed 245 kids. If one kid died at school, it was all over the national news. How did they hide this?

  Maybe that’s why they changed the name – so they could hide the school’s past from the media. But how you could conceal that kind of loss of life from prospective students, especially when so many were legacy students, with family attendance at the school going back decades? I bet half the kids at Derleth today had a relative who’d been immolated in the blaze.

  Jesus.

  I flipped to the next article, expecting to read something about the rebuilding and re-opening of the school, or the change of name policy to distance themselves from the tragedy. Instead, it was an even earlier article from a tabloid about whether or not the school was haunted. Apparently, students had reported odd smells, strange visitations in their beds, and teachers seen walking off in the middle of the night. The article was from a tabloid. It linked all the strange happenings to the school’s original architect, Thomas Parris.

  The bell rang overhead. Shit. I had to book it all the way across campus to get to the library to meet Ayaz. I grabbed a handful of the articles and shoved them under my blazer. I thought about slamming the secret passage shut – it was creeping me out, gaping open like that and sending a crisp chill through the room. But I didn’t want to risk locking Loretta out. Especially since she hadn’t been carrying a light.

  I quickly unlocked my room, grabbed my history books, shoved the clippings inside the cover at the top of the stack, and sprinted back up the staircase and into the dormitory. Courtney and her brood gathered in the middle of the hall, admiring a new necklace her mother sent her. Every time I tried to step around them, one of them would shuffle into my way.

  By the time I made it onto the landing in the atrium, the second bell was ringing. Only a couple of students were still out in the halls, and they scampered. I quickIy glanced up at the class lists, admiring my beautiful new score, courtesy of Trey. If a teacher caught me in the halls, I’d lose three points, and I didn’t want to do that to him after he’d given up his place to me.

  Footsteps echoed on the marble. Someone was coming, someone with the power to take away my points. It took a split second to make the decision. I sprinted across the hall and down the darkened wing, swinging my body around the wide metal staircase toward the gymnasium.

  I noticed light switches on the walls but didn’t dare flick them on, in case the teacher behind me spotted the light and came looking. I knew from seeing a map of the school that the gym was coming up on my left, and if I went directly through it and down another corridor, I’d end up at the back of the library. The teachers had come down here, and none of them wore gas masks, so the contamination couldn’t have been that bad.

  I searched the gloom for obstacles, picking my way carefully down the corridor, using the wall as my guide. My nose itched as a musty, rancid smell wafted over my nostrils. Quinn wasn’t kidding about the toxic odor – it really did smell like rotting meat. I ran my hand along the wall, passing a row of lockers and then a wide rolling wooden door.

  This is it.

  I grabbed the heavy wooden handle and yanked it. The door’s wheels creaked, metal scraping against metal as a cloud of dust billowed up to meet me. I rolled the door open just enough to squeeze through, sucked in a breath of rancid air, and slipped inside the gymnasium.

  The smell slammed into me, punching through my skin and seeping into my pores. It was a hot, fetid ichor that clung to my body like the embrace of a creepy uncle, tugging my throat closed and shriveling the inside of my nose. I gasped for air, but every breath I took only made my body fight the stench more violently. I staggered across the gymnasium, desperate to reach the other side as quickly as possible and get out of here.

  Skylights on the roof cast squares of dull light across the court. My feet zigzagged over painted court lines, kicking up plumes of dust. I clawed at my throat, coughing and retching as I fought for air. Almost there, almost there, no point turning back.

  One skylight illuminated the central circle, where basketball players met for the toss. My old school had one of the best teams in the state, but somehow I couldn’t picture guys like Trey and Ayaz shooting hoops. Foldable tennis nets in front of the bleachers seemed more their style.

  The stench enveloped my body in thick, mucus-like air. I swung my arms and legs, but it was as though I was swimming through molasses. Slowly, achingly slowly, I dragged my weeping, protesting body across the court, scanning the darkened bleachers for the exit I knew was there somewhere.

  Scritch-scritch.

  What’s that?

  I whirled around, straining my ears to listen for the sound I’d heard behind me.

  Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.

  Now it was on the other side. I swung my body back around, just in time to see a low shadow dart behind the bleachers.

  Someone’s here.

  I tried to call out, but all I managed was a choking noise. It wasn’t a teacher, because they’d step right out and admonish me for being where I wasn’t supposed to be. If it was a student, how were they crouching so calmly in the shadows while this infernal odor attacked their nose and lungs?

  Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch. The sound resolved itself. Tiny rat claws scraped against wood, scrambling for purpose.

  It’s nothing to be afraid of, just the same rats you hear every night.

  Only they sounded closer, their scrambling legs echoing in this cavernous gloom, as if… as if they’d escaped the walls and were coming for me.

  Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scriiiiiiiiiiitch.

  Something hot brushed against my foot. I wrenched my leg away, my body twisting and toppling to the ground. My knee cracked against the court, and pain shot up my leg.

  Get up, get up, before they get you. Dust jammed my nose. My eyes wept. I planted my hands on the ground and shoved myself upright.

  Beneath where I’d fallen, a faint light glowed on the floor. At first, I thought it was moonlight shining in from the skylights, it wasn’t late enough for the moon to be that high. The light wasn’t disturbed by my shadow. It seemed to rise up from the floor itself to cast an eerie glow over the central circle, illuminating lines drawn on the court.

  As I watched, gape-mouthed in horror, the light shimmered and drew outward, forming lines that crisscrossed each other to make a five-pointed star and a glowing eye – the same symbol inside the school’s crest.

  Scritch-scritch-scritch. Behind me, the scratching noises grew louder, trilling in my ears as they rolled down from the tops of the bleachers, hundreds of sharpened claws pounding on wood, scrabbling down metal, tiny teeth gnashing as they prepared for the first real snack they’d had in years…

  I strained to see them in the gloom. Shadows crept from beneath the b
leachers, stalking on all fours like animals – dogs with twisted limbs and clicking tongues. But these weren’t dogs, they couldn’t be. They were creatures of dark malevolence that only a diseased mind could conceive.

  This can’t be happening. I have to be imagining this.

  I froze, trapped by the smell and the thick air and the terror of my own mind. Shadows stretched and slithered along the court, and behind them the rats leaped over the bleachers, coming closer, closer…

  One of the shadows reached out long claws toward me, scraping my cheek. I swung my fist in a tight uppercut, my fist connecting with hard bone. The creature grunted and lunged for me.

  I found my voice. I screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The cold fingers wrapped around my throat, pressing into my skin, silencing my scream. Air leaked from my lungs, and my oxygen-starved brain swirled, trying to connect the things I’d seen to the very real and very familiar guy who was practically choking me.

  “Quiet,” Quinn’s voice whispered in my ear. “You’re attracting them. I’m gonna get you out of here, but you have to stay quiet.”

  The fingers slipped from my throat, and I could breathe again, not that it was a relief. Thick arms wrapped around my shoulders and behind my knees, hoisting me off the ground.

  Scritchscritchscritchscritchscritch.

  My body jerked and jostled as Quinn ran across the court. His breath came out in ragged gasps. Shadows danced around us, caressing us with fingers of ice. In the center, the white star glowed bright. The air sucked out of the room, flowing into the star. My lungs burned and I struggled for every breath. Quinn stumbled, but kept fighting, kept walking away.

  When we reached the door, Quinn leaned me against the wall. He wrapped his hands around the handle and pulled. “The door’s stuck,” Quinn groaned, his face straining. “I can’t—”

  The white star glowed behind my eyes, and the whole room exploded with black fire as the shadows consumed it.