Initiated

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Sure is. Ayaz?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Stay with me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.

  As silently as I could, I inserted my key into my door and swung it open, pulling Ayaz inside. The last thing I needed was Greg or Andre waking up.

  The door clicked shut and I was alone in my dorm room with my scritching rats, Ayaz Demir and my pounding heart.

  “This used to be Zehra’s room,” he said, running his fingers along the peeling paint on the wall. His silky voice raised the hairs on my arms. “I cried when I saw it for the first time. She deserved so much better than this. So do you.”

  “This is a palace compared to where I grew up.” I stood at the foot of my bed, frozen in place by the sight of him – those broad shoulders dominating the narrow space, that strong chin pointing directly at me like a dare, a challenge. His warm scent filled my nostrils, curling opium tendrils through my brain, smoothing out any last traces of doubt. I stepped toward him, feeling the room contract, the pull of need tugging us together. “Didn’t you sleep here when you first came to Derleth?”

  Ayaz shook his head. “They didn’t have the official scholarship program then. I was a charity case here on Vincent’s dime, but he still gave me a nice room. No, this madness started after the fire, when they needed the sacrifices. It was all the Eldritch Club’s idea.”

  “Why keep the new scholarship students down here in the dungeon, then?”

  “All of this is supposed to put the charity cases in their place. It’s supposed to be the beginning of what breaks you. But you…” Ayaz closed the space between us in one long stride, his body inches from mine. My skin tingled with heat as his eyes swept over me, his jaw tight with need. “You’ve never stayed where you were put. You’ve never been broken.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I whispered. My arms ached, heavy in their sockets, desperate to hold and to be held. I leaned forward, a moth to my flame, seeking the heat only his touch would provide.

  “This is so fucked up.” Ayaz’s breath fluttering against my lips. “You’re not supposed to want me. Not after everything I did.”

  “Stop being so fucking tempting, then,” I growled.

  We fell against each other, mouths clashing, tongues hunting for the flame. My heart raced ahead, and I clung to him - the only thing keeping me upright. As we fought for purchase against each other’s warm bodies, Ayaz watched me through narrowed eyes – two shards of obsidian between tangled lashes.

  I’m really doing this. Tonight. With a dead boy. With my bully.

  Yes, I fucking am.

  Ayaz’s hands gripped my shoulders, shoving me toward the bed. I bent down to the nightstand, grabbed a condom, and thrust it in his face. “Here.”

  He caught it between his fingers, his eyes wide. “Hazel, what is this?”

  “It’s a condom, obviously. People throw them at me all the time, since I’m the resident whore,” I said. “This is me being sensible.”

  “I’m an edimmu – you can’t get pregnant from someone who isn’t alive.”

  “My mother told me I’m never supposed to take a guy’s word on it.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  I hesitated. Trust. I never trusted anyone, except Greg and Andre. You didn’t trust in my world. Trust got you beaten up or left for dead. Trust left you with debts to pay and only one way to clear them. Trust got your heart stomped on and your hands covered in blood and fire. The only two people I’d ever trusted before were dead.

  After everything I’ve been through, do I trust Ayaz?

  “Yes.” The word was a whisper, a promise. It said a hundred things I couldn’t articulate.

  More than any of the others, Ayaz understood how hard that was for me to say. His trust had been broken, too. He’d been bought and sold between families to further his parents’ ambition. He’d been used by Vincent as a way to torture his own son. He’d been kept from his sister. All his life, he’d been taught that cruelty was the only way to stay on top, to stave off the darkness.

  “I trust you,” Ayaz whispered. His next kiss was soft, accepting my trust and giving his own in return – a broken fragile thing, like a bird with a broken wing. He gently pushed me backward, giving me every chance to break the kiss, to stop this before it went further. But I didn’t want to stop.

  “I still want the condom.”

  “I know.”

  My legs brushed the side of the bed, and I sat down, curling my fingers around his school tie and dragging him down with me. The broken springs groaned under our combined weight. The bed was only narrow enough for one body, so Ayaz laid on top, fitting me beneath him like two puzzle pieces slotting together.

  He leaned me back against the pillow, his eyes studying me. The room filled with his intoxicating scent. I breathed deep, drowning in him, losing myself in those fierce eyes. My thighs tightened around his leg, and a moan escaped my lips. We ground our bodies together in all the places that mattered, teasing the flame higher and higher, until my skin seemed to be made of sparks and ashes.

  I popped the buttons on his school shirt, pressing my hands to his chest, tracing the tattoos the way I had done in the grotto. Ayaz peeled back my hoodie and t-shirt, revealing my breasts nestled inside my good black bra. He moaned as his hand cupped my breast, his finger grazing my nipple through the fabric. “Fuck, I’ve had dreams about this bra.”

  I snorted. “You have not.”

  “You’ve been spying on my dreams, have you?” His lips tugged up into one of those rare, heart-melting smiles. “Ever since I saw you get into that pool with Quinn, I’ve been seething with jealousy. And then at the movie night, he got to have his hands all over you; him and Trey. And they knew…”

  “Knew what?”

  “Knew that I had a thing for you,” he whispered, his silky voice catching on the words. There it was, that vulnerability I’d wanted to see in him for so long.

  “How could you have a thing for me? You’re sleeping with Ms. West. And you threw maggots in my breakfast.” A shudder ran through my body at the memory of it. My muscles tightened as the horrible realization dawned on me that he could be about to spring another torment on me, that he might have seduced me on purpose to get me into this position and—

  Ayaz stroked my head, and the broken look in his eyes made my body relax. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone except Quinn and Trey before?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t want to fuck her. I hate it, in fact. But she made it quite clear that if I didn’t drop my pants for her, she’d find new and interesting ways to torment the few people at this school I actually care about. So that’s why I tried so hard to fight what I felt for you – I didn’t want her to use you against me. And I did the maggot thing because I’m a fucking asshole. But the day I did that, the creature’s power waned as it had never before. Tillie’s father lost his seat in Congress to a black politician. And Trey and I realized that maybe you were key to burning this whole motherfucking thing down.”

  “How do you gather that?”

  “Everything that happens in this school is just a smaller version of the real world. The Great Old God manipulates behind the scenes. It makes sure the Eldritch Club members remain in power. For every scholarship student sacrificed, it makes the world more unequal, a little more weighted toward keeping power with the powerful, the rich, the white, the straight and god-fearing. And for every heart that breaks, every student we’ve broken, they get closer to their endgame. We thought resistance was hopeless… until you.” Ayaz shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. His arms tightened around me like he was afraid to let me go. “Forgive me, Hazel. I was so fucking wrong. This place had me all twisted up inside. I thought… we thought, that if we pushed you harder, if we drove you right to the edge, then it would break the god and we’d be free.”

  Even though I’d known that already on some level, hearing him sa
y it still sent a jolt of shock through me. “And then Trey held me over the cliff,” I whispered.

  “Yes. And then we realized that we’d gone too far, that we’d done to you what we’d done to others. That our own evil had cost us everything…” Ayaz struggled to breathe through his confession. He rose up onto his hands, tearing the bond between us as he shoved his body away. His face twisted in wide-eyed horror – not horror at me, but at himself. “I should go. You can’t want me after this—”

  I grabbed his shoulder and slammed him down, crushing my mouth against his. I poured everything I had into that kiss, feeding him from the fire that burned inside me. He’d done a shitty thing, but he was far from the only one. My punishment plan felt completely ridiculous now, needlessly cruel. Ayaz wasn’t a monster. He didn’t need to be shown right from wrong. He knew already, he just didn’t have a choice. We were all pawns on this board – we did what we needed to stay in the game. Right now, I needed him.

  “You didn’t break me,” I said, trailing my fingers over his dusky skin. “I was forged in steel and fire. Now shut the fuck up and kiss me, because I’m probably dying in this school, but I’m not going out a virgin.”

  “But why me? Quinn or Trey—”

  “Because…” I touched my hand to his hair, curling my fingers through the silky strands. “We’re the same.”

  “I’m the luckiest fucking edimmu on earth.” Ayaz cupped my cheeks in his hands, bringing my face to his to sear me with his kiss. His body shifted to cover me, his hardness digging into my thigh. Clothes flew in all directions as we pawed at each other, hungry to close the space between us, to press hot skin to skin. My nails scraped his back, clawing for purchase as we slid together, trying to crawl inside each other’s fire.

  Ayaz bent back and flung my feet out on either side of him. He plunged his head between my legs. I gasped as his tongue found the spot where my fire burned brightest – the source of the flame. Ayaz dug his nails into my ass, lifting me off the sheets so he could taste more of me.

  My whole body throbbed, crackled, blazed with fire. I trembled as flames tore down my arms and circled my chest.

  And then, the rush came – the fire burst out of me, pushing me over the edge and outside my body. I floated somewhere in the world of spirits, lost to everything except Ayaz’s lips on mine, his hard body shielding me from the nightmares that threatened to overwhelm us both.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he reached between us, guiding himself inside me.

  You’re beautiful. No one had ever said that to me before.

  “You’re…” My words dissolved into a moan.

  A condom wrapper tore.

  When Ayaz entered me, fire danced on my eyeballs. There was a sharp jolt of pain. My flesh burned up. He moved inside me, slow at first, then faster as my body adjusted to his size, to the way he scorched me from the inside out. In between the flames, my mind left my body again, and I saw a flash of the cavern below the gym. The chains jerked and rattled against the trapdoor, and the creature in its void cowered in fear and rage.

  What we were doing right now hurt it more than anything else. That knowledge made me shift my hips up to meet Ayaz’s thrust, driving him deeper, driving out the demons that had infected us both.

  I needed him, in a way I’d never needed another human being before in my life.

  We drove out the darkness with our bodies, burning up in an inferno of our own creation. Our limbs tangled together, hearts beating in unison against our chests. For once the darkness wasn’t a place where nightmares waited to creep up on me. I was the darkness, and it felt fucking good.

  Ayaz cried out as the fire burned through him, as he released his own demons into the flames. His muscles contracted around me, his body growing stiff then collapsing against me, panting as sweat rolled down his back.

  We held each other as the sun rose, as the inferno we built died back to embers, as my eyes fluttered shut. I slept, and Ayaz’s warm fire kept the nightmares at bay.

  Chapter Thirty

  I dreamed that I’d aced all the upcoming exams, that my name flashed from the very top of the merit points chart. I’d crawled to the top of the rankings, and now I owned the school. Until Ms. West called me into her office and accused me of cheating and stealing points from other students…

  I woke with a start, my forehead slick with sweat. My head lay across Ayaz’s bare chest. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close, while the rats scritch-scritched above our heads.

  Ayaz slipped out early after planting one last, languid kiss on my lips. I lay in bed, curling my toes under the sheets and tracing the map of fire his lips had traced across my body. His opium scent clung to my skin and lingered in the air. As light from the high window pierced the room, I lifted the covers off my knees, noticing for the first time the damp patch on the sheets between my legs, speckled with a few droplets of blood.

  Gross.

  This was one of the things about sex they never told you in class. Great. Now I had this big wet patch in the middle of my bed. I used tissues to clean myself up as best I could, pulled on some jeans and Dante’s old basketball tank, took the tank off again because it felt weird for some reason, and shrugged on one of my rumpled uniform shirts instead, and gathered up my sheets.

  There was a laundry chute on the dormitory floor, near Quinn’s room. Us scholarship students had to lug our linen up the stairs in order to send it down to the laundry. We didn’t get room service the way the rest of the student body did.

  As I lugged the ball of sheets down the hall, students jostled me on either side. “Getting ready for your life of servitude,” Amber sneered as she elbowed me in the ribs. I didn’t dignify her with a response.

  As I neared the chute, I noticed Andre was already there with a pile of his sheets, scribbling something on his pad.

  “Are you a neat freak or something?” I grinned at him as I threw my sheets into the wide chute. “I just saw you up here the other day and…”

  I remembered why guys might need to change their sheets all the time and snapped my mouth shut. Andre shifted his weight to his other foot. But his expression wasn’t one of embarrassment. He looked like he was trying to decide something.

  “You okay, dude?”

  Andre’s pen flickered across his pad. He handed me a note.

  “Do you trust me?” he’d scribbled.

  “Of course I do.”

  Andre lunged at me, planting his huge hands on my shoulders. He shoved me with all his might. I slammed into the wall and toppled headfirst down the chute.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I landed in a soft pile of white clouds. The smell of stale sweat and… other bodily fluids invaded my nostrils, followed a moment later by the overwhelming whiff of bleach and lemon.

  I swam my arms through the mass of linen, fighting my way toward light and air. A heavy object flopped down beside me. Andre. He grabbed me under his powerful arm and dragged me to the surface. I gasped for breath as my head emerged from an enormous pile of dirty sheets, but the air around me was humid and stale.

  “What did you do that for?” I demanded. Andre just kept on grinning as he swam to the side of the tub and pulled himself out.

  I tried to put my feet down, but they were tangled in the sheets. Andre grabbed both my hands in his and dragged me out. I fell over the side and collapsed against him, grateful to be back on solid ground again.

  I peered around me, trying to figure out where we were. I was only able to make out faint outlines through the haze of steam. My eyes stung from the bleach that permeated the air.

  All around me were tubs of steaming water. Figures in grey smocks bent over the tubs, stirring them with large wooden paddles and rubbing the linens on wooden washboards. It looked like a literal sweatshop. Above the noise of sloshing water and gushing steam and wet fabric splashing was the constant scritch-scritch-scritch of thousands of rats swarming inside the walls.

  “This is barbaric,” I y
elled to Andre over the din. “There are industrial electric washing machines for exactly this reason.”

  Andre tried to scribble a note. He got as far as, “Keeping them busy stops them from reb—” before the dampness ruined his pen. He shoved it into his pocket, shaking his head. He grabbed my hand and dragged me between the vats.

  Already the bleach stung my eyes. I had to squint to see through the steam as Andre yanked me through a low door into another room. Bleach still clung to the air in here, but it was less noticeable. Instead of the oppressive heat of the washroom, frigid air from a vent on the far wall blasted the workers as they placed the sheets under a large steam press before folding and stacking them on a central stainless steel table. All of this under constant supervision from the rats in the walls.

  Andre marched straight up to a girl who worked on the assembly line, folding sheets into neat squares. He took her hand in his, and I was shocked at how cracked and calloused her skin was. Andre pointed to me. The girl’s eyes widened, and she staggered back.

  I recognized her. I was certain she was the girl Andre had been signing to at the Halloween afterparty. But I felt as though I’d seen her face somewhere else, in a photograph or something. I knew it was important, but I couldn’t connect the dots.

  “It’s okay.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile. Andre shook his head at me and I quickly wiped the smile away. Smiling wasn’t really in my repertoire. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I’m Andre’s friend. You like Andre, don’t you?”

  Andre turned her head towards him, gesturing in a series of hand signs in front of her face. She slapped his hand down and made her own signs in return. I could tell from the few signs Andre had taught Greg, Loretta, and I that this was not ASL. It was an altogether different language.

  The pair of them signed back and forth, before Andre turned to me, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “she’s all yours.”

  “Hi.” I gave a dumb wave to this girl. She glared at me through narrowed eyes. She had been beautiful once, with brown skin and dark hair in tight curls. Now, the skin around her eyes and mouth had shrunk and pocked, there were patches of dry skin flaking off her neck and hands, and her eyes betrayed too many unspoken horrors. My throat closed up as the taste of those chemicals still burned on my tongue. “My name is Hazel. I’m a scholarship student here.”