Academy of the Forsaken (Cursed Studies Book 2)

by Eva Chase

  I had to quit running scared from everyone—from Roseborne’s staff, from the guys who’d come to my aid, and from Cade’s dire warnings. Cade had said they’d never understand, that they’d turn their backs on me if they saw who I really was. If he’d been right and not just trying to manipulate me into following his lead, I could find that out pretty quickly.

  Especially since I wasn’t totally sure what I was going to do with this axe once it was sharpened. Chop through the padlocked door? Behead the dean and the professors? Somehow I didn’t think either of those plans would get me very far. The tickle of inner power I’d started to feel climbing trees with Elias had stayed with me, but it wasn’t giving me any guidance.

  I stopped and studied the axe blade, testing it with my finger. Yeah, that definitely had more bite than before. The one thing I did know for sure was that the twisted rosebush in the basement wasn’t skewering me this time. I’d be the one slicing through it.

  I wasn’t going to bring the axe into the school just yet, considering what had happened to my other tools. I tucked it into a narrow space beside the door’s hinges and headed out to see what kind of peace I could make.

  Evening was falling outside, a purple cast coloring the clouds. The breeze had gotten chillier. Before I went inside, I loped across the lawn and along the wall until I found Violet’s rose beneath its jar.

  The petals didn’t look any more crinkled than they had when I’d planted it, as far as I could tell. Maybe my strategy was working? I’d have a better idea tomorrow, but for now it was a small relief.

  As I came up to the school building, Ryo stepped out the front door. He stepped to the side and rolled his shoulders, his lean chest rising and falling with a deep breath. He looked as if he’d needed that fresh air like a fish needs water.

  When he spotted me approaching, his posture stiffened just slightly. He hesitated for a moment and then turned to go back inside.

  “Ryo,” I said, picking up my pace. “Wait. I—I actually wanted to talk to you. You, and Jenson and Elias too. Properly, not like this morning. I didn’t handle that very well.”

  Ryo’s eyes glinted with their golden sheen even in the dim light. One side of his mouth curved upward. I could tell he was still uncertain of where this was leading, but he wasn’t eager to walk away from me either.

  “A little more talking sounds good,” he said, and glanced across the lawn. “Should we hold another carriage house meeting? I can find the others.”

  Like he had before, the first morning I’d arrived in this cycle. My throat closed up just for a second at the easy generosity of the offer in spite of my coldness this morning. The carriage house was secluded enough, no need for worries about Cade observing us to skew my intentions. And I didn’t want to have this conversation in the building in front of me, where any of our classmates might wander by and interrupt.

  “Perfect,” I said, giving him the best smile I could summon in return. “I’ll meet you out there.”

  A shred of doubt niggled at the back of my mind as I stepped into the dim, leathery-smelling interior of the carriage house. For all I knew, Ryo might decide to skip this conversation and renege on his offer after all. But just a few minutes later, the door’s hinges squeaked, and all three of my Roseborne boys slipped inside.

  Elias came to join me with the most confidence out of all of them, which made sense considering the intimacy we’d shared just a couple of hours ago. Ryo and Jenson walked over more cautiously, Ryo with a palpably hopeful air and Jenson with his mouth set in a wary line. But they’d come. Without meaning to, I’d done a hot-and-cold routine of my own on them in the past week, and they’d been willing to hear me out anyway.

  A little ache formed around my heart. I didn’t know what I owed Cade, but I definitely owed these three guys a proper explanation.

  I motioned to the bench across from me. “Why don’t you sit down? There’s something I think I need to explain.”

  They sat down, Elias with perfect posture, Ryo leaning forward, and Jenson sprawling out his long legs in a pose that would have seemed careless if tension hadn’t lingered in his shoulders. “Let’s have it, then,” he said.

  I swallowed the lump that was rising in my throat. “This morning, I thought if I just avoided getting any closer with all of you, I could avoid having to own up to things I’ve done. But that really wasn’t fair to any of us. You deserve to know who you’ve been helping. And I—”

  I couldn’t stop my arms from coming up to hug myself. My heart beat faster. “I’ve been falling for you. All three of you, in ways I didn’t really think were possible until now. So I don’t want to just give up. But you should be able to decide whether you want anything to do with me knowing everything.”

  “Trix,” Ryo started, his eyes widening.

  I held up my hand to stop him. “Just let me say it. I need to.”

  “Go ahead,” Elias said gently. From the things he’d said to me this afternoon, I suspected he could guess at least some of what I was about to admit to. But not the worst parts. I had no idea how he’d react to that.

  I looked away from them, my restless feet carrying me a few steps to the left and then back again. My combat boots that had always given me so much comfort barely seemed to hold me up.

  Just spit it out, Trix.

  “You all know I came here to find Cade, that he’s my foster brother, and we’ve been close for a long time,” I said. “That’s all true. He’s looked out for me since I was seven years old, protected me in so many ways… But I never told you—we haven’t only been—years ago, when we were just barely teenagers, he started wanting more than that. We’d make out, and then more, in secret… It’d go on for months, maybe a year, and then he’d decide we should stop, so we wouldn’t hook up for a while until he wanted to again…”

  I couldn’t bear to meet their eyes, so I just kept pacing and hurtling onward. “I can’t say I didn’t want to too. I liked that he kept picking me. There was kind of a thrill to the sneaking around. But at the same time—I don’t think I ever really felt like I could say no, not without losing all the other closeness we had. I couldn’t reject that without rejecting him. I went along with it, but it wasn’t anything I’d been looking for. He’s always been my brother first in my mind, and if things could have just stayed that way— I probably sound like I was an idiot. I’m just trying to say that what happened with him isn’t at all the same as what’s happened with the three of you.”

  “You don’t sound like an idiot,” Ryo said in a low voice. When I forced myself to look at him, he gazed back at me with a determined intensity I’d never seen in him before. “He was a huge part of your life—of course it was hard to step away or think about things without being influenced by him.”

  Maybe he would know about that the best out of all of them. I’d thought before that Ryo wouldn’t understand because his mind had been warped by the drugs when he’d hurt people. But in a way, I had been under the influence too. Having Cade’s approval and affection had been my drug, and my addiction to it had screwed up my perception of what made sense, even right and wrong in the end.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t responsible. Like Elias had said about his own actions when he’d been proving himself to his grandfather, everything had been my decision. I could have chosen differently.

  “I wasn’t just an idiot,” I said. “I did something horrible. The last time he broke things off, he met another girl a little while later, and they started dating, and it seemed like things were getting serious. He’d blow off our plans to see her. He’d bring up random things about her that I couldn’t compete with… Sometimes it’d be just like old times, we’d hang out and everything would be fine, and then I’d feel him slipping away from me. And I kind of lost it.”

  My gaze dropped to my folded arms. I hugged myself tighter. “I don’t even know why I thought it was a good idea. The next door neighbors had this aggressive dog, and Sylvie would always get antsy when it barked at
her if they stopped by the house, and Cade would tease her about it. Maybe a little part of me thought that if I could make her really freak out over something like that, he’d realize she was a wimp and get over her, but mostly… Mostly I think I was just pissed off that she was getting so much of his attention, and I wanted to torment her a little.”

  Had I gotten that vindictive impulse from my possible great-grandfather? I couldn’t displace the blame based on that either.

  “Anyway,” I said, “my big, stupid, awful plan was to call her from a number she didn’t know and tell her to come to this courtyard behind a few stores that I knew would be empty at night. I don’t even remember what excuse I made up to convince her. I stole the dog and brought it out there, and when she came into the courtyard I let it loose on her. I didn’t even care if it bit her or something. But it was even worse. One of the buildings was a café with a big window overlooking the courtyard, and she freaked out so badly she ran without looking and crashed right into it. The cuts from the glass—I called 9-1-1 while I was getting the hell out of there but—she died. Because of me.”

  “Trix,” Elias said in the same gentle tone he’d used before—gentle, but it gutted me like a knife blade. “That is awful. I’m not going to tell you it’s not. But it was one careless emotional decision, and you couldn’t have known it’d go like that.”

  “I still wanted to hurt her. And it wasn’t just her. Cade found out about the text calling her out there and knew someone had set it up, and he was furious, and some guy we hung out with sometimes said a few things that convinced him he’d done it. Cade beat him up so badly he ended up in the hospital for weeks, and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. His temper has screwed things up before but nothing like that. And that’s when Roseborne found him. He wouldn’t have gone off like that if it wasn’t for me. He’s not a bad person.”

  “What about all the people who get upset without sending someone to the hospital?” Jenson muttered. His mouth snapped shut when my gaze caught his.

  “That’s not the point,” I said. “The point is I’ve done shit as bad as anyone here, and you’ve been thinking I’m special somehow because I don’t belong here—but I do. More than he does. Maybe more than other people too. So if that’s why you liked me, because you thought I was better somehow, now you know. I’m not going to hold it against you if you’re out.”

  For a second, none of them said anything. Then Ryo pushed himself to his feet. He walked straight to me and took my face in his hands, his golden eyes searching mine. “I don’t need you to be better than me,” he said. “You’re still all the things I fell in love with. I love you, and nothing you just said changes that. So if you want to give this… whatever it is a shot, and this isn’t just a way of telling us you’re done, I’m right here.”

  I choked up so fast I couldn’t blink hard enough to press back the tears. Fuck, I’d meant to be strong and factual and here I was on the verge of bawling.

  Jenson and Elias had both gotten up too. Jenson leaned over to kiss the top of my head, slipping a possessive arm around my back. “Forget it if you think I’m going to shun you,” he said without a hint of doubt.

  Elias squeezed my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere either. No one here is in a position to judge, Trix. I’ve seen enough to know there’s a hell of a lot more to you—and a hell of a lot of it is good.”

  My mind couldn’t quite process the fact that I’d spilled everything and none of them had turned away. My chest hitched with a sob I tried to hold in. “Okay. I—I didn’t really want to lose any of you. Maybe that’s selfish, but—”

  Jenson let out a rough chuckle. “Why don’t we say it’s just one more impressive thing about you that you’ve got so much affection to spread around? What reason do we have to hash out the practicalities of it now?”

  Cade had been wrong. Had he even believed what he’d been saying himself, or had he just wanted to cut me off from the other guys who’d captured my attention, like I’d gone after Sylvie to get him back?

  In that moment, it didn’t seem to matter. The warmth of their presences surrounding me flooded through me with a rush of fondness and hope—and with that came a surge of energy so potent it practically crackled over my skin.

  I could take on the staff. I could take on the whole damn school. Right now, with the trust I’d offered and been given in return, I had the feeling I could manage just about anything.

  The thought flitted through my head that maybe I should talk to Cade tonight, give him a chance to hear me out and explain where he was coming from, before I did anything drastic. I shook the impulse away.

  I didn’t need his authorization to try to destroy this place. I was doing it not just for him but for me and the three guys around me, for Violet, for everyone trapped here.

  Roseborne was going to fall.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Trix

  The guys followed me out to the maintenance shed. With the tingling of power racing through me, my strides seemed to cover twice as much ground as usual. I grabbed the axe from behind the door and hefted it.

  “What are you going to do?” Ryo asked, watching with avid anticipation.

  “And what do you need us to do?” Jenson added.

  I adjusted my grip on the wooden handle, testing the tool’s weight, and focused on the thrum of energy inside me—almost like the impression I’d gotten from the basement rosebush, but brighter, more invigorating. My instincts tugged at me.

  “I don’t think the staff can hold me back tonight,” I said. “I’m going to hack their power source into bits. We’ll see how well they can keep their hold over the school without it.” My gaze slid over my three allies and lovers. “I’m not sure how safe it’ll be for you.”

  “I don’t give a damn about playing it safe,” Elias said. “Will we get in your way if we come with you?”

  “I don’t think so. Just give me plenty of room. If the staff try to interfere, get in their way as well as you can. I’ll try to make this quick.”

  It was early enough in the night that a few students still lingered on the first floor. I tucked the axe close to my leg as we strode past them to the hall with its portraits. My boots thumped down the basement stairs. As I stepped into the laundry room, the resolve inside me reverberated even more powerfully through my body.

  I walked straight up to the wall where I’d been carving my passage before, pressed my free hand to the cool concrete surface, and pushed with all that energy whirling inside me. I didn’t know how I knew to do it, but every part of me moved as if there was nothing more natural.

  The area around my hand crumbled away into crumbs of cement. As they pattered to the floor in an expanding deluge, one of the guys behind me sucked in his breath in shock.

  I pushed harder, and the wall disintegrated faster, a hollow forming as tall as I was and wide enough for me to squeeze through. A pinching sensation shot through my chest—and I was through, my fingers plunging into the darkness beyond.

  I stepped through the hole without letting myself hesitate. The sconces flared around the edges of the room on the other side—the room I’d stumbled into before. The malformed rosebush loomed in its center, even more jaggedly ominous than I’d remembered.

  A hint of doubt shivered through my gut, but I’d come this far. I would see this through.

  “Holy shit,” Ryo murmured as the guys followed me. I trained all my attention on the bush as I stepped up to it, raising the axe. The plant’s unnerving energy washed over me, prickling down to my bones. I gritted my teeth. Then I swung.

  The axe’s blade chopped through the mass of brambles in front of me. Several thorny branch-ends and the mementos of lost students snagged on them clattered on the floor. And a shout carried from the hall at the other end of the room. Of course my efforts wouldn’t have gone unnoticed for long.

  The guys dashed around the bush to guard the room’s entrance. I swung the axe again and again, hacking through the bram
bles toward the thing’s core. Sweat beaded on my forehead and trickled down my back. More waves of that malicious power hit me, but I didn’t let my arms falter or even slow.

  I have your power in me, I thought at it. I’m choosing to use it for something better.

  Love or selfishness, like Professor Hubert had said. Or maybe I’d have said, trust over fear.

  A scuffling sound and more yells came from the hall, but I didn’t let myself look away from my goal for an instant. The power flowing through me must have protected me from the debilitating pain the professors had used to stop me before. It wouldn’t help the guys, though. I had to finish this as quickly as I could.

  I slammed the axe into the deeper layers of branches, bits of wood and thorn flying through the air around me. One nicked my cheek with a distant sting.

  There. I could see the central stem now, plunging into a crack in the concrete floor. More like a gouge than a crack, really, the surface around it splattered with burgundy stains as if the floor had gushed blood when it’d split open. A stale metallic smell wavered through the sickly rose perfume.

  I crouched low and aimed the axe’s blade straight at the base of the bush. A heavy thump reached my ears. Footsteps pounded across the floor. Clenching my fingers around the handle, I whipped the axe as hard and fast as I could.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  With my last chop, the thickly gnarled stem severed completely. The entire remaining body of the bush creaked and toppled over on its side. It burst into an explosion of wood, leaves, and thorn.

  As the bits blasted through the air with a roar of the power the thing had contained, the seven figures of the staff who’d been charging toward me veered. Dean Wainhouse, Professors Hubert and Marsden and all the rest flung themselves into the maelstrom, their expressions taut.

  The blast hit them, and their forms quivered. Before my eyes, they blurred between the graying adult appearances I’d gotten to know them in and seven teens in burgundy uniforms I’d only before seen in photographs and hazy memories.