I tilt my ear so I can hear better.
“Altum volare in tenebris, altum volare in tenebris, altum volare in tenebris…”
What the what?
I study harder, blinking just in case I’m seeing things, but the spooky imagery doesn’t go away.
Some cloaks are black. Others are a color I can’t tell in the firelight. Gold? White? Come to think of it, the black could be a dark purple or deep blue…
Ugh. Colors don’t matter. What’s important is that I get the hell out of here as fast as my sneakered feet can carry me.
I straighten to escape at a low run, but of course, hook my toe on an exposed root and faceplant into damp leaves.
Excellent, Callie. Now you can add rotting leaves to your rotten day.
I land with a muffled “oof,” but stay on the ground, refusing to move until I’m sure I haven’t been heard.
The chanting stops.
Crap.
“Rise,” a voice booms, and I cower against the decaying leaves until my brain logic figures out it’s not me he’s screaming at.
“And honor,” the voice continues. I keep still, one half of my face pressed against the slimy, rotting fronds. The sharp, distinct smell of soil, ripped leaves and damp wood makes me want to sneeze. I pray no creepy crawlies come along to add to this nightmare.
“You have been chosen. Our two chapters are gathered here for the inaugural initiation,” the low, male voice says, “as extended by exclusive invite. Show your papers, and let the fire eat the truth.”
I hear the spit and crackle of fire as something’s thrown in.
“Now, lower your torches and let the fire of ambition grow.”
A waft of heat hits my exposed skin.
“Are we ready for this year?” the voice asks.
“Yes,” come a chorus of voices, both male and female. “We are ready. We await.”
“Then let the sacrifice begin…”
Oh, man. I don’t want to be present when whatever’s being sacrificed shows up.
I scoot onto my elbows and knees, crawling through the underbrush as chanting begins anew. I jam my fingers on exposed roots, and my knees catch on some overturned stones as I move, but the pain doesn’t hit my throat until I’m back on paved ground and I wheeze out a relieved breath.
Pushing upright, I grab my bags and run.
I’m in full-on sprinting mode, even though I’ve never joined a track and field team in my life, bags swinging as my arms pump side-to-side.
Unfortunately, my untrained gait, coupled with my poor night-vision, makes me plow into a firm, insanely hard, wall of a person.
“Ack—” I gasp, tripping back and landing on my butt.
A cloaked form stands above me, his face overcast by the large hood, but I’m sensing his study of me. I say it’s a guy, since I did not fracture my face on soft boobs.
“I—sorry,” I blurt. The form doesn’t move. “I’m just—I’m going. Gone. I’m gone.”
I right myself, with no help from this immovable figure, lift my bags, and skirt around him.
I don’t look back to see if he’s following me, and instead half-limp, half-walk the rest of the pathway and up to the academy.
Using the side door Ivy showed me earlier, I stumble in, dropping the bags and then spreading a hand across my chest as I pant.
I couldn’t tell who was behind the hood, but he certainly saw me. I wonder how much time I have until he tells his friends and they come back to toss me into their cauldron.
What did I just see? Devil worship?
I wouldn’t put it past the demons wearing human skin in this school to engage in nightly rites and rituals. Piper is probably in there somewhere.
Stairs to the Wolf’s Den loom before me, its structure cast in the dim glow provided by the stained-glass windows, and I trod over, dragging my bags along. The balcony will be the safest place tonight. I can sleep, then live to fight tomorrow.
Once up top, I scope the loft-like space for a place to hunker down. Two couches are angled in the center, with a low table in the middle. The skeletal shapes of high-top tables perch against the back wall. There’s a coffee cart, too, with an emptied-out pastry station neighboring it.
Sighing, I search through my belongings until I find my makeup bag, dry from being hosed down. I had to pick through a profuse amount of garbage to locate what was inside, but I ended up finding most of it. I tear at a pack of travel wipes and swipe the fragrant, damp cloth around my face to remove the rest of the Briarcliff woods from my cheeks.
In the silent gloom, I unroll Eden’s sleeping bag (smelling suspiciously of weed) onto the couch and burrow in, bone heavy and tired.
My mind isn’t ready to shut down. Instead, I lift my phone, bathed in its blue light as I scroll through Instagram, a place where I never post but always creep.
As soon as I tap on the app, my notifications ping. I’ve been tagged multiple times—bordering on over a hundred—and my thumb hovers over the heart icon. Most of me knows what I’ll find, and I’m right.
Hashtag after hashtag of #trashbitch and #trashbitchgohome is tagged to my handle. I don’t look at the images.
That’s not why I’m creeping, anyway. I planned to scroll through the posts of my friends back home and shift my mindset toward what kinship feels like instead of whatever I just witnessed in the forest. Except … they’re not my friends anymore. When my mom died, I’d become a different person, and Sylvie and Matt had difficulty keeping up. Sylvie especially. After what happened during our last night together, their parents got involved, and I’m lucky Sylvie’s mom and dad didn’t press charges.
I’m on Sylvie’s account, and I suck in a breath when her pictures load. She’s unblocked me.
I don’t hold onto that hope for more than a second. Our friendship is over, but I’m thankful I can see slices of her life, and that she’s okay. Her summer consisted of a greater number of pictures of her and Matt. Arms slung around their shoulders, linking hands in front of the Coney Island Ferris Wheel, sharing a Salty Pimp from the Big Gay Ice Cream shop … and kissing. Lots of tongue action boomerangs.
I lower my phone until it’s flat against my chest and stare at the ceiling until the sad smile drains from my lips, and I feel nothing. A fan whirrs its blades above.
The soft sound lulls me into a doze, and I close my eyes, trying hard to fall sleep, but familiar bodies keep forming, using the backs of my eyelids to come alive.
They’re not my old friends. They wear hoods and move in a circle around a large fire.
Then, one turns.
He steps closer, and my heart kicks into an erratic beat.
His cloak is velvety soft and shifting with his long strides, changing shades in the moonlight, until he lifts it and settles the heavy fabric over my face.
And I go blind. All I see is darkness, black as a raven’s feathers.
12
The pungent scent of coffee hits my nostrils, and I scrunch my nose, snorting at the smell.
I mumble, turn over, and plant my face straight into fabric that rubs the wrong way against my skin.
It’s velvet. A cloak. No, my waking brain tells my racing heart. Suede.
I pry one eye open and cautiously twist until I’m not facing the back of the couch. Then, in an instant, the when, where, and how, all hit me.
I bolt upright.
“Shit, where’s my phone?”
I’d set an alarm before falling asleep so this wouldn’t happen. I frantically search around, within the folds my sleeping bag, in the cracks of the couch—
Someone chuckles.
Someone else clucks their tongue. “Looks like a bag lady broke in and tried to sleep it off. Fuck, she stinks.”
I hold my breath and peer through the strands of my hair, noting the two figures idling near the balcony’s overhang.
“Your phone’s on the coffee table,” one says.
I tuck my hair behind my ears. As soon as it’s clear who’s speaking, I sneer, then snatc
h my phone off the table and frantically tap against the screen as I register the time.
Son of a bitch.
No wonder I never heard my alarm. It’s been turned off.
The horror must read in my expression, because the second voice laughs.
“Why the hell did you do this?” I ask Chase, ignoring the laughter of his friend, who I think is the one named Tempest.
Tempest’s hair is as dark as the promise of his name, cut at an angled chop where some strands fall across his brow. His eyes are a bright green and at odds with his thin, jaded lips. He’s laughing, but I’m certain his happiness will never match the natural spark in his irises.
“I believe you’re on my turf, therefore, I can do what I want,” Chase answers. He leans back on his elbows, resting against the railing behind him, exactly like the playground bully I predicted he’d be.
I have the vapid wish for the wood to buckle. Chase is too handsome for 7:30 in the morning, showered and groomed. His scent cuts through the freshly ground coffee beans in the air, a freshwater mix of pine and sage.
Like he’s been tramping through the woods, my mind whispers.
“What, destroying my furniture wasn’t enough?” I ask. “Soiling my clothes and trashing my uniform didn’t give you the jollies you were searching for?” I throw off the sleeping bag and shift until my feet touch the floor. “Now you make me late for class, too?”
I swipe my make-up bag off the coffee table and scrounge through it, finding a compact. Flipping it, I check to see that these twerps didn’t draw a Sharpie penis on my face while I was sleeping.
“I’m not the one who chose to trespass up here,” he responds, the brown of his eyes shining amber from the stained-glass sun above.
“Then why are you up here? The both of you.”
Chase pushes off the banister. “We’ve acquired the privilege.”
“Damn it,” I mutter, deciding to ignore the boys. I’m late, my uniform is somewhere and wrinkled, and I was hoping to get up at five so I could secretly use the gym showers and get ready. Now, I’ll be lucky if I make it to class with my hair brushed.
In an effort to do that much, I start packing up my things.
“Are we too much?” Chase mocks. “Is your phone charged enough to call Daddy to come save you?”
I glance up from tossing my sleeping bag and necessities in a garbage bag. “Have you not left yet?”
“She has a point,” Tempest adds, retaining his spot near the railing. He lifts his chin, as if to smell the air around him. “I thought we came to take her garbage and put it out in the rain to putrefy further. If we’re not doing that, why are we here?”
I glare at him while pulling my bags full of clothes closer. “I don’t have time for this. Or you.”
“We make the time, not you,” Chase corrects. “And if your aim is to make it to history before the bell, you’d better scoot that ass of yours out of here.”
“Yeah, so we can get our caffeine buzz without a homeless chick shaking her cup for change,” Tempest adds.
“You’ve used that insult twice in ten minutes,” I snap. “I guess Briarcliff’s best and brightest requirements don’t include creativity.”
“I don’t need creativity to make you cry, Trash Bitch.” Tempest cocks a brow. “Today’s going to be so fun for you.”
“Run along, Calla Lily,” Chase adds, while he idly pours himself a cup of coffee.
I’m ready to oblige. It’s unnerving they’ve been up here long enough to start a brew, fuck with my phone, and watch me while I slept.
And it’s incredibly disconcerting to hear Chase say my full name. Where did he get that tidbit of trivia? Piper?
“Gladly,” I say. “But first…” I storm over to the coffee cart and shove in front of Chase. He responds to the contact with a low chuckle.
I refuse to back down, so I let him press up against me—so hard, so firm, so male—as I pour the carafe into a to-go cup, dump in some cream, find a lid, then twist out of his unsettling hold.
When I turn, my front molds with his, the bumps and ridges of his muscular chest pressing against my chest.
His gaze drops, and I pretend I don’t feel the length of him. Or how it’s made my lower half stir with awareness.
There is not one soft spot on this guy.
My breathing quickens, but my stare holds steady, exuding an arrogance I don’t feel. There are places—the wicked ones, the ones that delight in sinful pleasure—on my body that come alive with his presence, sending their request for more by setting off electric waves across my skin, goosepimpling my flesh.
Chase’s pupils dilate, but his lips cut through the passion, cold as a steel knife. He says, “The coffee up here is for members only.”
I point to my two bags, now containing my entire sorry life at this school. “Consider it an earned privilege. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Chase makes a low rumble in his throat but stands aside. He’s backed me up against a wall, and it’s cold where his body once was.
“It’d be in your best interest to run, not walk,” he says. “Because once I give the go-ahead, the Den’ll be crowded within minutes. Wouldn’t want you caught with your garbage bags hanging out.”
He glances down at my chest, appraising, before drifting over to Tempest.
My throat’s tight, and I exhale to loosen the muscles.
“See ya, trash possum,” Tempest says as I hitch both my bags over one shoulder, clutch my coffee, and head toward the stairs. He’s munching on a cinnamon roll that I swear he must’ve pulled from his pocket, but it smells divine.
Chase must hear my stomach rumble, because he says as I hit the staircase, “Breakfast is over. Classes start in twenty minutes.”
“I’m aware,” I say, and start my descent.
“Piper keeps granola bars in the shared kitchen cabinet.”
I pause. Chase sips his coffee with an expression that is anything but innocent.
“Why would I care about that?” I ask.
“Come on, little possum. You can’t scurry around forever. Go to your room.” Chase follows up with a feral smile. “Don’t be afraid. Piper’s not there. She’s finishing up training at the boathouse.”
“I’m not scared of her. Or you.”
It’s infuriating, but Chase is right. I can’t sleep in the Wolf’s Den forever now that he knows I’m here.
My feet pound down the stairs, but just as I break through into the foyer, Chase leans over the railing and calls, “Be glad I got to you first, new girl. I’m the only nice face you’ll see today.”
“I’m doomed,” I mutter, and dash through a smattering of students out front, fat raindrops splattering both the plastic and my head.
13
I stroll through the public areas of Thorne House with my damp head held high, only a hundred snickers and whispered trash bitch insults trailing behind. No one offers to help.
A girl is at the front desk area, and she doesn’t question me when I tell her my name and that I need a key to my room.
She hands it over without comment, but I don’t miss the rush to her phone as soon as I head to the elevators and her snide glances at me as she texts.
Great. Trash Bitch lives in infamy.
My lips flutter with my exhale as I ascend to the third floor, and once the doors slide apart, I don’t dawdle.
The key works on the first try, and I step inside with dread stretching its wings inside my chest, but I won’t let them release to full mast until I know what lies in wait.
Lucky for me, it’s blissful silence.
Chase was telling the truth. Piper isn’t here, though she’s left a heavy cloud of gardenia perfume (otherwise known as overly sweet entitlement) in her wake.
To be safe, I call, “Piper?” but the doorknob to her room doesn’t move. Nor do I hear any scuffing sounds behind it.
Good.
I turn into my room, discarding my empty coffee cup in the kitchen bin along the way.
During my entire walk in the misting rain, I mulled over how I was going to dress for class, when despite multiple attempts at washing and ironing yesterday, I couldn’t get my uniform to the pristine condition it once was, or for it to stop smelling like raccoon piss.
God, I’m so screwed.
My wet bags land on the floorboards of my room with a thud. On a positive note, the plastic is waterproof, and my clothes missed a second fate. I stare down at them, preparing myself for a thorough, desperate search, when—
Holy shit.
My attention centers on my bedroom, and I’m either wishing so hard that I’m hallucinating, or my room is fully furnished.
My desk has drawers. My nightstand has drawers. My dresser has drawers! I touch it all, the wood grain running up against the pads of my fingers as I glide them over the surfaces.
A thorough inspection confirms my suspicions—these aren’t the drawers Ivy and I spent over an hour washing yesterday. They’re too flawless, too unstained to have come from the dump. After receiving such a heavy dose of water, they’d be warped and hard to fit into their shelving, but these open and shut with ease, the movement bringing with it the sharp scent of freshly sanded wood.
Twirling, I move to my mattress, as white as the day it was wrapped up at the factory.
It can’t be. None of this is mine. I haven’t had the chance to report the missing furniture to Marron. There’s no way the faculty could’ve known.
“What the…” I scan my surroundings, half-expecting Piper in full Briarcliff attire to leap from my closet and launch red paint on everything while she cackles.
Yet, the room is silent.
“Snap out of it, Callie,” I whisper to myself. “You can solve this shit later. Get to class.”
As I’m bending to sort through my belongings, something swinging on a hanger catches my eye through the crack of my closet door.
There it is, I think grimly. The hidden snake.
I pad over anyway and open the door further. Then step back in surprise.
A pressed uniform hangs from the railing, including a white button-down, maroon cardigan, black blazer, and a tri-color plaid skirt. White knee socks are thrown over the hanger, and my fingers slowly sift against the cashmere and cotton fabrics.
Rival (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 1) Page 6