My desk harbors shot after shot, print after print, stuck and spread and scattered.
“What … what…” Nothing else can pass Ivy’s lips.
My hands might be clinging to her, but my feet want to walk. To bring me closer to the horror.
One word breaks through my throat, one syllable made into a shattered prism of sound. “Mom…”
She’s not looking at the camera lens in the photo. She can’t. I remember how she stared vacantly, blood pooled around her head and her hands curled in a final round of defense. Her irises were milky and clouded with death.
But here, in this putrid reminder vomited all over my room, a large, yellow, smiley emoji takes the place of her face, its inky grin obscuring the violence of her dying expression but made no less obscene.
I fall to my knees, grabbing the closest picture. “Mom,” I cry brokenly.
“Oh my God, Callie.” Ivy breaks out of her frozen stance and comes up behind me, holding my upper arms and trying to lift me back to a stand. “We need to get out of here. Report this.”
Swirls of yellow smiley-faces mock me. No matter where I turn, there’s a picture of my murdered mother with an emoji head, the blood obvious around the perfect circle of a grin, until they blur into a nauseating watercolor, because my eyes can’t focus, and my stomach promises to produce a similar result.
“You need to get out of here,” Ivy mumbles desperately. “Callie, come on!”
“I-I-” My eyes won’t close. They’ll dry up and blur my vision, but they won’t shut.
“This is so fucked,” Ivy says, then all but drags me out with her athlete’s arms.
“You cursed,” I say in a daze. “You never swear.”
“I’ll fucking swear up a fucking goddamned storm after that fucked-up scene, Jesus Christ!” Ivy takes a breath. “Are you okay?”
I stare blankly at the walls, still clutching a picture until Ivy rips it from my hands, tosses it back in my room and slams the door. She pulls out her phone. “I’m calling campus police.”
“I…” Gulping, I stand on wobbly knees, and that’s when the dam breaks.
Tears pour down my cheeks, my hands start shaking, and my lip trembles on a barely contained scream.
“Callie, sit back down. You’re white as—shit, you’re gonna pass out. Sit, babe. C’mon…”
I sit, but my gaze drifts to the door. And once I see it…
“No!” I cry.
Ivy startles. “What?”
In a burst of energy, I fly to my backpack. The flap is unbuckled, and it wasn’t five seconds ago. I dig through it like a groundhog, textbooks flying, laptop sliding across the hardwood, until I hit nothing but fabric at its bottom.
“Fuck,” I say. Then scream, “FUCK!”
“What?” Ivy shouts again, holding the phone away from her ear, color yet to return to her cheeks. “Is there something else in there?”
I tear through my pile of texts, opening Calculus and a flash of relief zaps through me when I find Rose’s letter still nestled in the middle.
But as for the rest…
They took my phone! Piper’s diary pages are on there!
Someone used Ivy’s and my distraction to take it from my bag and sneak out. Or was it while I was in the library talking to Chase?
Piper’s bullying, I could handle. She was a basic playground bitch, utilizing tactics better served in a teen rom-com flick, but I managed it.
This, though … this isn’t a simple message of dislike or diversion. This is hate, and it’s directed at me. Another Cloak warning? He’s never been this violently obvious before. Why start now? Why hurt me like this?
I lean forward, clutching my temples and moaning. I can’t think. I can’t think with Mom’s blood behind my eyes, made fresh by these goddamn pictures somebody printed off like they were nothing but pages for a school report.
Is this related to Piper? Or does it have to do with my continued presence at Briarcliff despite the multiple requests by Piper’s friends that I GTFO of this school?
Piper’s friends.
They were at the library with me when I got there. But other than Falyn, I lost track of them when I started talking to Chase, every one of my senses attuned to him while my background faded to gray.
My nails claw at the hardwood as I form into a leap and fly out the front door.
“Callie!” Ivy cries, but I’m already busting through the emergency exit.
What was it Ivy said?
Mat work.
Boathouse.
My heels tear into the dirt and grass of Briarcliff’s perfect landscape before I hit the trail and storm down the hill.
I don’t slow until I see the three ponytails ahead of me, bobbing in time as they navigate the terrain in single file, chatting snidely and laughing.
The middle one—Willow—doesn’t see me coming. Her ponytail goes flying when I crash into her, the fire in my eyes redder than her hair.
Tackling her to the ground is easy. Pinning her arms on either side of her head as I scream in her face is concerning.
“Omigod!” the quiet one—Violet—cries behind me.
“Get off her, you crazy slut!”
I don’t need to tell you who that one is.
“How could you?” I scream. Willow twists and writhes underneath me, her starched white Briarcliff fitness shirt dirtied up and wrinkled under my grip. Her maroon sports skort rides up on her thighs when she tries to knee me in the back, but I rear back on a snarl and slap her across the cheek.
She wails. “What the fuck?”
Arms grip my shoulders, but I elbow them back. I’m hot all over, my tears cascading lava from the volcano erupting behind my eyes.
I bend close to Willow’s face, her head-twists slowing the closer my teeth come to her delicate skin. My throat doesn’t emit the sounds I’m used to. They’re keening, unhinged wails, its notes hitched with trembling breaths. I manage to speak, broken words that hold the entire meaning of my world.
“That was my mother!”
Willow breathes hard, but she gasps out, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“My-my room,” I stutter. “What you did.”
“I don’t—”
“You hate me. You’ve made that obvious.” I glance over my shoulder at Falyn, who’s nursing the bicep I elbowed into, and Violet, filming the whole thing on her phone.
These goddamned rich kids and their forest cell service…
I push to my feet and round on her. Violet squeaks and stumbles back into the trees but doesn’t lower her phone.
“Stop recording!” I yell. With a trembling hand, Violet keeps the phone on my face. “Why do you all want to catch my weakest moments? Why can’t you leave me alone? If Piper was a Virtue, who the fuck are you guys? Give me back my phone!”
At least … I think that’s what I said. Thick tears blur my vision, and it’s unclear whose voice I’m using, but it certainly isn’t my own. I don’t sound like this. I don’t talk like this.
I definitely don’t want to punch a person tinier than me in the face, but I won’t regret it when I smash Violet’s—
Strong arms envelop me and shove me to the side, but they won’t let go. They’re bare, muscular, masculine…
“The fuck?” Chase snarls into my ear, but his warm breath is forced to leave my neck when we stumble over tree roots and rocks, and he uses his balance over mine. “You’re spouting off the name Virtue now? Do you have no sense of survival?”
“Let me go!” I scream.
“No way in hell, sweet possum,” he grits out, then holds me to his torso with a tighter grip. “Not until you tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
“She attacked me!” Willow screeches, brushing decaying leaves and twigs from her clothes.
“A fucking psycho is what she is,” Falyn spits, then flanks her friend.
Violet tiptoes from the foliage, phone still on.
“Turn it off,” Chase hisses. “Now.”
Violet clicks the phone off and shoves it into her gym bag. My face momentarily goes slack, because of course she listens to Chase’s commands the minute his lips move.
“Take it back out and delete that shit, Vi,” he says.
I’m somewhat thrown off by the familiar use of her nickname, but it also sends a harsh reminder. These people know each other. They grew up together, always, and have garnered the type of loyalty only decades of familiarity can gift. I can’t trust any of them, and most of that distrust has to go to their leader. Their prince.
“I said let me go, Chase.” I struggle within his forced embrace, but his elbows don’t even tick up with movement.
“Not with your teeth and claws out.” His chin digs into my hair. “What the fuck, Callie?”
“They … they…” I growl in frustration and grief. I can’t get the meaning out.
“I told you, Chase,” Willow says, her bruised wrists going to her hips. “She attacked me out of nowhere, for no reason. And Violet’s going to keep the evidence, because my next stop is Dad’s office, and this bitch is gonna be expelled. You hear that, rat-face? You’re done.”
I spit and snarl with such sudden intensity, Chase has difficulty keeping me in place.
“Not once I show him what you did!” I say. “The pictures, all over my room. That’s crossing the line, even for you bitches!”
“Looks like it worked,” Falyn says dryly, and that earns her another escape attempt by me.
“Jesus—stay still,” Chase says, his voice strained. I’m trying to kick my way out, and my shoes come concerningly close to his groin. “What pictures?”
“My mother,” I say, my vocal cords tearing as the memory rips through my throat. “Pictures of her crime scene. Deranged smiley emojis where her face should-should—”
My knees buckle. Chase catches my sudden dead weight and holds me still, his grip becoming less imprisoning as I pull the images forth, pages of my mother’s death fanning into my mind’s view.
The three of them—Violet, Falyn, and Willow, wobble into my present, but Falyn’s catty smile remains clear, and Willow’s obvious derision is in the twist of her lips.
Even while messed-up, wrinkled, and pale with shock, they resemble princesses-in-training, looking down at their latest prisoner, asking their knight to ready her for a beheading.
Violet is the disconcerted leftover, pulling her lips in and working her jaw nervously, her reluctance at being a part of this shit-show made clear.
Chase’s hold lightens, and he shifts so it’s only his body I see. Only him. He lowers his head so his dazzling, angelic face takes their place, and I’m able to blink again. Chase’s normally arched brows smooth and his lips turn supple with understanding.
He waits until my eyes are steady on his.
“Leave it to me,” he says, then waits a beat to ensure my permission before he turns. “Is what Callie’s saying true? Did you three put her mother’s murder on blast?”
Chase’s voice is so low, it’s demonically dark. His cadence slows so the threat is evident in each syllable he utters.
His broad back, covered by his thin unisuit, shades my view, each tensed muscle popping against the maroon and black fabric. I don’t need to be a witness to know that the three witches have gone white under their bi-weekly spray tans.
Falyn’s voice comes through. “She’s a lunatic, Chase, like Piper always said.”
“We may not be responsible,” Willow adds, “But whoever it was deserves kudos from us. You should be proud, too, Chase, since you and Piper—”
“I never participated in Piper’s juvenile cruelty,” Chase bites out.
“But you watched it.” Willow’s voice turns playful. “And you silently loved it as much as Tempest. Laughed like James. Observed with your hand sneaking into your pants, like Rio—”
“Fuck your theories, Willow,” Chase snaps. “I’m not a part of your run-down traveling circus as you collect your freaks. Whatever you’re hoping to win now that Piper’s gone, it ends now.”
“And what’ll you do about it if we don’t?” Falyn trills. “Push us off a—”
Chase rears so fast and hard, his sneakers kick dirt up my shins as he flies in front of Falyn, his fingers twitching with his effort at restraint, but his mouth holding no such reservations.
“Mention her death and my name in a sentence again, you’ll see what it’s like to bend under my will, and you know better than anybody that I don’t use force. I like my games.” Chase tilts his head, his face bitingly close to Falyn, who stands her ground, but shakes at the effort. “I love my silent cruelty. I’ll inflict every skill I have until you go to sleep screaming. You’ll wake up with a voice so raw, you’ll have blood instead of a tongue.” Chase leans in. “And it will all be from your own doing. My hands’ll be clean.”
Fuck.
Even I gulp at his words, and I’m the one with a clear view of his perfect ass in tight shorts, the complete opposite of the Satanic lip service Falyn’s receiving.
The corners of my mouth tic at the thought. I’m coming back. The scarlet vision recedes, and my fingers and toes tingle, like they’ve been asleep all this time and at last are returning to life.
I breathe.
“Go clean up the shit you’ve tossed into Callie’s room,” Chase continues. “I’ll explain to Coach you’re skipping practice because you didn’t want to miss your manicure appointment.”
“You know what Coach’ll do if she hears we missed training!” Willow sputters, her face blotchy and red.
Chase angles to include Willow. “And you know what I’ll do if you follow me to the boathouse.”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Falyn spits, now that his hell-spawned eyes are directed elsewhere.
“There’s no need,” comes a small voice.
I think it’s Violet, but when I look at her, she’s clutching her gym bag to her chest and pretending not to exist under Chase’s ire.
“Marron’s in your room now, Callie,” the voice continues, and I recognize its tone.
Ivy steps out from the trees and onto the path. Her eyes are red-rimmed, like she’s been rubbing them. Her nails are bleeding from picking at her cuticles too hard.
“He is?” I’m surprised at the rough, off-key tune of my voice, but it sounds more familiar than it did a few minutes ago.
Ivy nods. “The campus police, too. Once they heard what was in there, they, um, they also called … Haskins is on his way.”
Chase asks, “The detective?”
“Yeah,” Ivy says, wringing her hands in front of her. “Callie, I think they want you to meet them in Marron’s office.”
We climb the trail to the school together, Ivy taking my hand at some point and squeezing. Reality continues its shaking camera view as I walk, but I’m happy to leave Chase and Piper’s friends in my rearview lens.
They would’ve had to hack into someone’s computer to gain possession of my mom’s crime scene photos and used connections they were born with to get it. A password wouldn’t be required—all it would take was a simple phone call, an underhanded favor exchanged, or blackmail enforced.
Chase's dad is a criminal defense attorney.
If I looked at that fact on its face, it’d be hard to believe. Chase defended me on the trail to the boathouse. Yet, I can’t discount that Daniel Stone had the easiest way to gain access to those photos.
Did Chase do it? Will he defend me one minute, then plow my face into the dirt the next?
He’s conniving. I’ve seen his two faces, one running hot and the other ice cold.
Ivy puts her hand between my shoulders, nudging me into Headmaster Marron’s office. Somehow, we’d navigated the Briarcliff lawns and hallways without me noticing.
Haskins sits in one chair across from Marron’s desk, where Marron reposes, his elbows propped against the wood and index fingers pressed to his lips. The second visitor’s chair is vacant—for me.
Dr. Luke steps out stage
left, his arms crossed and mouth grim as he nods his hello, and it’s with a quick hug from Ivy that I step into the office and shut the door behind me.
40
Two grueling hours later, I leave Marron’s office shakier than when I’d entered.
Stepping into the hallway reminds me that Sunday at Briarcliff continues the exact way it would had I not had my waking nightmares reinvigorated. Students filter through the school, and the Wolf’s Den above is loud with footsteps and laughter as seniors drink their caffeine of choice and study, enjoying the time and privilege away from their younger counterparts.
I don’t bother to look up as I pass under, but I file away the craving to sleep there tonight, instead of the place where I’ve been so wholly violated.
Piper, and now my mother, share their final moments with me in that dorm room. I may not have Piper’s missing pages, but her feelings stay with me, the fear she must’ve felt, the betrayal and helpless rage … the precise feelings I know my mom felt when she’d realized her life was over.
I close my eyes tight once I take the stairs down and hit the pavement outside, intent on keeping the tears in, on forcing my screams silent. The last people who deserve my anguish are those who amble around me, unaware and unconcerned with how their school is run.
My mom’s photos being unearthed also meant Haskins’s renewed attention on me. I fielded questions from him, with Dr. Luke at my elbow and my stepdad and Lynda on Skype, full of their own questions. Soon, it became Dad and Lynda attempting to understand the situation more than it was any sort of interrogation of me. They didn’t know my roommate had died under suspicious circumstances. Had no clue I was being bullied by her, too. Yet, when it came to questioning my motives, Lynda reared up and threatened legal action the minute Haskins’s voice bordered on suspicion. She also threatened to pull both me and her family’s substantial donation if this line of questioning continued.
I respected her for that.
When she voiced her preference for both Ahmar and her family’s lawyer being present if I’m “brought in” again, I appreciated her shrewdness.
Maybe she isn’t that bad, after all.
Rival (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 1) Page 22