Rival (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 1)

by Ketley Allison

  Because it was Dr. Luke. I’ve been alone with the teacher. I’d fallen into his arms in the hallway when I tripped on a rat. Is that what Piper was referring to when she accused me? My accidental trip over a corpse and into Dr. Luke?

  It’s possible. Piper’s diary is lined with more jealousy and hate than goodwill.

  I need to talk to Chase. Now.

  The clocktower clangs the end of the period, and I blink back into existence, my fingers tightening against my pen when I realized I missed the final ten questions. Professor Lacey’s hand comes into my vision, then retracts with my exam before I can do anything about it. I’m left with a blank desk and a cluttered mind.

  “Wanna eat lunch together?” Ivy asks behind me. The dull noise of the rest of the class packing up reaches my ears. “It’s mac ’n’ cheese day.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “No worries. Come find me.”

  Ivy trots away, none the wiser to my paranoid convictions. I swear, every day that I dwell on Briarcliff’s secrets means losing another chance at true friendship.

  I beeline into the halls, taking shortcuts I’m now familiar with, catching Chase as he’s about to take the stairs to the Wolf’s Den.

  “Chase!”

  His head turns at my call, and it’s with an implacable expression he mutters something to James, who bounds up the stairs ahead of him.

  “What have I told you about addressing me in public?” he asks once I come to a stop in front of him.

  “Sorry. Your Highness. Your Lordship. Your Majestic Prick.”

  Chase’s eyes narrow into slits. “While I like the last one, I gave you the protection you wanted by getting people off your back during the day, but it has limits. If the girls around here heard I was banging you, the rats in your locker will look like pieces of cotton candy fluff.”

  “Glad to see your over-inflated ego remains intact, despite lowering yourself to banging me.” I wave his cutting retort away. “I’ll worry about headless Barbie dolls stuffed in my locker tomorrow. What I have to say is important.”

  I grab him by the elbow until we’re under the stairs and out of view to the students headed to lunch.

  “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until tonight? I had plans for you after crew.” The shadows under the staircase assist in shading his eyes with desire.

  Ignoring the inevitable pull my nipples seem to feel toward him, I say in a low voice, “I think I’ve figured out who Mr. S is.”

  His chest concaves with an exasperated sigh.

  “I think it’s Dr. Luke.”

  Chase waits a beat. “And?”

  “And?” I give him a smack. He doesn’t flinch or move at the contact. “I think he was having an affair with Piper!”

  I manage to get a startled eye-blink out of him. “What?”

  “Yes! Piper used a codename for the guy she was having an affair with, and it’s been driving me crazy because it has to be important, and the police never brought up anything about Piper having a secret boyfriend—”

  “Hold. Hold up.” Chase raises a hand, and I shut my mouth, but not because he asked me to. Because he never stutters. “I never did ask you where you heard that name. And I thought the police were keeping it under wraps after they questioned me. Motive evidence, they called it. And why … why am I only hearing about the affair shit now?”

  “Because…” I squeeze the back of my neck, needing something to do. “I … read her diary.”

  I’m met with silence, but I’m afraid to raise my eyes.

  Chase’s question is tight with restraint. “What. Diary.”

  “There was one hidden in her mattress. Nobody saw it, not even her family when they cleaned out her room, and—”

  “Show it to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  A second beat of silence. The school orchestra could be marching by in full practice mode, and I wouldn’t hear it, so tunneled are my ears to Chase’s every twitch. “Why not?”

  “I … gave it to the police.”

  Chase’s silence contains the pressure to move the tectonic plates beneath our feet. It’s deadly, powerful, and I’m at his mercy. He asks, “And you didn’t make a copy?”

  “I did, on my phone. But it was stolen from me the day … well, my mom. Whoever it was also broke into my room and deleted it off the cloud on my laptop.”

  Nothing but breath escapes between us, but I’m hit with an utter need to fill our space. I step into his comfort zone, clutching his hands, though they remain stiff at his side. I search his face for any emotion other than a cruel blankness. Anything.

  I say, “I’m sorry I kept it from you, but it can’t come as a surprise. You and I, we share what we want to, when it conveniences us. That’s how it’s been these past weeks, and I promise, I’m growing to trust you. I know you didn’t hurt Piper, but…”

  Chase’s unblinking gaze centers on me. “You don’t trust me.”

  “That’s not—”

  “I trusted you enough to tell you about my sister.”

  “Chase, I told you about finding my mother. But this was never a quid pro quo—”

  Chase cocks his head and breathes cold fire onto my lips. “Wasn’t it? What stopped you from telling me about your friend who OD’d? Or the shit that went down with your dad?”

  I stare at him.

  “I read all about it, Callie … how you and this chick went to a party and her coke was laced with Fentanyl and she almost died. Her parents blamed you, but it was a freak miracle that you didn’t snort the same shit she did and end up just like her.”

  I swallow. Excuses won’t come, because my mind’s too busy flashing back to a lifeless Sylvie who only had me to give her drunken, shrieking CPR until someone thought to call 9-1-1.

  “That’s not what interested me most about you, though,” Chase continues, rounding his sentence in soft tones, but the words are hard. “You accused your stepdad of your mom’s murder.”

  I wince. “You’re angry I didn’t tell you about Piper’s diary. Fine. But don’t throw my past at me like it’s your weapon to wield.”

  He ignores me. “You must’ve been so convincing, with those big, honeyed eyes of yours. The police believed you for a long time, didn’t they? You had that detective on your side…”

  “Ahmar,” I rasp.

  “Yes!” Chase snaps his fingers with enunciated conviction. “You raked your dad over some hot fucking coals pretty good. Ruined his rep. Had him arrested for a time, and when he came out, he had to deal with your involvement in an overdose. And all because of what, Callie?”

  His tone is mocking, unreal. I’m desperate to cover my ears. “Stop,” I whisper again.

  “All because of you. You almost ruined a man’s life over a hunch. You two don’t have the same relationship now, do you? It’s why you’re here and not with him.”

  “Chase, I mean it.”

  “You fly after theories you pull from the sky. You drive yourself insane with your unsupported convictions. Didn’t your dad put you in a psychiatric hold once he proved his innocence and he untangled you from your friend’s near-death? Because you’d lost it?”

  Scalding, unshed tears blind my vision. Clog my throat. “That’s not…”

  “What is it you think you’re doing now? Is making Piper’s death into a mystery your next psychotic break? Quit while you’re ahead, Callie.” Chase widens his eyes theatrically. “Stop the madness.”

  “You’re sick,” I say through my trembling jaw. “How dare you cut me down like this, after we—”

  “Fucked? Yeah. Maybe I’ve gotten all I wanted out of you.”

  I ignore the sting. “Is this another diversion tactic of yours? To push me away from the truth?” I search his eyes, praying he sees me. The real me. “Who are you protecting, Chase?”

  He laughs cruelly. “There you go again.”

  My fingers clench on his slack ones. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, I do, swe
et possum. Thanks for the fucks. It’s been real.” He pulls away.

  “Chase, stop.”

  “I appreciate you deeming me important enough to hear your latest theory. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I flinch. “Wait.”

  But he’s stalking away, like he always does, and I wish I had the strength to grab him by his infuriating Briarcliff blazer and throw him across the ground like he did with Riordan.

  But Chase has already done that. Twice.

  Because now he’s made a tire mark out of my heart.

  Another gloppy, cheesy macaroni noodle falls from my fork.

  “Dude, you need to eat that quick,” Ivy says around a mouthful of her lunch. “Even fancy, overprivileged mac ’n’ cheese goes gummy if left out for too long.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “Since when? On the rare occasions you’re actually in the dining hall, you turn into a hiker lost in the wilderness for three days when food’s in front of you.”

  I push my plate back, leaning against the chair with a sigh. I can’t help but search the dining hall, despite being perfectly aware of what I’ll find. Or what I won’t.

  No Chase. Anywhere.

  “Then we need to improve upon the source of your energy,” Ivy says. “Since biology is next period, and Professor Dawson is no joke.”

  I’m far away from the importance of exams. It’s maddening, considering how hard I used to study, but not as gut-wrenching as facing Chase’s accusations, like it’s my fault I’ve kept Piper’s diary from him.

  It has nothing to do with my stepdad.

  Nothing to do with Sylvie.

  One may have been an accident and the other wrong, but I was right to suspect him. It was a given that I’d put my entire being into avenging my mother.

  Chase keeps so much from me. He has secrets that could fill the entire library built by his devious sire, and I’m meant to feel guilty for shoving my possession of Piper’s diary in the most private drawer I have? Chase knows everything about me—too much. He’s exposed my mind the way he’s worshipped my body. He’s … he’s felt my heartbeat.

  “Callie? You okay?”

  “I … I don’t feel well. I’m gonna go lay down before class starts again.”

  “Don’t be late. Dawson won’t let you through the door if you’re one second past the bell.”

  “I’ll be there. Swear,” I say to Ivy, then stumble through the aisles between tables, lightheaded and sore.

  Extra energy balls up tight behind my chest. It’s desperate to be expelled, but my body is too sluggish to let it. What is this? What’s wrong with me?

  Heartbreak. It’s called heartbreak, sweetie.

  I squeeze my temples and scrunch my eyes to rid my mom’s voice from my head. It’s not real. She’s not here, so why must she become my inner voice? I don’t want her echoes. I want my mom. She’d have the correct answers. She’d hold me as I cried over a boy.

  I come close to breaking my nose as I storm around a blind corner. At the last second, I jolt back from the trophy case, leaving smeared fingerprints on the spotless glass.

  I almost smashed into the case by Marron’s office, and I glance around with an unbalanced waver to my steps, hoping no one witnessed my moment of weakness, or put it on their phone.

  The hidden crest, its motto carved in iron, still rests behind a rowing trophy from 1921. The half-wing I can see, spread to the tip of the circle, has those words, the ones so familiar yet impossible to grasp, scored into its feathers.

  altum volare in tenebris

  My phone’s at the dorm, so I can’t translate it. Instead, I squint at the writing, hoping I’ve committed it to memory to decipher it later.

  Thump.

  Something heavy thuds against the wall behind the trophy case. I jump, but I don’t run.

  Bang.

  A shatter follows from inside the office opposite Marron’s, glass breaking.

  Human grunts ripple into the air, the last one more laced with pain than the first.

  I glance around with wide eyes, then sprint toward the sounds of struggle, and when I stop at the office where the noises come from, I read the nameplate.

  “Shit!” I cry, then burst through the door.

  45

  “Chase! Chase, stop!”

  My yells go unnoticed as two men—Dr. Luke and Chase—grapple for leverage in Dr. Luke’s office.

  Books have toppled from the shelves. Dr. Luke’s desk lamp lies shattered and flickering with exposed electricity on the ground by their feet. Picture frames are crooked on the walls, and one even has blood spray next to it.

  A frantic search of both their faces reveals Dr. Luke with a blood-soaked eye. A cut leaks from his eyebrow, and Chase … Chase is clean-shaven and flawless with his hands around Dr. Luke’s neck.

  “Chase!” I burst forward, gripping one of his arms, but it’s like climbing an oak tree out back. Immobile and entrenched.

  Dr. Luke’s back arches over his desk as Chase bends him at an unnatural angle, teeth bared and saliva dripping, resembling the very wolf Briarcliff touts as its mascot.

  “Listen to me. Chase, listen!” I say, my heart pounding in tandem to my words. I attempt to get into his view, but he’s channeled his focus into Dr. Luke and is no longer programmed to look anywhere else.

  “He can’t talk if you strangle him to death!” I say, pulling at Chase’s arm despite the uselessness of it. “Chase, look at what you’re doing!”

  I slip between him and Dr. Luke, between Chase’s rigid, jointless arms, and push at his chest. Dr. Luke gurgles behind me, clutching at my shirt, pulling at my hair, begging for help.

  “You’re killing him!” I scream. “You’re killing him!”

  Chase blinks. His eyes become focused. He glances down at me, the brown of his irises clearing.

  He releases Dr. Luke without warning, who sags behind me and nearly takes me down with him. Chase hooks my waist and pulls me into a safer zone, then stands in front of me as a shield.

  Not that Dr. Luke appears to be able to do anything but gurgle at the moment.

  “You fucked her,” Chase spits. Literally. He lobs a loogie onto Dr. Luke’s panting chest. “Then you killed her.”

  Dr. Luke stares at us, sweat and blood dripping from his brows, his button-down shirt torn and sprinkled with blood, both from his nose and forehead. “Mr. Stone, I did not—”

  Chase kicks him in the gut. I screech at Chase, pulling him back. “Are you out of your mind? What are we supposed to do now, huh? You attacked a teacher, Chase. You—”

  “What evidence do you have, buddy?” Dr. Luke regains the breath to spit blood, then smile a toothy grin rimmed in red. Chase doesn’t respond. He glares at Dr. Luke with such unearthly promise, I have renewed terror over what he’s capable of.

  “Just as I thought,” Dr. Luke rasps. “You have nothing.”

  “She wrote about you.”

  Dr. Luke’s eyelids flutter. He licks the top row of his teeth, his only reaction to my voice. “Did she now?”

  “Explicitly,” I continue. “Down to your nightly meet-ups on school grounds. She had a diary.”

  Dr. Luke stares at me from his place on the ground.

  “And I found it.”

  Chase keeps still beside me.

  “You told her to wait for you after the party ended at Lover’s Leap, didn’t you?” I ask. “For her to act drunk and pretend to go back to the dorms, when really, she found a place to hide until you came along, broke up the party, then met up with her.”

  “What a silly detective you’d make, Miss Ryan.”

  Chase’s mockery over my dad echoes in the shells of my ears, but I stand with conviction. “You’re the cool teacher, the one kids respect the most. If you were the teacher to break up the party, Briarcliff students would listen, because you’d promise you’d keep their secret, so long as they cleaned up and made it look like they were never there in the first place.”

  “She’s right
,” Chase drawls. “We listened, didn’t we, Teach? But you didn’t walk back with us.”

  Dr. Luke’s eyes slide over to Chase’s. “So, I’m a nice guy. I’ve been where you are, Mr. Stone. The power of popularity is electric, isn’t it? But I got my ass reamed for allowing the gathering to disperse without punishment. You have it entirely wrong. I almost lost my position here, and it’s not because I slept with a student. It’s because she died while apparently under my off-duty supervision. And you two,” Dr. Luke growls, then coughs, “are in so much goddamned trouble for this.”

  “What makes you think you’re not under police watch?” I lie. “What if, the minute I found the diary, I took it to Detective Haskins?”

  Which … I kinda did.

  Dr. Luke grunts. “Then you wouldn’t’ve been brought in for questioning over your own involvement, Miss Ryan.”

  I smile. “You didn’t let me finish. What if it was all a ruse? A way to get your guard down, to make you feel safe? Intelligent killers don’t just confess. You have to give them a reason. Make them comfortable enough to make a mistake.”

  Dr. Luke glances between me and Chase. “You’re full of shit.”

  I am, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  He points. “Whatever you two are concocting, it’s on the wrong side of the law. You assaulted me, Mr. Stone, and you are aiding and abetting, Miss Ryan.”

  I fake a loud snort. “Who? Me and him?” I thumb over to Chase. “You think we’re in cahoots? I hate him, Dr. Luke. You’ve seen how he’s treated me. Like roadkill on his shoe since the day I walked in here. Piper’s death didn’t change that. Just this morning he made me well aware of the disgust he has toward me.”

  My voice cracks at the end, and Chase’s gaze moves to me, his brief survey unreadable in my periphery, but I see his eyelids flicker, maybe, maybe with remorse.

  “Plus, our methods are different.” I exert all my efforts to stay cold, calculated, and unengaged with the boy I’m falling for. “I didn’t want to come in here and beat the shit out of you, Dr. Luke. I just want the truth. I’m a lot like my mother that way.”

  “Punching him in the face is the quickest way to reach that goal,” Chase murmurs, his survey moving to Dr. Luke. He raises his fist. “Shall I continue?”