Hexes and Havoc: A Paranormal Academy Bully Romance (Sleepy Hollow Academy Book 3)

by Zara Zenia

  Professor Chiu nodded and followed her quietly. I kept my ears pitched. I wanted to hear every word that they were saying. I pretended to be asleep as they spoke.

  “Is it going to be enough to cure him or save him?” Marina whispered in a worried tone.

  Professor Chiu paused and looked over his shoulder at me. I kept my eyes narrowed so that it would appear that they were closed.

  “If better treatment isn’t found soon, then I am afraid that unfortunately Vlad and the other patients like him that are currently sick in this hospital will continue to decline.”

  I held my breath and bit my tongue to keep from groaning out in distress. Marina whimpered and let out a squeak of grief. She covered her face in her hands and her posture wilted in agony.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to keep him alive.” Professor attempted to console her by patting her on the back, but I knew that if I wasn’t sick, I could do a better job at soothing her.

  “What about Dena?” she asked Professor Chiu.

  My interest piqued. I didn’t know who they were talking about. I didn’t recognize the name. Apparently, she must have discussed this with Professor Chiu before.

  “If we can find her, it’s likely that we can get the cure out of her,” Professor Chiu said. “Come on. We need to leave so he can get some rest.”

  I listened to their footsteps as they exited the room, leaving me with more questions in my drowning mind than answers.

  17

  Marina

  I stood in the center of the courtyard, feeling like I was on display even though it was pitch black outside. The world was cloaked in darkness. There wasn’t a single soul moving about the campus due to both the ungodly hour of the night, and because the campus quarantine was still in full effect.

  After a few seconds of hearing nothing other than the sound of my galloping heart beating violently in my chest, there was a slight crunching sound of footsteps approaching from behind me.

  I quickly spun around, hoping to see Colin and Daniel. It, thankfully, was them and I sighed in relief. They were here, right on time. The plan was to go to Dena Aylesbury’s house to see if she was there.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? Maybe we should wait for Tom,” Colin whispered as soon as they had reached me.

  I looked between them. “Honestly, what other choice do we really have here? Tom had to go back to Salem, he had classes, and besides that, I couldn’t let him get caught here on campus.”

  Daniel and Colin exchanged a wary glance. “Yeah, okay.”

  Daniel appeared to be quietly seething. He was furious that his best friend was still laying in a hospital bed unable to control the spiraling illness as it festered and spread overpoweringly through his sick body.

  “Vlad’s going to get through this,” I whispered to Daniel, my hand going to his cheek as I looked into his crimson eyes. I leaned forward and kissed him. “I promise, we’ll find her and save Vlad.”

  Daniel looked less than convinced, but he gave me a sharp nod. He stared straight ahead, and his crimson eyes were fierce. His milky skin was glowing, enhanced under the light of the silver moon. He visibly squared his jaw and kept his gaze dead set on the horizon.

  I looked at Colin who seemed just as determined. His long red hair was blowing gently in the breeze and his black trench coat hung open, billowing behind him. It made him look like a bad ass.

  If anything, I was lucky to have both of these men by my side because I knew that between the three of us, we were all the protection we needed. If we had to use spells and charms, then so be it.

  That’s why we had them in the first place, as a failsafe defense mechanism that we could pull directly from the magic contained within our souls.

  “Do you have the address, at least?” Daniel asked, shooting Colin an expectant look.

  Colin nodded and pointed his index finger to his temple. “It’s in here.”

  “Your head?” Daniel asked.

  “That’s right,” Colin said. “I used a memory charm to engrave it into my mind after we retrieved it from the dining hall staff list.”

  “Excellent.” I pushed up on my toes and kissed him. “Well done. This will be massively helpful.”

  “It’s just off campus,” Colin said, a slight flush to his cheeks.

  “You didn’t look it up online, did you?” Daniel asked, sounding paranoid.

  “Of course not.” Colin gave him a frown of contempt. “Do you think I’m crazy? They probably have everything bugged now anyway. I recognized the street, so I know where to go.”

  “Well we don’t know what to expect, so let’s just keep an eye out for anything, okay?” I suggested.

  Both guys nodded in agreement, much to my relief. I didn’t want to stand here bickering. I wanted to find this Dena woman and see if I could get her to come clean about the spread of the sickness.

  A few minutes later, we arrived at a small home tucked neatly into a row of other houses that were placed evenly around each other. There were a lot of trees and shrubs around the area. The house was painted a soft blue color, but there was nothing welcoming about it, no decorations, just a house like any other on the street.

  Under any other circumstances, I may have found the house itself and the curb appeal to be charming and cozy. But now, standing under a flickering streetlamp that made a buzzing sound every time an insect went near it, I felt nothing but an eerie uncertainty settling into my bones.

  We stood there in front of the house for several seconds before any of us made a single move in effort toward the little porch.

  Daniel looked at us. “There aren’t any lights on inside the house.”

  “Do you think maybe she’s not home?” Colin quizzed.

  “Maybe she’s sleeping…” I said.

  Suddenly I felt like maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to break into some strange woman’s house that we had never met before. My stomach was a little queasy and my fingers were trembling slightly.

  “Let’s just take baby steps at first,” Colin proposed. “Maybe we can look in the windows and see if we can find any activity going on there. Maybe she fell asleep on her couch…”

  “Or maybe she is in there doing dark magic with the lights off,” Daniel declared.

  "There’s only one way to find out,” I said and looked between them. I took both of their hands as they flanked me on either side. “We’re in this together. Now come on, let’s go. We’re wasting precious time standing here. Somebody might spot us at any moment.”

  “We don’t want that.” Colin shook his head as we began to walk up the sidewalk toward Dena’s front porch.

  “No, we surely don’t.” I sighed, feeling the weight of the world resting on my shoulders.

  I felt my pulse quicken, the closer we edged toward Dena’s house. There was a glare from the streetlamp that reflected off the windows like a bouncing beam of bright light.

  “Great.” Daniel huffed.

  I could feel his sullen energy seeping off him. “What?” I asked but as I followed his gaze, I realized what was frustrating him.

  “Oh no!” I hissed. “The curtains are drawn!”

  “Maybe there’s some around the back that we can look into?” Colin recommended.

  I nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

  We moved around the side of the house, not bothering to step up on the porch. Sure enough, at the back of the house, there was a sliding glass door with no curtains or blinds on it whatsoever, leaving the entire kitchen exposed in full view. It was still pitch dark inside the house, but at least we could see in after our eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

  I cupped my hands around my eyes and squinted, peering into the house. “I can’t really see anything out of the ordinary.”

  There was a small bistro type table in the breakfast nook. There was nothing on it. In fact, most of the walls were bare. There weren’t any pictures hanging on the walls, and the general observation from the outside looking in gave me a
n assumption that maybe she had already skipped town and moved out.

  Daniel tried the door. To everyone’s surprise, it popped right open. We didn’t have to use any spells or cast any charms in order to get inside.

  “That’s odd,” I said with a skeptical frown. “Why would it be unlocked already?” Suddenly I felt as if it might not be safe to enter the house after all. What if it was a trap and someone was waiting for us on the other side? If that were true though, wouldn’t we have already spotted them?

  “I’ll go in first,” Daniel said with an air of determination and defiance flickering behind his crimson eyes.

  “No. We need to go in together.” I shook my head vehemently. I didn’t want to debate this. We came here together, and we would stick together.

  Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but he must have had a change of heart because he clamped his mouth shut again.

  “We go in together?” Colin asked.

  I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  We took one guarded step inside the house. My heart felt like it was pounding in my throat. A nervous sweat grazed my skin.

  “Let’s leave the lights off,” I said. “Just in case. We don’t want to expose ourselves.”

  The guys agreed with a single nod.

  Once we took another closer step inside the kitchen and nothing happened, we began to slightly untense. We branched off, combing through the area wordlessly looking for clues.

  I walked into the kitchen where the stove and the cabinets were. There were dishes in the sink, a fork and a plate. There was a half drank cup of cold coffee in a plain white mug beside the sink.

  If she left in a hurry, she might have left these things out absentmindedly.

  I took a step backward, intending to go inspect the refrigerator next to determine whether there was any food inside. I didn’t get very far before inadvertently stumbling over something on the floor.

  At first, I thought that maybe it was a rug that had been rolled up, but then as I glanced down before nearly toppling over, I realized that it was a slumped body lying face down on the ground.

  I bit my tongue to suppress a scream that bottled up in my throat. I gasped, unable to draw in a deep breath, or breathe at all for that matter. My lungs seemed frozen, suspended in their functioning.

  I drew a shaky hand to my mouth. I forced myself to glance down. It was a woman, probably Dena, laying there dressed in a pajama set that hung loosely around her rotund figure. Her red hair was stringy and a little matted to her neck.

  I couldn’t look at her another single second. My movements were frantic and hasty. I faltered back, tripping over my own two feet as I stumbled directly into Tom’s arms just outside the sliding back door.

  18

  Thomas

  Marina scrambled into my arms. I held her close. Her slender body was quivering, and she molded perfectly into my waiting and open arms.

  “You’re trembling, baby, what happened?” I whispered soothingly in her ear. I stroked her hair and attempted to calm her down. “What did you see in there?”

  “How…did you find us?” She gazed up at me with wonderment. Her cocoa eyes shimmered under the cascading light of the moon.

  “I was worried about you, and thought you might need me again, so I drove over. I was headed to the campus when I saw you walking in this direction and followed. I meant to catch up to you, but I wanted to make sure you three weren’t being followed by anyone else, so it took me a few minutes longer—”

  “Of course.” Marina nodded as if she understood and there was no other explanation necessary.

  I glanced through the open sliding glass door. “What did you find in there that spooked you so badly that you stumbled back outside?”

  Marina opened her mouth to answer but Colin and Daniel stepped outside at that exact moment. Their eyes were open, and their mouths hung ajar as if they too were stunned with what they just encountered.

  “She’s in there…” Daniel trailed off, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “Dena…”

  “Dena?” I looked between them, holding my breath expectantly.

  “Dena Aylesbury, remember, the witch from the kitchen staff,” Marina said with a sniff. “She is in there…and she’s dead.” She nestled her face into my chest, burying her face there so that I couldn’t see her features.

  I loved how warm and right she felt in my arms. I wished that all this virus stuff was over so I could have her to myself for a little while. The guys were great, and even though I sometimes envied them and their closeness to her, I didn’t mind them being around too, just I missed her and wanted to spend some alone time with her.

  “We thought it was curious that the newest hire in the dining hall at Sleepy Hollow, hadn’t been in contact with anyone,” Colin said. “…and when we asked around, no one had seen or heard from her, so we thought, you know, go see if we could find her.”

  “So…you guys decided to go and check things out at what I assume to be her house?” I gave each of them a quizzical glance.

  “That’s right.” Marina lifted her chin and nodded at me with a guilty gleam in her eye.

  “How did she die?” I asked.

  “I…didn’t get a good look yet,” Marina said with a cringy expression. “I got so startled by her body lying there on the ground that my first reaction was to flee the scene.”

  I took her hand and clutched it with mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay. Why don’t we go back in, together?” I felt an overwhelming sensation to protect her.

  “I can use a charm to light up the room so that no one else will see the light but us,” Colin suggested.

  I nodded. “Good idea. We’ll need light to maneuver around in there and look for clues.”

  “Dena either had something to do with the illness spreading around campus, or else she knows something,” Marina said.

  “Knew something,” Daniel softly corrected with a light smile.

  “Whatever she knew died with her,” Colin stated in a regrettable tone.

  “Well, maybe we can find something in there that will point us in the right direction.”

  I could tell that as she said the words, Marina was attempting to be as optimistic as she could, regardless of whether she believed it to be true.

  “She couldn’t have died very long ago,” Colin said as we carefully walked back inside the sliding glass door. He muttered the enchantment charm to place the invisible light bubble around us.

  “How do you know?” I asked, turning to face him.

  “The corpse doesn’t smell bad yet.” He shrugged as if it should have been obvious.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said and glanced at the body as Marina led me to her.

  Rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet either. I reached down and touched the tip of her exposed ankle. Her body was cold.

  “Don’t touch her!” Marina whispered harshly.

  I glanced up at her from a crouched position and quickly stood up. “I just wanted to see if she was cold yet.”

  “Is she?” Daniel asked.

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded to him.

  I glanced around the room. There didn’t appear to be a struggle of any kind taking place before the death must have occurred. There didn’t appear to be any signs of forced entry either. There were no broken windows anywhere that I could tell, either.

  “Do you think she killed herself?” I asked.

  Marina shook her head and frowned, getting on her knees in front of the deceased woman. “It’s not likely.”

  “How so?” I squatted next to her to get a better investigative observation.

  “Look at the marks on her neck,” Marina whispered and pointed a shaky finger at the lady.

  “Hmm….” Colin said standing behind us. “Those look like strangulation marks.”

  “You’re right, they do,” I agreed, staring at the woman’s chubby neck.

  She had a stocky build anyway, so whoever did this, if anyone, must have had to put up
a fight against her, unless she didn’t see it coming and had no way to react in time before it was too late.

  It still didn’t make sense that nothing was in disarray on the counter tops. Wouldn’t she have struggled, even a little? The will to live was usually a powerful phenomenon.

  Dena had purplish black markings around her neck that were about a half an inch in diameter. It led me to believe that wire or ties would have been the cause for strangulation.

  The markings weren’t wide enough to have been rope, but there was no murder weapon around the scene, and she didn’t appear to be bleeding from any part of her body.

  “I’m going to dig into my magic here, maybe my luck can help us find something,” Marina said with a focused look set into her determined features.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes and drew in a sharp, concentrated breath. “I’m going to try to find any secrets in the house. Maybe we’ll find something that had to do with her private thoughts.”

  “Like a diary or something?” Daniel asked with a confused expression.

  “Yes, something like that.” Marina nodded with a whisper, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  She began wandering through the little house. Her arms were extended out in front of her and she was whispering chants under her breath. None of us dared to interrupt her. She was in a zone, her own element.

  After a few minutes, she stopped in front of the hearth. Her eyes popped open and she started gasping for air.

  I immediately rushed to her and tried to embrace her with open arms, but Daniel held me back.

  “She does this sometimes,” he said, making me feel guilty for not being around all the time and knowing her behavior. “Especially when she’s deep into her magic.”

  His voice was hushed and excited. He stared at her with crimson eyes blazing with anticipation.

  “In here,” Marina said after a few moments of listening to her erratic breathing. “It’s in the hearth.”