“The only way to save them is to keep going with the plan,” he whispered into my hair.
“I know.” I buried my face into his chest. “But it sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.” Quinn rubbed my back. “Greg’s pretty brave. I don’t know if I’d opt to stay in a rat-infested shithole just to help you save some ungrateful rich assholes.”
I smiled. Ungrateful rich assholes was a pretty accurate description of the student body. “I told you he was special.”
We made our way back to the basement without being seen. Trey was at the door as soon as we turned the handle. “What happened?” he demanded, dragging me into the bed with him. His fresh herb and cypress scent hit my nose, allowing me to shrug off some of the horrors that clung to me like weeds. “You’ve been gone for hours.”
Quinn and I filled him in on everything that happened. Between the teachers plotting to kidnap Courtney’s mother, the rats, the discovery of Greg and Zehra in Ms. West’s lab, and Loretta’s articles, it was a lot to take in.
“What are we doing about the kidnapping?” Quinn asked.
“We leave the faculty to it,” I said. “We’re continuing with our plan. As far as I’m concerned, any advantage they gain over the Eldritch Club will work in our favor.”
“But do you think we should tell Courtney?” Quinn’s voice wavered. I had to remind myself that until recently Courtney had been his girlfriend. Even though she was a stone-cold bitch, Quinn cared about her on some level.
“And risk her warning them? Not going to happen. Remember, Courtney doesn’t know what we know about what her parents did.”
“Not yet,” Trey added.
I leaned back against Quinn’s shoulder in a way I hoped was comforting, but I didn’t know anymore. Comfort wasn’t exactly my strong point. “Stop worrying. The god’s on our side. We’ve got this.”
Trey refused to let me go, so I slept curled against his shoulder while he snored gently. Quinn tossed and turned for ages before he too fell asleep. I couldn’t close my eyes until I heard his gentle breathing interspersed with Trey’s snores. My two fallen Kings – we were one step closer to giving them freedom.
I now had a god on my side… sort of. And a rat army at my disposal. That was… interesting. But why help me? Why not the other scholarship students?
How did they understand me?
Why did they write those names on the walls?
Were the names theirs?
Most importantly, what did everything have to do with me? And Loretta? Ms. West seemed to believe Loretta was important, and she knew everything in those articles. It was impossible to think Loretta with her wide, frightened eyes could kill someone, and yet… her last words to me repeated over and over in my head. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to talk to her again. Our last conversation had given more questions than answers.
These questions swirled around in my head until sleep dragged me under. I had no time to enjoy the bliss of oblivion before the god called me back to the cavern. This time, the teachers encircled the scaffold, chanting in their haunting tongue. The sound resonated through the high dome, so the very air itself reverberated with its power.
Ms. West appeared at the tunnel entrance, dragging Loretta’s prone body. “Oh, god of the infinite abyss, we come tonight to celebrate your benevolence and to bask in your glory. Tonight, after your long months of starvation, you will be able to feed.”
She stepped through her fellow worshippers and threw open the trapdoor. Even though I braced myself, I couldn’t stop the bile rising to my throat as the god’s essence was revealed once more and its cold hatred stroked my skin.
“We offer up this sacrifice for your enjoyment. Her mind has been broken so that she might please you.” Ms. West snapped her fingers. Two of the robed figures moved forward and strapped Loretta into the scaffold, tying the ropes tight around her skinny arms and legs. Her head rolled over. She was awake, although probably drugged. She made no move to fight.
“Begin!” Ms. West commanded. One of the robed figures turned a handle, and the chains clanked, lowering Loretta into the mouth of the god’s prison. The chanting rose with pitch and fervor as Loretta was lowered into the hole. The god’s hunger rose up from beneath, like a wet tongue licking her body in anticipation of the feast. I surged forward, but the sheer vileness of the god’s hunger sent me reeling.
Loretta disappeared into the black void. The chanting rose to a crescendo, reverberating off the polished stone walls until the whole room hummed and constricted like an enormous stomach digesting us all. Green veins flickered on the edges of my vision, completing the horror.
The chanting broke off abruptly as the room pitched. Teachers dropped to their knees, covering their heads as rock and dust rained down on them. The room continued to pulse and shake. It balanced on the edge of tension, ready to tear apart at any time. Teachers staggered across the pitching ground, cowering beneath the alcove where I too hid. I figured they couldn’t see me the way I could see them.
The god howled with pain. In the haze of darkness, I felt rather than saw its power retracting, the sticky spiderweb of bonds that stretched from the god out into the world snapping and unraveling. Dust and stone rained from the roof, obscuring my view of the room. From deeper in the cave, a great BOOM sounded as another cave-in shook the ancient structure.
“What’s happening?” Dr. Atwood tore off his hood and glanced at Ms. West.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Ms. West cried, steadying herself against the wall as the world jerked violently. “There was nothing different about her. She was even more broken than the others.”
With a groan, the scaffold bent double. The ropes stretched taut, then pinged back, sending a lump flying from within the prison and skidding across the ground. Loretta’s face – pale and frozen – stared with glassy eyes.
Ms. West bent down and dragged Loretta up by the hair. “What is the meaning of this? What have you done to our god?”
Loretta’s eyes rolled back. She made no move to respond.
Ms. West shook her, her voice rising as panic settled in. “What did you do?”
With a final spurt of agony and the snap snap snap of oily strands breaking, the god slumped back into its prison. A foul wind roared through the cave. I pressed my back against the wall as it fought to tear me away. The teachers clung to each other, their robes whipping around their bodies. With a BANG, the trapdoor slammed shut, and the room fell silent and still.
“What do we do now?” Atwood demanded. “The god is even weaker than before, and they already blame us. Now it will not eat. When Bloomberg gets here, he’ll have our heads for this.”
Ms. West nudged Loretta’s prone body with her spiked heel. “The Eldritch Club already know about Ms. Waite’s effect on the god. We tell them that tonight was a result of Hazel’s presence. They don’t need to know another scholarship student also has this effect.”
“They’ll know we haven’t sacrificed a student,” Dr. Halsey pointed out.
“Will they?” Ms. West brushed rock dust off her sleeves. “Of course it will be clear in a few years when this girl starts to age, but for now our deception will be invisible. She doesn’t know what happened to her, and she has no friends to confide in, so how will she reveal the truth?”
“We’re not cutting out her tongue like the others?”
Ms. West shook her head. “Courtney Haynes has specially requested she remains in the student body as part of Hazel Waite’s torture.”
“If Courtney wants it, we must obey,” Dr. Atwood whispered to another robed figure, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“That’s exactly true, Derek. And you’d do best not to forget it.” Ms. West dropped Loretta’s head. Her skull made a loud thump as it hit the concrete. The headmistress stepped over Loretta and made her way toward the tunnel connecting the cavern with the gymnasium. The rest of the faculty followed. At the doorway, Atwood looked back on Loretta, his face twisting.
“Y
ou think you’ve escaped death,” he snarled. “You know nothing.”
Atwood ducked his head, disappearing into the tunnel. Goosebumps rocketed up my arms. I longed to rush to Loretta’s side, but when I tried to move my feet, they were glued to the ground. The god didn’t want me interfering with this dream – he wanted me to see it.
After what seemed like forever holding my breath, Loretta stirred. She curled her knees into her chest, gripping her temples. A strangled groan escaped her throat.
Loretta lay still a while longer before slowly, achingly slowly, pulling herself to her feet. She spun in a slow circle, eyes wide as she took in every detail of the cavern with its dressed stone, creepy veins, and torches flickering from sconces carved in the walls, of the dust and debris coating the ground, of the scaffold and trapdoor. Loretta brushed dust off her Derleth skirt and frowned at her now-soiled cuffs.
“Well,” she said to the empty room, to the crawling chaos that lurked beneath. “Fuck you.”
I bolted up in bed, my heart pounding. Trey threw his arm around me, dragging me against his chest.
“Another visit from everyone’s favorite cosmic deity?” He murmured against my ear.
I nodded. Trey gripped me tighter. He didn’t ask about the dream, but waited until I was ready to speak. Who’s this attentive guy, and what’s he done with Trey the bully?
“The god showed me something else from the past. It was the night Loretta was sacrificed. Or rather, wasn’t sacrificed.”
“I thought you didn’t believe her.”
“I didn’t. But the god just showed me that it’s true. The teachers strung her up on the scaffold, lowered her into the god’s prison, and he spat her back out again. Ms. West decided to put Loretta back into the school. She told the faculty to blame the god’s waning power on me so the Eldritch Club wouldn’t figure it out.”
“That’s… interesting.” Trey wiped strands of hair from my face, his touch warming me through the fog of my horror. “I wonder why the god wanted you to see it.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I think he’s trying to help me figure out what’s different about Loretta and I. I think that’s the key to figuring out how we can free the rest of you.”
“Any idea what it could be?”
Because we’re the murderers. Loretta’s words danced on the tip of my tongue. I knew now that was the one similarity that united us – we fascinated the god because we had taken life, as he had.
I itched to tell Trey what Loretta had said. If I did, I also knew what his next question would be. Are you a murderer, Hazel?
And I didn’t know how to answer that. I couldn’t.
Instead, I held the secret to my chest and curled back into Trey’s arms. In the bed across from us, Quinn snored. I watched the sun rising through the tiny high window. I hated myself until my loathing burned through my skin and I went numb all over.
I have to talk to Loretta. Alone.
The next morning, while Quinn and Trey argued over whose turn it was to use the shower first and therefore get the one single dribble of hot water, I snuck across the hall into Andre’s room and let myself in. “Hey, I hope I didn’t wake you. I—”
Andre sat up in bed, his face swallowed by guilt. Behind him, wrapped in the sheets, Sadie glared at me.
“Sorry. You did give me a key.” I held it up in my hand. “Can I borrow your pad?”
Andre grabbed it from the nightstand and handed it to me. Sadie burrowed under the covers. I scribbled a message for Loretta, telling her that if she wanted to save Greg she had to meet me in the cemetery this afternoon. I tore off the page, folded it, and handed it and the pad back to Andre.
“Can you give this to Loretta? Don’t let any teacher or student see it.”
Andre nodded. Sadie pointed at the door. I backed away, hands in the air. I knew when I wasn’t wanted.
“Why did you take the newspaper clippings?” I demanded before Loretta had even shut the gate behind her.
“Good afternoon to you, too.” The hinges creaked as Loretta swung the gate shut. She leaned against the stone post, her eyes gazing up into the trees. Courtney had been experimenting with her hair again – it was tied in several small pigtails. It might’ve been a fashionable style on a hip hop singer, but it made Loretta look like a porcupine. “I noticed Mr. Dexter had bite marks up his arm, and Ms. Halsey’s head is all bandaged up. Your doing, I suppose?”
“Don’t change the subject. Ms. West has the articles now, did you know that?” I balled my hands into fists. When I thought about it, it made me so angry. “Does she know you got them from me?”
Loretta shrugged.
“I read them,” I blurted out, trying to shake her out of her indifference. “You told me your dad was never in your life, but that’s a lie. I know you killed him.”
“Then you know why I took them,” Loretta’s voice was hard. “They already knew my mother killed herself because she was gay. What do you think would have happened to me if the monarchs found out about my father?”
I fought to keep my anger under control. She was right, of course. The monarchs had one job at this school – to make our lives as miserable as possible. If they’d had that detail of Loretta’s life, they would have twisted it and exploited it and made her even more miserable.
Instead, Loretta kept it close, allowing it to twist up inside her and poison everything that had been good about her life. I knew all too much about keeping secrets.
“Someone went to a great deal of trouble to get those articles to me,” I managed to say, trying to find another way to convey my anger. “If I’d read them all sooner, I might have been able to stop some of this from happening.”
Loretta shook her head. “Of course you think that. I didn’t come to talk about the past. You found Greg?”
I nodded. “Ms. West has him locked up in her new laboratory. She needs the students and staff to believe he’s been sacrificed, but she won’t give him to the god because she’s trying to weaken the Eldritch Club. Theoretically, the oath I made still protects him from being hurt. But I don’t know for how much longer.”
“It sounds as if you have everything figured out,” Loretta said in a bored voice. “I don’t see what you need me for.”
“I need to know about when you were thrown into the god’s prison. What happened? What did you see?”
“Everything,” Loretta wore her secret smile like a mask. “And nothing.”
“Did he speak to you? Do you know why he can’t or won’t take our souls?”
“I told you why.” She frowned at me. “You just refuse to listen.”
“I am listening. Please, Loretta?” I clasped my hands together, my voice cracking. The rage inside me threatened to snap at any moment, transforming my pleading into my hands wrapped around her throat. She had answers that could help us all, but she refused to cooperate. “I don’t care about what you did. I’m the last fucking person to judge. I just need to know if there’s some way I can give the others back their souls.”
Loretta cast her eyes upward, focusing on something in the trees I couldn’t see. “Do you know what a pitchfork sounds like when it slides through flesh?” she said. “That’s what I hear every time I close my eyes. It’s a wet squelch, like sinking your feet into fresh mud.”
Fuck. I rubbed my temple. White-hot flames danced behind my eyes. I’m not sure I’m up to hearing this.
But Loretta needed to tell her story. She needed me to know.
“He raped my mother when she was just sixteen years old,” Loretta said. “He was her youth leader at their church. She came to him for advice because she realized she was gay. He thought he would fuck the gayness out of her. She was a good Christian girl, a virgin saving herself for marriage. He was supposed to be a good Christian, too, but he just took what he wanted. Afterward, she was too scared to tell anyone, too scared to go to a doctor. She felt the baby growing inside her – a baby she loved and hated with equal measure until it tore her heart in two. She h
ad to tell her parents. They wouldn’t allow her to get an abortion, so she had to give birth to a child who’d been violently placed inside her.”
Loretta closed her eyes. “I think she tried to love me. My grandmother showed me photographs of me when I was a baby. I’m in my mother’s arms, and she’s crying and smiling as she holds me. But his shadow loomed over everything – he stared back at her from my crib. I don’t remember much about her now, except a vague feeling of unease. In her suicide note, she said she tried so hard but as much as she loved me she couldn’t be my mother.
“After she died, the authorities said I had to live with my next-of-kin – the man who raped my mother. My grandparents knew what he’d done to their daughter, but as far as they were concerned, she’d made the whole thing up because she was sick. She thought she was gay. She was mentally disturbed, and he was a Godly Man – a church leader, a pillar of the community. They thought he’d be just the person to make sure I grew up ‘right.’ So off I went to live with a rapist. The first time he came into my room, I was just six years old.” Her hand tightened around the gate. “He told me I was beautiful, a good girl. He said God loved me for being with him. He was the only one who ever said those sweet things to me. I wanted to make him happy.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Loretta, I’m so sorry.
“As I got older, I tried to fight back, to tell him I didn’t want to do anything. I felt ashamed – a wretched secret that no one wanted. He was ashamed, too, I think – he took to the bottle and he became violent. Not just to me – he would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. Everyone in the church was afraid of him. Every day I hoped he’d drink so much he’d pass out – if he didn’t drink enough, then he didn’t care who heard my screams.
“That day, he went out to the barn to talk to a neighbor, and he took a gallon of moonshine with him. Two hours later he bellowed for me. I knew if I didn’t come he would come inside to find me, crashing through the house, destroying our possessions and then blaming it on me. I walked out to him, every step heavy as lead.
Possessed: A reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 3) Page 19