by Robin Thorn
Copyright © 2018 by Robin Thorn
Cover and Interior Design By Eight Little Pages
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
I paced along the dark street of Briarwood, pools of misted lamplight mapping out my path towards the rundown bar. I could hear my quick breaths, my footsteps tapping out a rhythm on the pavement. The street was quiet, abandoned, just a truck-stop off the highway. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or exceptional. At least, not from the outside.
I was close now. The thrum of bass music seeping from the brick walls.
Just a little further.
I ran the last few steps and pulled open the door. The rush of opium scents hit the back of my throat, intoxicating me.
Alone, I moved numbly through the crowded bar. It was dark, smoky, and I could feel dozens of sets of eyes on me, tearing me apart with their hungry gazes.
I shouldn’t have come here. Already dread was seeping into my consciousness. I should never have ended up in a place like this, but now that it I’d started, I couldn’t stop. My body screamed for more.
For Him.
I caught sight of him now, through the smoky haze and the hive of bodies moving around me, dressed in tight clothes and black leather.
His golden eyes pierced the crowd, somehow landing only on me in the darkened bar. Somehow needing me just as much as I needed him.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
My heart rate quickened as I approached the cordoned off area of the bar, where two burly security guys guarded a red rope that marked the VIP area.
Please let me through I willed. I glanced down at my outfit, a skin-tight leather mini, just like he always liked. My long black hair tumbled loosely over my shoulders and my fingernails
painted blood red.
I urged him silently. Please tell them to let me in.
I’d been here just a few nights earlier, and I’d only just managed to get access inside VIP. Maybe the security guards would recognise me tonight though. Perhaps they’d let me in if they knew I was with Him.
Unless he didn’t want me tonight, the harrowing thought suddenly occurred to me. Maybe he was waiting for someone else. Maybe he was bored of me.
I trailed my fingers over my leather skirt, a second skin to me now. The hairs on my arms stood on end in the chill of the room.
Please choose me.
The security guard glanced me up and down with his crimson stare, then slowly craned his neck towards the private room. His focus went to the dark-haired man in the shadowed booth—the man with the golden eyes.
To my relief, the man responded with an almost imperceptible nod.
My stomach flipped as the security guard drew back the red rope, granting me access.
I stumbled over myself as I almost ran to him. Another guy was sitting beside him in the booth, and the stranger shook his head with a sigh at the sight of my arrival. With a grim expression, he rose to his feet and stepped out from the booth, allowing room for me.
“Goodbye, Sam,” He murmured as the other left the table.
“Go easy on her, Leonard,” Sam replied, and he walked back towards the main bar.
But I barely registered anything.
Leonard. His name was soft as honey. As sharp as thorns.
I slid into the booth beside Leonard, and at once his mouth moved closer to mine. My lips parted as he breathed me in. My blood rushed through my body, causing my head to spin.
A trickle of black smoke leaked from my mouth. I trembled in ecstasy.
He should stop now, I thought vaguely. He usually stops now.
But he drew in another breath.
And another.
Then another, until there was no more left for him to take.
It was the breath that woke me. The hot brush of air that moved over my face, dragging me from the pits of sleep. I knew it wasn’t the right time to wake. My body was still heavy with sleep; my eyelids crusted together. Pressure weighed my body down, pinning me to my bed.
Stefan. My name, a broken whisper that stirred my consciousness. I opened my eyes, and I half expected someone to be standing over me. I was wrong. The dark of my room welcomed me.
A shuffling noise sounded from the corner of my room.
My entire body chilled. I wasn’t alone.
I sat up and flipped the lamp on, flooding my dorm room in a too-bright ochre glow.
“Who’s there?” I choked.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust as my focus moved quickly around the room, darting over in the pine wardrobe and desk that filled the small space. And then my eyes landed on Her. A girl was stood in the corner of my room, motionless. She was tall, willowy, with a curtain of long black hair. At once, my fear dissolved into anger. Hazing had ended over a month ago, how dare someone come into my room in the middle of the night!
“What do you think you’re playing at?” I shouted, my voice cracking.
She didn’t respond.
I’d only been living on campus since September, and it was closing in on mid-December now. It was possible that I didn’t know every live-in student in Dorm Block D, but I was almost sure I’d never seen her before.
A whisper of night air blew in from the open window across the room. The winter chill crept in, holding me in its icy vice.
Funny, I didn’t remember leaving the window open.
All a sudden, my vision started to blur. It was as though I couldn’t focus on her anymore. Almost as though she wouldn’t allow me to. Her sinuous raven hair turned into ripples in my distorted vision, like thick black smoke, as insubstantial as she was. The bedside lamp flickered, and the bulb gave way with a pop.
My room was void of light. I couldn’t see her anymore.
“Who are you?” I rasped. As I spoke, my breath escaped in a cloud of mist.
Shaking, I fumbled blindly over my nightstand where my phone was attached to the charging cable. There! My fingers slipped over the phone’s glass screen, and I pulled it to me, tearing it from the cable. My hands were numb as I swiped up and pressed the symbol for the torch. The beam of light lanced across the room and I spotlighted the dim corner where she stood.
“He told me to do it!” she cried, shielding her eyes from the glare. “He made me!”
My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the frail girl before me. She must have been around my age, eighteen or so. Her long dark hair knotted in sweat-drenched strands that clung to her neck. Dirt was smeared across her porcelain skin, hollowing her thin features.
“What’s happened to you?” I murm
ured. “Are you hurt?”
She pressed her hands over her ears and shook her head wildly, eyes squeezed shut.
“I’ll call 911,” I stammered, losing the ability to move my hands.
She pressed her lips tightly together.
I considered shouting for help. Someone in the dorm block was bound to hear me. But my voice was trapped in my throat.
“What’s your name?” I managed.
Tears began to spill down her cheeks, and she opened her eyes to meet my gaze.
I held my focus on her, trying to place if I’d ever seen her before. She stepped forward, away from the shadowed corner of my room, and into clearer view.
Her wide eyes shone like liquid gold. No a sign of white, just gold, with swollen black pupils.
“He told me I’d need to,” she whispered. “I tried not to. I didn’t want to.”
I couldn’t find the words to respond. My mind was whirling. Who was she? And what was she doing in my dorm room? Why couldn’t I move?
“I tried to end it,” she went on, “but I can’t. He said I wouldn’t be able to resist. He was right.”
I felt like the only part of me that could still move was the heart thumping slowly in my chest.
She stretched her thin hand towards me and reached for my face. Her fingers trailed down my cheek. They were ice-cold; they burned to the touch.
Internally I was screaming, but on the outside, I was still, frozen. The torchlight lit her face from beneath her chin as she leaned in close to me. Suddenly her gaunt face and the shadows that the light created twisted her features in darkness.
“Close your eyes,” she murmured.
On her command, my eyelids dropped, weighed down. I tried to move, to open my eyes, to shout for help, anything.
Then something pressed against my lips.
I lost grasp on reality as her kiss pressed deeper. I was pulled under; dragged down by an ice-cold wave. What followed, was a bolt of electric pain, as my very soul seemed to slip from my body.
My eyes shot open. I drew in a fractured breath. Her face was still close to mine, golden eyes brimming with sadness.
Then everything turned black.
I woke up breathless and drenched in sweat. Quickly, I sat up and looked around the room, half expecting the dream to be playing out before me like a bad horror movie. Morning light shone into my room, erasing all remnants of my nightmare.
As I came to, I responded to the shrill noise of my phone's alarm. It was still plugged in and charging on the bedside table where I’d left it the night before. It wasn’t sealed in my hand, or tangled in my sheets. I looked to window, and that was closed now too, with no sign that it had ever been open at all.
I let out a ragged breath and raked my hands through my damp hair.
Three loud bangs tremored through my wall, spurring me to turn off my blaring horn of an alarm. I rolled out of bed and trudged around the room, looking for any sign of a mysterious raven-haired girl ever being in here. Of course, there was nothing.
Get a grip, Stef, I thought, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Coffee. I need coffee. A lot of coffee.
An abrupt knock on my door made me jump. I shrugged into the thick navy robe that mum had sent me in one of her many college care packages, then moved towards the door.
I’d barely had a chance to turn the lock before the door burst open. A brunette girl carrying two takeout coffee cups stood in my doorway. Phoebe.
Her nose wrinkled as she eyed me. “You look like shit,” Phoebe said. She reached out with her free hand and flattened down some of my wayward hair.
I pushed her hand away. “Good morning to you, too, Phoebe,” I said wryly. “I hope at least one of those is for me.” I gestured to the two stacked coffee cups.
Phoebe handed me one, then strode into my room without invitation. Not that she needed an invitation. Her dorm was next door to mine, but I’d swear she spent more time in my room than her own.
“Fun night?” she asked.
“I’ve had the craziest dreams,” I replied. I glanced at the small mirror hanging on my wall, assessing my reflection. My brown hair was a mess, and dark shadows hung beneath my thick lashes.
“I thought I heard noises coming from this room last night,” Phoebe went on. She smirked as she planted herself on my unmade bed and swung her legs up onto the mattress. “I’m thinking of lodging a complaint about the construction of our dorms. Seriously, Stef, the walls are paper thin. All you have to do is a sneeze, and it sounds like a goddamn steam train passing through.”
My mind wandered back to the phantom girl in my dream. “You heard noise coming from my room?” I frowned. “What did you hear?”
“You want me to demonstrate?” Phoebe giggled wickedly. “Shame on you! You know we aren’t allowed company in our rooms after ten p.m.. University of Briarwood rules.” She raised her hand in girl scout code, then took a swig of coffee.
I rolled my eyes. “Trust me; I didn’t have that kind of company. I haven’t seen Will since Monday, and I swear he wasn’t with me last night.” I’d been dating Will for a couple of months now, and things were going well. But not sneaking-him-into-my-dorm-after-hours kind of well. “I must have been talking in my sleep or something,” I replied, brushing off the uncertainty.
She snorted. “Well, that must have been one hell of a good dream you were having!”
I took a long sip of coffee from my takeout cup and raised a brow.
“You don’t look well, are you sure your good?” Phoebe’s stare narrowed as she looked at me.
Phoebe was right, though. I looked like shit, and I felt even worse. My Grecian skin was two shades lighter than its usual sun-kissed hue.
“Maybe I’m getting sick,” I said, rubbing my brow. “It’s flu season, right?”
“Man-flu season more like,” Phoebe said from where she sat on the bed. “So, does that mean you’re gonna skip class today?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m just tired. Anyway, Professor Markell would kill me if I ditched again.” At the start of the semester, I elected to major in Bio-Chemistry, which, as it happened, was not a class for coasters. I’d already earned myself an official warning about skipping too many lectures.
Phoebe glanced at my phone on the nightstand. “It’s only eight-fifteen,” she said. “Class doesn’t start for forty-five minutes. What do you say we ditch this luke-warm crap and get a refresh?” She launched her takeout cup into the wastepaper basket where it landed with a thump. “Java Coffee House?”
I frowned at her. “You know we could just use the kettle in the communal kitchen,” I said, thumbing towards the door. “We don’t have to waste our money on hourly trips to Java all day.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re going to turn down a beautiful; chocolate dusted Java latte for a limescale mug of Instant crap?”
She had me there.
Phoebe waited for me in the hall while I got dressed. I grabbed my Bio-Chem notebook and my phone and slipped out the door. Java was the leading coffee house on campus, and once we’d navigated the dorm block staircase and left the building, it was only a short walk across the gated acres of campus.
Outside in the fresh morning air, winter nipped at my skin. It hadn’t snowed for a few days, but the remnants of slush were still evident across the stone path. Even on the stretches of grass surrounding the walkway were frozen memories of ice and snow.
As we walked, Phoebe held her phone in front of her; her earbuds jammed in as she caught up on her daily podcast, just like she did every morning. It didn’t bother me that we didn’t speak during our trek—actually, I appreciated the comfortable silence between us. Since meeting Phoebe at the start of the semester, I’d grown accustomed to her avid interest in angel healing and new age junk. I’d fast learnt not to interrupt the daily podcasts or ask questions; it was never a good idea to jump into that type of conversation this early in the morning.
As I adjusted the weight of my heavy backpack on my shoulder, I felt my
phone buzz in my jeans pocket, but between the thick gloves and stiff denim, there was no way I was going to pull it out. Plus, it was most likely just Mum. She’d left for Greece with her girlfriend for the winter and was obsessed with texting me every morning since she’d arrived last week.
Are you eating healthily, Stef?
How are classes going, Stef?
What’s the weather like, Stef?
I rolled my eyes at the thought of another Mum message. How are you sleeping, Stef? Was bound to come up sooner or later. And I wasn’t ready to tackle that one. Beside me, I heard Phoebe’s phone ping, followed by her moan of complaint as it distracted from the podcast.
She stopped walking abruptly.
“What’s up?” I asked, stopping on the stone pathway and turning to face her. A couple of college seniors sidestepped past us.
“There’s a new message on Dorm Block D group chat,” Phoebe murmured, yanking the headphones from her ears. “Jeanie has been found…” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Jeanie… she’s dead.”
Flashing blue lights reflected off Dorm Block D’s brick walls. We stood amongst the ever-growing crowd of students, murmurs of death leaking through the winter breeze. Cold air bit at me and my face turned numb.
Blocking the entrance was an ambulance and two police cars parked up in from of our building, and police tape cordoning off the area.
Phoebe chewed her lower lip. “What the hell happened, Stef? We were just here.” Her eye trained on one of the female officers standing guard, stopping those from leaving or entering the dorm.
I blew out a breath and ran my hand through my hair. “This can’t be right. There has to be a mistake.” It had been twenty minutes since we left the dorm and all Hell broke loose.
Phoebe checked her phone screen as our dorm chat message alert pinged in a steady rhythm. “People are asking if she killed herself, or if someone murdered her… No one has anything concrete yet.” She groaned and slipped her phone back into her coat pocket. “I feel sick.”
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t stop picturing the girl from my dream, bruised cheeks streaked with tears, long matted hair… Phoebe’s voice tore me from my reverie.