Her smile turned wicked. “Because you’re smarter than you look.”
I turned to face Aidan and winced when the skin on my leg pulled open. His eyes fell to the wound and he quickly put his hand over it. The golden mark on my hand—the sign of the magic he’d used to save my mind—flared as he used that connection to heal the massive gash on my thigh. I heard Sarah gasp and looked back to find her eyes wide with disbelief. They narrowed to slits of anger just before her rage crashed into me, followed closely by sadness. Then the tension in her expression fled, leaving cold indifference behind; but her sadness lingered, haunting me.
A loud bang shot through the room, and we all turned to the shuddering doors.
“Guess they found us,” Rhys said, stepping toward his magical barrier. With every hit the doors took, the glowing green magic bowed, but it held fast.
“So what’s the plan?” Sarah asked. “Throw as much shit at them as we can and plow through the mob, then lock ourselves in another room?”
“I don’t want to hurt them if we don’t have to,” Maddy said. “They’re obviously being controlled. It’s not their fault.”
“Should we try hugging the possession out of them?” Sarah countered, her tone as acerbic as could be. “They’re dead, you guys, and no amount of wishing it weren’t true is going to change that.” Another loud bang echoed around us. Sarah turned to the makeshift lock that was splintering with every hit. “It looks like time’s running out, Madeline…”
I hated that she was right.
Before panic had a chance to take hold, I felt a familiar flare of warmth in my palm. My hand instinctively wrapped tighter around the smooth glass that suddenly filled it.
“Cece?” Aidan called, drawing my attention. His eyes drifted to my clenched fist, then returned to my face. “Do you have a way out?”
The marble warmed. “Maybe?” As the ruckus outside grew, I tried to concentrate on somewhere safe to go. But I couldn’t think of anywhere within Wadsworth’s walls, and apparently the crystal ball-turned-marble in my palm couldn’t—or wouldn’t—transport us off the property.
That would have been a little too simple, really.
“The orb is back,” I said, frustration and fear coursing through me, “but it’s not working.” The snapping of wood drew my attention, and I opened my eyes to see one of the doors fractured down the middle and Janie’s face staring through the crack like a bad imitation of The Shining , ‘here’s Johnny’-style.
While the others came together to defend the space, I tried to use my fear to fuel a jump to somewhere—anywhere—that wasn’t the library. I placed my hand on Aidan’s back and felt the gold mark on my hand warm.
“Hold onto me,” I said as I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath. “Let’s hope this gets us out of here.”
***
I opened my eyes to find the five of us crammed together between stacks of cardboard boxes. It only took a moment to realize where we’d been dumped. Everyone but Sarah looked equally displeased.
“Hoard much?” she mumbled to herself as she took in the attic for the first time.
“You get used to it,” I replied before I headed for the reason we’d appeared there—or at least the one I assumed had drawn us there. The dragon in the painting was crouched atop the castle’s turret, smoke curling from his nose with every breath.
“I see she has survived,” he said, staring at me with those eerie reptilian eyes—the ones my sister and he shared. They shifted to my closed fist. “And she has retained the crystal ball, too. How very interesting…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as the others crowded around me.
“If you know something, you need to tell us,” Maddy added. She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me against the dragon in the painting, and all I could think of was how amazing she was in her shifter form. How fearsome. Maybe if this dickhead saw her like that, he’d be a bit more forthcoming.
At her demand, he took flight and didn’t stop until he was nearly nose-to-nose with us. Smoke plumed from the image and made my eyes water.
“I need to escape, just as you do,” he snarled, any pretense of amusement or games erased in a moment.
“But I did what I was supposed to,” I argued, unable to keep my voice under control. “I used the crystal ball to destroy the orb. I took out a Council member in the process, and they dealt with the others.” I gestured to Maddy, Rhys, and Aidan. “I followed your and the Councilman’s shitty riddles, and we’re still stuck in Wadsworth!”
“Because it wasn’t enough,” he seethed, though I wasn't sure his anger was directed at me. “And now the beast is awake and hungry. He hunts you, as he will soon hunt me, and I don’t want that fate again...”
“Great,” Sarah said with an exaggerated sigh, but even she couldn’t hide her surprise from me. Her anxiety was rising slowly. Whether it stemmed from the talking painting or our impending doom, I couldn’t be sure.
“ He ,” Aidan said, his tone curious. “Who’s ‘he’?”
The dragon’s sharp gaze cut to the fey boy. “You most of all should know,” he replied with admonishment. “He is one of your kind—one of the most lethal in history.”
Aidan’s expression gave nothing away, but I could feel the tension in his body as he pressed against my back. Uncertainty and fear seeped from his pores into mine, and I shivered as goosebumps broke out across my flesh.
“Where is he?” Rhys asked. “If we need to destroy him to get out of here, then let’s do it and be done with this.”
“Says the boy whose family is partly responsible for this happening in the first place—for allowing it to happen.”
“What?”
“Think,” the dragon said, leaning so close to the painting’s surface that it felt like space was being distorted to allow him to approach any further. “Do you think your family lost their ability to host sentinels for no reason? Lost their claim to this property for no purpose?” His gaze quickly cut to Aidan, then back again. “Or did someone stand to gain from your loss?”
“I...I don’t…”
“Tell us,” Maddy growled, lunging for the painting. I caught her arm and she wheeled on me, her glowing amber eyes gleaming back at me.
I pushed a sense of calm I most certainly did not feel in that moment back into her. “Maddy, we’ll get our answers,” I said softly. “Trust me, okay?”
She took a deep breath, and the fire in her eyes faded until nothing but human stared back at me. Once I was confident that she was under control, I turned back to the smug dragon and reached my hand toward him.
Aidan and Maddy both moved to stop me, but they were too late. I pressed forward until my fingertips met what should have been the rough texture of painted canvas. Instead, they brushed against the warm snout of the dragon, who glared at me with a mix of incredulity and shock. Which made two of us, really.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“She is something far more than expected,” he said. The low rumble of his voice reverberated through his body into my hand, and I pressed it tighter against him.
“You’re going to tell us everything you know,” I said, my tone unwavering.
He looked furious that I had dared to touch him, but he seemed unable to pull away.
“If it ensures freedom for me and my kind, so be it.”
“That sounds like an epically ominous idea,” Sarah said from behind me. “How do we know he can be trusted?”
His eyes narrowed to angry slits, pinned on me and me alone. “Because he once commanded me, just as you will…if you take me from this place before his anger and retribution reaches me.” He snorted his anger, and the heat nearly seared my skin. I yanked my palm from the painting and held it to my chest. It was as cool as could be. “My actions are not without consequence in this.”
I looked to the others. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s sketchy,” Rhys and Aidan said in unison.
I turned to Madd
y. She worried her lip between her fingers as she stared the dragon down. “I don’t trust him,” she said thoughtfully, “but he was right about the crystal ball—to some degree. Maybe he’ll be right about something else important.”
“Or maybe he’ll get it half right and we’ll die because of it,” Sarah said under her breath.
I didn’t bother to acknowledge the potential truth in her statement.
“So what now, then?” I asked. “I mean, I already have the magic marble. Do I have to lug this thing around with me, too?”
“Cut him out,” Aidan said, his glare still pinned on the winged creature in the painting. The dragon’s eyes went wide as Aidan stepped closer with a blade I’d never seen before in his hand. There was a dark vibe ebbing off of him, and I’d have been lying if I said it didn’t put me on edge. Something was up between them, and a small part of me worried that Aidan wasn’t on a mission to slice the painting free.
“I’ll do it,” I said, edging into his path. The expression I couldn't read fell into place as he handed me the dagger. He held my gaze for a second longer than necessary before he released it, and I let out a breath. Then I turned back to the portrait. “Don’t move…”
I placed the tip of the blade along the ornate frame and began dragging it across the canvas. I half expected to hear the dragon scream the second the fabric was sliced, but he didn’t. Instead, he just hovered in the air, making sure to stay in the center of the image.
“Try not to fuck up,” Sarah said with a laugh.
“Shut your mouth.” Maddy’s snarl surprised Sarah as much as it did me, and she muttered something about kicking Maddy’s ass, but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen. Magically strangling a teenager was one thing, but choking out a full-sized dragon was something else entirely, and we all knew it. However powerful Sarah was, there was a zero percent chance of her besting my little sister.
With that satisfying thought in mind, I continued to cut the painting free of its frame until the final threads were severed and the portrait was in my hands. Unsure what to do next, I started to roll it up carefully. As my delicate fingers manipulated the canvas, I felt a tiny jab on the tip of one. I pulled it away to find blood welling at the end.
“Ow!” I searched the fabric for a rogue staple or sharp edge of oil paint, but found nothing. “Why is everything in this building out for blood?” I muttered around the finger in my mouth.
A slight chuckle from the dragon was my only response.
“We should get out of here,” Aidan said, looking around the room. “I don’t think we should stay in one place for too long.”
“Agreed,” Maddy replied as she led the way past Sarah to the door. “Let’s see where this takes us next.”
“You don’t know where the door leads?” Sarah asked with an eyeroll.
“It has a habit of spitting you out places you didn’t expect to go,” I explained.
She leaned forward. “Then why use it?”
I mimicked her pose. “Because it’s the way out.”
She scanned the room for another exit, then let out a huff. “Fine.”
We all looked on as Maddy reached for the door. “Here goes nothing...” You could have heard a pin drop as she slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open.
The second she did, we disappeared.
CHAPTER THREE
Maddy
Before I could even shout ‘holy shit’, we stood in the room where I had changed the day I’d arrived at Wadsworth. A sign I had missed back then hung on the wall: Induction Room .
Great.
Pat stood near the door, glaring. The vampire had a reputation for keeping the other staff in line—and taking their blood to ensure their cooperation.
“Change,” she said mechanically. Her glazed eyes looked...through us.
I twitched, but where could I go? Rhys watched her, his gaze narrowed. Cece slunk closer to Aidan, clutching what I assumed was the ball, plus the rolled-up painting we’d stolen from the attic.
Sarah snarled and crossed her arms over her chest. Her foot tapped on the floor. “What the hell is going on? How did we end up here?” She put up a good front, but a touch of fear had edged into her voice.
“I’d say someone wants us here,” Aidan said.
“Why?” she asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
While they bickered, Wolfy’s absence tugged at me. I called out to him in my mind. Where are you?
In the attic.
We’re in the induction room.
Stay there. I’ll come to you.
“ Change ,” Pat said again. Her arm jerked up, like someone—or some thing —was controlling her. She pointed toward the shelves behind us, stocked with Wadsworth student uniforms: jeans and numbered tees.
“Forget changing.” Sarah inched toward the door, but Pat stepped into her path, her fangs bared. Shifting backward, Sarah rejoined us. “We need to get out of here.”
Aidan watched Pat, a vein ticking in his temple. “What do you mean, change?”
“We have no use for fancy clothing here at Wadsworth.” Pat released a mechanical laugh that was nothing like the conniving chuckle she was known for.
My skin prickled with goosebumps.
“Right,” Rhys said slowly. He turned his gaze my way, his eyes wide and his eyebrows lifted. “Guess we’d better change, Maddy.”
The last time this woman had demanded I dress in something else, I’d wanted to cry. I’d stood limply, cringing away from the creepy guys who’d watched me with rabid interest, hoping for a peek. Now, I wanted to show her who I really was—a witch and a dragon shifter—but I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Better to watch than act. For now.
“Change,” she said yet again, her voice lacking punch. Her glazed eyes skimmed across us. “Jeans. Numbered shirt. Now.”
We all shrugged and reached out, pulling jeans and tees from the shelves. Even Sarah joined in, grumbling while she sorted through the piles.
Pat’s gaze remained fixed on the wall behind us, and she kept mouthing ‘ change ’. The last thing I wanted to do was irritate a vampire, even if she was...different than before. Besides, I wouldn’t mind getting out of my gown. “Maybe we girls can go behind the screen?” I had no problem changing with Rhys nearby, but Aidan? Nope.
“I’m not doing it,” Sarah said, her lips twisting. Her hands kept flexing into fists and releasing. “This... thing can’t make me.”
I rolled my eyes at Cece, who let out a low snicker. She stuffed her hand into her pocket—hiding away the ball?—then started to pull a shirt off an upper shelf, but she hissed and yanked her hand back. The jeans she’d been holding dropped to the floor with a soft rustle.
I moved around Rhys to her side. “What happened?” I whispered.
“Change,” Pat repeated, her voice dead.
Yeah, getting right on that .
Cece held out her hand, showing a bead of blood forming on her index finger. “I went to grab a shirt, but something poked me. Here I am again, spilling blood.”
“Huh. I wonder what.” Edging her to the side, I carefully shifted the shirts around. Something on the shelf glinted.
After handing me the rolled-up painting, Cece stood on tiptoe to get a better look. “What is this?”
“Don’t—”
“A dragon pin,” she said, holding it up in the muted light. She stroked the golden creature. Its tail curled around its body, and the tiny ridges on its spine almost seemed to ripple when her finger connected. Its sapphire eyes flashed brighter than the blood on my sister’s finger.
I stumbled backward. “Did you see that?”
“What?” Cece asked, dragging her gaze from the pin and directing it my way.
“The eyes. They...I could swear I just saw fire there.”
“Weird. But I’m taking it with me.” She secured it to the front of her dress.
“I don’t think you should take that,” Aidan said.
“Definitely not,” Sarah added with a sneer.
Aidan clutched a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in his hands so tightly, the fabric would probably wrinkle. Behind him, Rhys watched us. He’d removed his jacket and dress shirt, which now lay on the floor, and pulled on a tee. Somehow, I’d missed him changing, and despite the weird situation, that fact made me sad.
“Why not?” Cece blinked up at Aidan. “There’s no harm in it, except…” She frowned suddenly.
In a blink, we stood in the cafeteria.
Rubble surrounded us: bits of broken tile, tables busted in half, and chair legs snapped from their frames. Weapons abandoned after the Council-induced fight had ended. Floorboards jutted up, but the bodies were gone.
No kids, but after the zombie students in the basement and library, I was okay with that.
“What is happening?” Sarah demanded. “One of you needs to explain to me what’s going on. No more games.”
We looked at each other, but none of us appeared excited to get into everything that had gone on over the past few days.
“Aidan?” Sarah’s voice lifted, coming out as more of a shriek than a request. Interesting . I didn’t think anything unsettled Sarah.
He raked his hands across his hair. “We—”
A bang from the corner of the room where the Council had stood sent us spinning to face that direction. No one was there; nothing but torn streamers lying in a pile. Thankfully, none of the Council members had popped into the room when we weren’t looking.
Aidan strode toward that area with Sarah following, her shoes click-click-clicking on the floor. He paced around, skirting rubble and holes in the floor, and turned to us, shrugging. “There’s nothing here.”
Maybe. And maybe not.
“How and why are we moving around like this?” Sarah asked.
Cece stared down at her hands. “This—”
Another bang, this time from the food line area. Like puppets on strings, we all swung around.
Again, nothing. No one stood behind the glass inside the serving line. Nobody clambered for food with empty trays in their hands. And nothing lay on the floor that could’ve clattered when it fell.
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 2