by C T Rhames
I trudged back to my room, unlocked the door and there she was.
Her lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, her hair was spread out and carefully arranged around her head and sprinkled with carnations. There was no blood, just her pale, pale skin and ghosted over eyes.
I wasn’t sure if I was just getting used to death or if I had already known and this was simply confirmation, but I didn’t scream or fall apart. Instead, I went to the nurse and asked her to come and see the body in my room. The headmaster would have to deal with it in the end, I was sure. He would finally see that I was right and someone had killed my best friend.
The nurse sighed heavily when I told her about Karen. Then she called for a couple of the nurse aids, two strong looking men, to come and help.
They walked into my room and picked Karen up and carried her out without further ado. The nurse advised me to get some sleep.
“How am I supposed to sleep when my friend was murdered?!”
“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” she told me. “People die all the time and she might not be really dead, we’ll see.”
“Oh my god, you people are all insane!”
I left my room and ran to the headmaster, bursting into his office and startling him. He glared at me and wiped dark coffee off his black tie.
“What on earth is your problem, young lady?”
“Karen is dead.”
“Who?”
“My friend? The one who was missing? Well, she was missing for a reason. Someone killed her.”
“Oh, that Karen.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m glad you found her, at least. Now maybe you can stop fussing about it.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? Did you hear me say that she’s dead?”
“Yes, I heard you perfectly fine. You’re quite loud.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Well, aren’t you going to call the cops? There needs to be an investigation.”
“Ms. Masterson, it’s being handled. Don’t worry, we have protocol for this sort of thing. Now the best thing you can do is go get a good night’s sleep.”
I felt like screaming at him, but there was no way that would work. Instead, I went back out to the office. The secretary had gone home, so I grabbed the phone and dialed the number that Special Agent Anderson had given me. He had to get me out of here.
“Hello?” His sleepy voice answered the phone.
“Special Agent Anderson?”
“Yes, speaking,” he sounded awake almost immediately. “Is this Lyric?”
“Yes, I need you to get me out of here immediately. There’s something terribly wrong with this place.” I started to cry as I blurted out everything about the attack and Karen’s murder.
“Okay, Lyric, I need you to calm down,” Anderson said. He sounded far too calm. “Do you have any other friends there? What about Melatiah?”
“Mel? He’s not a friend.”
“Well, you trust him, yes? Why don’t you go find him and ask him to stay with you for a bit until you feel more stable?”
“What?” I stared at the phone. “Why? Aren’t you going to come and get me?”
“I’ll talk to the headmaster and we’ll get things resolved, but I think you need to stay there as long as possible. Your stepfather is looking for you. He broke into your friend Lily’s house and held her family hostage for over an hour, trying to find out where you are.”
“Oh no,” I felt ice spreading through my veins. “Is Lily okay?”
“She’s fine. Once he was certain they didn’t know anything, he left. But he is definitely looking for you. You’re at the safest place you can be right now.”
“It’s not safe here!” I wailed. “Didn’t I just tell you?”
“Listen, go find Mel and I’ll see what I can do from this end.”
He hung up. I listened to the dead phone for a long minute before I put the receiver down and walked slowly back to my room.
No one was taking me seriously. This place was full of insane people. I curled up in my bed, trying not to look at the floor where Karen had lain, and cried myself to sleep.
I woke to four faces staring down at me. Tomas, Cash, Melatiah, and James were standing on either side of the bed, looking at me with worried eyes.
“Remain calm, we are not here to kill you,” Mel assured me. “Though I did warn you to get away from here.”
“That was just a dream,” I muttered. “It wasn’t even real.”
“Then how do I know about your little brother and sister, who died?”
“I don’t know, maybe you’re best friends with my agent,” I muttered, sitting up in bed. “Why the hell are you all in my room?”
“We’re here to help you forget,” James said soothingly. He smiled in what was meant to be a reassuring way, but it was more terrifying.
“Forget what?”
“All this nonsense,” Mel told me. He smoothed my hair back from my face with a chilled hand and leaned in close. “Look into my eyes, child.”
“I’m not a child,” I snapped. “And you’re only a few years older than me . . . we’re in the same grade. Why are you being so weird?”
He frowned and peered into my eyes. I could feel that familiar pulling sensation and glared at him.
“It’s not working.” He straightened up and looked at the others. “Cashiel, you’re the strongest of us all.”
Cash nodded firmly and sat down on the bed beside me and took my hand.
“Okay, you’re creeping me out, all of you!” I couldn’t keep the quaver out of my voice. “I want you out of my room!”
“Or you’ll call the headmaster?” James chuckled. “Because that’s gone so well for you thus far?”
“Just relax and let yourself go,” Cash murmured, taking my other hand. He focused on my face, his green eyes piercing. I looked into them and felt like I was looking at fields of green grass.
“You’re from Ireland, right?” I asked.
“Yes, I am,” he leaned in closer, his eyes swimming with vibrant swirls of emerald. “I lived near the sea.”
“Well, maybe you should go back there, then,” I snapped, shoving him away. “All of you get out!”
They stood at the end of my bed, discussing something in low tones. Then Mel pulled out a cell phone and peered at it for a long time before tapping it.
“I can never figure these things out,” he muttered.
“You have to press the button,” Tomas said helpfully.
I watched in confusion as Mel turned the phone around and around, trying to figure it out. Finally I snapped, “just give it here.”
He handed me the phone with a relieved look on his face and I turned it on for him and went to hand it back. Just as I did so, it started to vibrate and “Anderson” lit up the screen.
“What the hell?”
I answered the phone but didn’t say anything. Mel made a lunge for the phone, but I pulled away and ducked under the blankets.
“Is it done? Did you wipe her mind?” Anderson’s unmistakable voice came through the phone.
“No, he didn’t wipe my mind.”
Before Anderson could respond, Mel ripped back the covers and threw himself over me to grab the phone.
“It is I, Melatiah,” he said into the phone, stilly flopped across my body and pinning me down. I struggled to get him off me, but he shot me an angry look.
“Yes, she is more than resistant as I suspected previously. We had Cashiel attempt the wipe and not even he could manage it,” he said. There was a pause and then, “Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Please tell me that wasn’t a kill order for me,” I whispered as he fumbled with the phone to click the disconnect icon.
“Fortunately for you, it was not.” He heaved himself off me and looked at the others. “We are to watch her until a Master can come to do the job.”
Cash snorted. “No Master is going to crack her head. Even I didn’t get anywhere near passing. And I’m pretty g
ood, you know.”
“I think you all need to start telling me what’s going on,” I said, scrambling out of bed to get a sweater from the dresser.
“We are not authorized to do so,” Cash said firmly. “You will just have to wait.”
“For what?”
No one would tell me. So we sat in silence the rest of the night.
Chapter Thirteen
On Monday, Mel convinced me to go to class as usual. He told me it was the only way to prevent too much attention on me. So, I did. Every day, I got up and went to class, closely followed by whoever was my guard that day.
No one said anything about Karen missing. Even Jack didn’t seem too stressed by it, though he did wonder what had happened. I didn’t even bother telling him she was dead. Given the reactions of everyone else in this place, that wouldn’t matter to him anyway.
As long as one of the guys was with me, I didn’t have to worry too much about the Jeanine crew, but they were always there, watching for an opportunity. I was certain they were responsible for Karen’s death.
Then I saw her.
She wasn’t dead, she was walking with Malia and chattering away with her, arm in arm.
“Karen?” I stumbled coming out of my class as she passed.
“Oh, Lyric, there you are. They said you were looking for me. I was just in the hospital for a bit.”
“No you weren’t! I saw you. You were dead.”
Lyric smiled the same cold smile that Jeanine and her girls always smiled. “Obviously, I’m not.” She held out her arms. “I’m right here, talking to you, aren’t I?”
“But, how?” I couldn’t shake the dead, misty eyes that she’d had while lying on the floor of my room. “I looked for you for days.”
“Well, I’m fine. See you around.” And she was gone, chattering away with Malia and Jeanine.
I stood there staring after them in shock. “I know she was dead.”
“Apparently you were wrong,” Cash said, leaning against the wall beside me.
“I wasn’t wrong. I know death when I see it.”
He started to laugh and Tomas came over to find out what was so funny.
“She knows death when she sees it,” Cash said, snorting.
“How is that funny?” I glared at them. “I’m getting really sick of your immaturity.”
That made them both double over with laughter. I was done with it. I stalked off to my room and locked the door so they couldn’t come in.
Later that night, I went down the hall and knocked on Karen’s door, but there was no answer. It was like she’d never existed.
I wandered through the halls to the East side, relieved to be alone once more. I was sick of the guys always being around. Especially since they laughed at me nonstop. They weren’t being as mean as the girls, but they still weren’t much fun to be around, not nearly as much as I would have thought, with them being so incredibly hot.
Karen was in the courtyard, looking up at the stars. I walked in behind her and she didn’t look around. “Hey, Lyric.”
“Hey.” I sat on a concrete bench and looked up. “I miss the sky. I don’t come out here nearly enough.”
“Same.” She didn’t move. In fact, she looked like stone standing there in the moonlight, her shadow cast across the snow.
“I knocked on your door.”
“I moved to the East Wing.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “Why?”
“It’s not really something I can explain. It just fits better now.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell me what happened to you?”
“Lyric, it’s just not something you’d understand. I was really sick, I almost died. I still have to go to the clinic pretty often to get special medicine.”
“But who killed . . .who tried to kill you?” I asked.
She looked surprised. “No one. I was sick, not attacked.”
“But . . . I thought,” I trailed off. There had been no signs of violence or cuts or anything. Maybe she was right and she had been sick.
“Look, I just need to recover fully, okay? But right now, you need to keep studying.” She came over and sat beside me on the bench. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Me? I’m worried about you,” I said.
She looked at me directly in the eyes. “I’m fine, Lyric. At least, I will be.”
I frowned, feeling myself being pulled into her familiar, yet unfamiliar eyes. “Something’s different with you.”
She laughed and looked away. “Well, a near death experience will do that to you.”
Chapter Fourteen
After realizing that Karen had irreversibly changed, I was very lonely. I went to class each day and dragged through my lessons, working on my homework at night. The guys seemed to have given up watching me and I found myself almost wishing they’d come back.
As if in response to my thoughts, all four of them appeared outside my door one morning. I’d been getting up later and later and this time I was almost late for Bio as I stumbled out of my room and right into Mel.
“You’re really hard,” I muttered. The guys snorted. “I didn’t mean that, oh my god. Men.”
“You brought it on yourself,” Tomas told me.
“What are you all doing here? Did you miss me terribly?”
“Of course we did,” James smiled. “But we actually have another reason to be here.”
“And that would be?”
“A field trip,” Mel told me, scooping me up in his strong arms.
“Put me down. I’m not going anywhere with you until I know what this field trip is!”
He didn’t put me down and kept walking. We were headed for the East Wing and no one else seemed to even notice he was carrying me as I was slung over his shoulder.
I had to admit, this was far better than the last time I’d been abducted. His firm muscles were rippling under my abdomen and thighs and his hands were clasped just under my butt, sending rather pleasant signals to the rest of my body.
“At least tell me where we’re going.” I wriggled, trying to get away and loosen his grip. All it got was a smack on my butt.
“Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because we’re here,” Mel said. He pushed through a door and dropped me unceremoniously on a bed in a large room with four beds.
“What is this? Some kind of torture chamber?” I muttered.
“It’s our room,” Cash told me with his lilting accent.
“Okay. I’m in your room why?”
“You ask too many questions,” Mel muttered. He crossed the space and pulled something off a shelf. “Yu’re here to take some medicine.”
“I don’t need medicine,” I said warily.
“Yes, you do.” Tomas sighed and sat down on one side of me. Cash took the other. I was starting to get nervous.
Then they grabbed me and Mel turned around with a cup in his hand. “Drink this.
“I’m not drinking anything you think you have to force me to drink!”
“You need to drink this.” Mel bent and looked into my eyes. “You really do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You won’t tell me what it is or why I need it, so . . . no.”
“It’s blood,” Cash said. When everyone glared at him, he shrugged. “What? She’s not drinking anyway.”
James came over and grabbed my chin, forcing my head back and pinching my jaw until my mouth was forced open.
Mel reluctantly poured the thick, viscious liquid down my throat. I coughed and choked and James pinched my mouth shut while Mel stroked my throat like I was a dog taking medicine.
It did go down though. There was no other choice. The metallic tang told me that it was indeed blood and I felt like vomiting it all right back up on the carpet. That would serve them right. It was the last thing I thought before everything went black.
When I woke up, I was lying in my own bed, neatly dressed in my nightgown. My clock told
me that it was already midnight. I’d been out for 12 hours and had missed all my classes.
Struggling to sit up, I winced at the pain in my head and fell back onto the bed. To my surprise, I ended up falling asleep again and sleeping until morning.
I didn’t see any signs of the guys as I headed to lunch and then class. Bio usually meant three of them, but today, there was just the Jeanine trio, throwing spitballs at the back of my head as I hunched down and tried not to catch the teacher’s attention. It didn’t work.
Ms. Bastille had it out for me, as usual and began to quiz me on the whereabouts of my seat partner, Mel.
“Where is he?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, you both skipped yesterday, so I assume you were cavorting together,” she sniffed.
“Cavorting? No, I only saw him before classes.”
“Then you were with Cash or Tomas?” She eyed me suspiciously, “or both.”
The girls tittered at the back of class and I groaned. Now I was going to get teased about having threesomes that had never existed.
“Look, I don’t even like these guys. Okay? They’re bullies, they’re assholes, and I did not spend my day with them. And I have no idea where they are.”
“I don’t believe you. Two days detention for lying to me.”
“Oh my god, does anyone in this place have any common sense?” I slammed my book shut and left it on the desk, stalking out of the room. Let her fail me, I wanted out of this place anyway and apparently that wasn’t going to happen very easily.
Chapter Fifteen
During the nights I couldn’t sleep, I wandered the castle. The only good thing to come from the whole Karen incident was that I wasn’t afraid to walk around anymore. In fact, I’d explored nearly every nook and cranny of the first two floors while I’d searched for her.
I found myself outside the metal door again, pressing my ear to the door. There was a hum inside, like a lot of people talking. I wondered how big the space was.
Hearing footsteps inside the door, I jumped back, but not before Malia opened the door to step out and I saw everything.