I did nothing but give her a smile as I moved to set her down, pulling my slick length out of her. As I put myself away, I watched her fix her panties before letting her dress down. My cum would stain those panties, and the thought made my cock twitch with need.
Her eyes drifted to Payne’s body, and I reached for her, touching the bottom tresses of her hair. “Don’t worry,” I told her, “we’ll figure something out with Payne. If he was truly gone, his body wouldn’t be here. There is hope for him yet.”
It was a few moments before Felice nodded, doing her best to look optimistic. She moved toward his pale corpse and placed her hand on his. “You hear that, Payne? We’re going to figure out a way to bring you back. Although, if you’re hearing this, you also heard that,” she referenced our encounter against the wall mere seconds ago. “So if that’s the case, I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect.”
I let out a chuckle. I moved closer to her, setting a hand on her lower back. “I think we should go. Lingering here is unwise, at least until we have a plan. Maybe we can find something in the library.”
Felice lifted her hand off his, nodding. “Right. There are lots of old books in there. Has to be something.” As we walked around the table and out of the room, she added, “Normally this is when I offer to Google something, but seeing as how there is literally no internet anywhere in this place, that’s not an option.”
My walking slowed, and I watched her with a confused look on my face as she exited the room before me. “Google?” The word felt strange on my tongue, like it was a word but not a real word. Like some stupid man had made it up.
“Not that I think I’d get any realistic results, since bringing someone back from the dead is kind of out there,” she went on, stopping only when she saw that I’d slowed. “What?”
I didn’t want to look like a fool, so I simply shook my head and said, “Nothing.” I left the room, pulling the door shut behind me. Of course, all focus now should be on Payne, but…it would be near impossible for me to think of anything other than how Felice had felt as I buried myself inside her, her moans and the hungry way she kissed.
Damn it. I was still kind of hard.
I had to adjust myself in my pants before we started going down the stairs. When we made it to the second floor, I spotted Midnight sitting in the center of the floor on the ground level, his black tail swishing around, his chest puffed out. His yellow, slit eyes were on me, his ears perked to attention.
The cat had been here a while, too. He mainly stuck to himself, but he did seem to have a growing fondness for Felice.
“I, uh,” Felice coughed, “I’m going to my room for a minute. Need to change.”
Both Midnight and I watched her head down the west wing, and an uneasy feeling rose in my gut. Having Felice know everything was a relief, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel as if something was wrong here.
This…this was only the calm before the true storm. Bram might be one sick man, but that was nothing compared to Victor. I hoped, prayed, I got through to her. And I wasn’t a praying man, so that had to say something.
Chapter Nine – Felice
My head spun with everything I’d found out earlier. It was near impossible to go to sleep that night, too. I lay in bed, my eyes open, staring at the dark ceiling. My door had been fixed earlier, no longer hanging off of one hinge. I’d had quite the doozy of a day, and yet sleep seemed to be the last thing my body wanted.
Lucien had warned that Victor was dangerous, and maybe he was, but I stood behind what I’d said: everyone here was dangerous. Everyone here was evil in their own way, including me. Bram might be a psychopath, but he wasn’t too different from me. Just because I hadn’t cut into Robert and his family didn’t mean I was less culpable.
I set that fire.
I destroyed their house, their lives, their future—and I didn’t feel bad about it. And what was the reason behind it? It was stupid, but the smallest things could set me off.
Oh, heck. I’d never get sleep at this rate. Thinking about what I did, about everything I’d learned today, my mind raced, refusing to shut off. It was like every single anxiety that could possibly exist did exist in my mind tonight. I could do nothing to shut my mind up and stop my thoughts from racing.
I decided to get up. After turning on a lamp, I dug through my dresser. Suddenly it all made sense, why I had so many nice, lacy pairs of panties and bras. Even lingerie. This place really wanted to make me feel comfortable.
I found a black satin wrap, the kind with loose sleeves and a band to tie at the waist, and I put it on, sliding my arms through the soft, sheer sleeves. After tying it, it ended just below my butt, covering everything nicely. No running or somersaults, though.
Of course, I supposed I could’ve put on one of the dresses I wore each day, but wearing that tight, long dress day after day got tiring. Plus, what if I walked around, got sleepy, and decided to come back to my room? Then I’d just have to take it off, doing a little dance as I unzipped it myself, and probably not be tired by the time I actually lay down in bed.
I had no slippers, so I decided to barefoot it. I heaved a sigh before leaving my room, turning to stare at the dark hall. I saw not a soul, not that I was expecting to. Victor was not here, and yet, even though I knew that, even though Lucien had warned me about him, I couldn’t help but long for him.
It was wrong. I knew it was wrong, and yet, in Grimmstead, it was almost like my body had a mind of its own.
Not that I was making excuses for myself. I wanted to do that with Lucien, just like I’d wanted to do the same with Victor and Payne. If that made me a slut, then I guess that’s what I was.
My feet drew me to the grand staircase, and I went down, step after step, my arms folded across my chest. Grimmstead at night got a little cold, but it was cold during the day, too. This whole place radiated an eerie creepiness that no other place could.
When Grimmstead was not an academy but an asylum, how many lives were lost here? How many already fragile minds were made to go further insane with the strange things that happened here? I didn’t like thinking about it, and I felt sorry for all of the people who’d been trapped here.
I was trapped here, I realized. I couldn’t leave the property. This would be my home, and if I was honest, I’d probably die here.
Not something I ever thought I’d think, but here I was, facing facts. Peculiar, almost supernatural facts, but facts nonetheless. The laws of nature didn’t seem to apply here.
My spirits sunk as I moved to one of the giant windows beside the front door. I leaned against the glass, staring out at the night sky. It was a clear night, the clouds having vanished as the hours wore on. The moon sat in the blackness, surrounded by stars, almost full as it shined onto the land below, its craters easily visible with the naked eye.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, losing myself in the stillness of the dark house to my back, the simple elegance of a clear, night sky, but it was a while. My skin grew colder standing so close to the window, but I didn’t step away, didn’t step back.
Feeling cold…it really just meant I was alive, didn’t it? If I didn’t feel the cold, I was dead. It was just like Lucien had said: the me in that room hadn’t felt warm, but I was warm. I felt warm to him, which was how he’d known I was real.
And then it occurred to me: did Lucien know I was real the whole time? Did he sleep with me at first because I was out of it, or did he not realize it during the encounter? Maybe he was so caught up in the moment he neglected to see the truth that sat right in front of his eyes. I made his mind go crazy, apparently.
His mind and his body.
I heaved a sigh, and it was at the end of my sigh that I heard a loud crashing noise behind me. The sudden, loud sound made me jerk and twirl around, my heart pounding away in my chest as I wondered if it was Bram. Lucien had told me Bram was locked up someplace he couldn’t get out, but really, it was more than clear that underestimating Bram was so stupid, you j
ust might die if you did it.
It wasn’t Bram, though. It was Ian.
Ian had face-planted as he walked down the steps, glass shattering beside him. His limbs looked awkward, as if he didn’t have enough coordination to catch himself before he tripped—on his own feet, from what it looked like.
He groaned, trying to get up, and I rushed to his side, carefully kneeling around the broken glass. Had to be careful not to step on it, either. The floor was coated in something sticky, and a quick glance to the bottle told me what it was: alcohol. Strong stuff too, if the aroma rising in the air was any indication.
“Ian,” I whispered his name, setting a hand on his shoulder, helping him to sit up, sitting him away from the glass. “Are you okay?”
He looked terrible. Not the handsome, smooth man he was during the day. He’d been quiet, not even telling me he was glad I was awake and not dead, and if I was honest, I felt him growing a little distant.
Funny, considering how pushy he’d been in the beginning.
“Yeah,” he said, frowning slightly. “One hundred percent A-Okay.” His breath reeked of booze, and I had to turn my face away, lest my eyes start to water and tear up from the stench. “I don’t need you.” The jerk actually had the nerve to try pushing me away. He managed to, and then he fell onto his backside yet again.
“Whether you need me or not, I’m here, and I’m not going to let you go wandering this place by yourself,” I informed him, taking on a stern tone. In the darkness, I could’ve sworn I saw bags under his eyes. That was more akin to Dagen than Ian. What was going on with him? “I’m going to help you back to your room.”
“I don’t want to go there,” he whined, his words slurring. “I don’t…”
“Too bad,” I told him, grabbing his arm and pulling with all my might to get him to stand. He very begrudgingly did so, not that the jerk helped much. “Because that’s where you’re going.”
“You,” he paused for what I guessed was dramatic effect, “are absolutely no fun. How about this…you, me, a new bottle of rum, clothes optional? I bet you’re beautiful under that grey dress—” Now that we were standing, he was able to see what I wore was not, in fact, my usual grey dress. “Hey, you’re not wearing a dress. You witch.”
Even though this situation was a sad one and not a good one, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Me. A witch. As if those things existed.
And then I remembered where I was, and everything that happened in this place so far, and suddenly witches being real didn’t seem that far-fetched at all.
I had to shoulder a lot of Ian’s weight, since the buffoon couldn’t walk on his own two legs, being so drunk, and it was a struggle to get up those stairs. I turned us down the east wing, where I knew the men’s rooms were. They were all closed, each and every one of them asleep…okay, I took that back. Dagen’s was closed. Lucien lived on the third floor right above them, having himself a little privacy. Ian’s door sat wide open, as did Payne’s and Koda’s.
Or Bram’s. Whatever. That was still confusing.
Ian let out another whine as we entered his room, and he pulled himself off me, practically tripping again as he reached for the bottle resting on his nightstand. “Ooh, yeah.” He had it in his hands and opened before I could reach for it and yank it away from him. He took a long swig, using his height to his advantage.
I grew upset watching him do this to himself. He looked horrible. Couldn’t he see this was killing him slowly? To stop him, I did the only thing I could think of to do: I whacked him in his stomach. Not hard, but enough that he spat out what was currently in his mouth, lowered the bottle, and glared at me. That was when I stole the bottle from him and pointed to his bed.
“Lie down,” I instructed, hoping I sounded authoritative.
“Give me that back,” Ian said, reaching for me.
I held the bottle directly behind my back, refusing to. I’d go clean the broken glass on the first floor in a bit, after I was sure Ian was safe and asleep in his bed. It was still quite late, so I doubted anyone else would be up and accidentally step on it. “No.”
His blonde brows furrowed, and he looked upset. “You don’t control me, you know. You—you’re nothing. These other idiots might say they need you, but I don’t.” He sniffed. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.”
His words were meant to hurt, flung at me like knives to try to get me to leave the room, but I wouldn’t. I nodded once, saying, “I never said you needed me, Ian, but I also don’t care what you say. I’m going to see you to bed, and if you refuse to go to bed, I refuse to leave.”
Ian’s face sobered up, and his handsome features just looked depressed. “I don’t sleep. I can’t.” He pointed to the bottle in my hand. “I need that.”
“You don’t need it,” I said. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“I don’t know,” he said, annoyed. “Don’t you think if I knew I’d—I’d change it? I wander the halls when I can’t sleep. I sure as shit wasn’t looking for you.” Ian came towards me, trying to use his manly frame to get the best of me. He wasn’t the tallest of men, nor was he the strongest, but compared to him, I was nothing.
I tried to avoid him, moving to stand at the foot of his bed, but the jerk caught me, grabbing both wrists and holding my arms to the side. He didn’t move to grab the alcohol; going for the bottle would mean he had to let me go, which he didn’t seem too willing to do.
His blue eyes were cloudy, his breath stinky. This was not a position I should be in with a drunk Ian, but as I tried to worm my way out of his grasp, I found he was stronger than he looked.
And, I realized in horror, I wore nothing but a short slip and my underwear. Great. This couldn’t possibly get worse.
Please note my use of sarcasm.
“I don’t need you,” he whispered.
“You keep saying that,” I said, glaring at him, hoping to somehow snap some sense into him. Trying to put sense into a drunken man was like trying to pull a thirsty horse from water. It wasn’t going to happen.
Ian frowned; the expression didn’t fit quite right on his handsome face. “I don’t.”
“I get it.”
He suddenly let me go, backing up until his back hit the opposite wall. He buried his face in his hands, sinking until his butt hit the ground. “I don’t,” Ian muttered again. The more he repeated it, the more I wondered if he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t need me, or me. Not that I was saying I thought he did, but…
Or maybe that was exactly what I was saying.
Ian just looked so…depressed, sitting there, hunched over like that. It hurt my heart to see him like this, to hear him muttering to himself and sounding absolutely crazy. The funny thing was, I had him pegged for the most normal out of all of us, but he wasn’t.
I moved to set the alcohol back on his nightstand, but before I could, I noticed something new sitting on top of it. Right where the bottle had sat before was a picture frame. Its kickstand wasn’t out, so it laid flat on the wooden surface. My eyebrows came together as I picked it up with my free hand, lifting it to study it as I set the bottle down.
The picture…was of Ian?
Only it wasn’t him. The man staring at me from the picture wasn’t the Ian I knew, or even the drunk Ian currently talking to himself on the other side of the room. This Ian was sad, the life in his azure stare gone completely, just two glassy orbs, almost too reflective. His blonde hair was thin and dry, almost like hay, and his cheeks appeared far too gaunt. He was too thin, like a dead man.
I stared at the picture, a strange feeling in my gut. It was then that I remembered the smaller Ian. Until now, I didn’t put much stock in what I’d seen, besides Victor, but now I couldn’t help but wonder…was that how Ian was when he was little? Was this picture what he was supposed to be like now?
Victor had said not every disease was curable. Was Ian…sick? Was Grimmstead giving him what he wanted—a normal life—while constantly reminding him wit
h the picture that this was what he’d look like if he wasn’t here?
Heck, or maybe he’d be dead.
My hand started to shake, and I had to turn away as I set the photo, face-down, onto the side of the nightstand. I couldn’t look at it anymore, couldn’t watch the picture wither under my eyes. It hurt too much. I didn’t want Ian to feel like that, to cough up blood like the younger Ian had.
Was it so wrong to want everyone happy and healthy?
My bare feet slowly took me to Ian, and I plopped myself down next to him, my butt chilled from the cold floor, but I managed not to shiver as I set a hand on his leg. The moment my hand touched him, Ian froze, pulling his hands away from his face and turning to look at me. I really did hate seeing him like this. It wasn’t right.
“It’s okay,” I said, not just meaning what was going on now, but all of it.
And, to answer me, he said, “No. It’s never been okay.”
Was this why Ian always talked about orgies and threesomes, booze and drugs? Because why not live a little when you might die tomorrow? If this place was keeping him alive, keeping his face handsome, it was also torturing him by showing him that photograph.
“I know.”
“You don’t know,” he slurred his words a bit. “You have no idea—”
I hoped I wouldn’t come across as bitchy or patronizing, telling him seriously, “I do.”
Ian blinked, staring at me, his mouth hanging open to retort, but nothing coming out. I had no idea whether he believed me or not, but after everything recently, I did. I did know. I knew more than I ever wanted to, and yet, here and now, I was pretty sure was the first time I saw the real Ian.
The real Ian wasn’t a smooth-talker. He wasn’t ridiculously handsome or suave. Confidence didn’t sit inside his body, bursting at the seams to erupt. No, the real Ian was broken, sick. The real Ian was the desperate, drunk man before me, trying to drown out reality with whatever he could. Yes, he might look good and healthy compared to the Ian in that picture, but he knew his truth, and his truth was…
Grimmstead Academy: Submission Page 9