by G. Bailey
“On a scale of one to ten, how much did you freak out when we were pushed off that cliff?” Riley whispers to me.
“About one hundred on the scale of let’s never talk about the cliff again,” I tightly reply, knowing he is joking, but I don’t have it in me to see any of this as humorous. “Aren’t you upset? Our parents think we are dead, and we can’t tell them we are okay.”
“We have been given a second chance at life, Katy. Nothing else matters,” he replies with a big smile before looking back to Professor Nina. I run my gaze over the students with us and, to my annoyance, nearly all of them look happy. Not a brainwashing cult, my ass.
Except for one redhead girl with a frown on her face. Vesnia’s eyes meet mine through the four people between us, and I see the same sorrow in her eyes. The same words I want to scream from the top of my lungs. The same fight in us. I know neither of us are going to give up without a fight, and we aren’t going to accept that we can’t see our families again. We have to get back to our families and tell them the truth of what happened. My mum and dad deserve that much, even if Riley can’t see that right now.
“Sorry I’m late, Professor Nina. We will take it from here,” a girl exclaims, sounding like an overenthusiastic cheerleader before I even look at her. I go to look at the girl who is still talking, but the boy next to her draws all my attention.
Not boy...man...dark angel. Drool-worthy dark angel. The guy stands straight, his arms crossed against his leather jacket with a crown pin on the collar, hiding the no doubt trained body underneath. Black wings rest right behind him, gracefully touching the floor by his feet. I slowly look past his thick arms to his chiselled jawline that looks like an artist sculpted him, then above his soft pale lips to his thick black hair that has a slight curl to the end of his locks. Only, when I search his eyes, I find them staring right back at me.
Eyes that look like sparks of embers once burned there on the face of an angel. Total girl trap.
But nope, not this girl. This girl has bigger things to focus on than an angel.
Maybe.
His lips tilt up, looking almost amused as my eyes bounce between him and the girl still talking as I keep dragging my eyes away from him and forcing myself to look away to the girl. All blonde hair, big boobs that don’t look real, and skinny legs in a tiny mini skirt, she is exactly what I expected her to look like. Oddly, there is a crown pin on her soft white jumper, just like the guy’s.
“I’m Jessica Weven, and this is Henry Ravaric, and we are the king and queen of the academy,” she exclaims, and I roll my eyes. Figures hot guy one and happy-happy cheerleader are some kind of leaders. Why couldn’t a geeky angel lead for a change?
“Not literally, right?” I ask before I can stop myself, and then everyone stares at me like I just shouted that I’m naked or something.
“Literal in every sense, darlin’,” Henry replies, his voice as deep, gravelly and sexy as I thought it might be. The London accent is familiar, and everything about him puts me on edge as much as it makes me want to move closer.
“Yes, the titles of queen and king are given to the angels who beat the previous queen or king in a battle of sorts,” Jessica claims, and she looks damn proud of herself.
“Like a head boy and girl then?” Vesnia asks.
“Exactly, but with more power,” Jessica replies, sounding pleased, but my eyes are fixed on Henry as he still stares. “Now girls come with me, boys with Henry. We are going to show you to your rooms, and then in the morning, there will be someone to take you on a tour.”
Henry looks to the left where another older angel is waiting, and he steps forward. “Everyone leave except for the mouthy one. Boys go with Duke here.”
I scoff, crossing my arms. “You mean me, angel?”
“Katy didn’t mean to be mouthy, did you?” Riley tensely asks, wrapping an arm over my shoulder, and Henry watches Riley’s arm like it’s a snake.
“I meant every word. A self-appointed king is nothing other than a man with a crown,” I point out.
“Careful, Miss Kaitlyn Lightson. Your king is always watching.” With that threat, he walks through the crowd of students who part like the sea for their king.
And for some reason, my sarcastic lips move before I can even stop them.
“Watch away, your highness.” Thankfully, he doesn’t reply to me and disappears down some stairs, with the boys of our class following, except for Riley.
“Can you not get yourself killed for the rest of the night, please?” he asks, moving right in front of me and a tad bit too close. His hands rest on my shoulders as I meet his eyes.
“I’m going to be sleeping; how could I get into any trouble?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes.
“Go and behave.” He pushes me in the direction of the staircase the girls went down. I hurry to the stairs and walk down, where Vesnia and Jessica are waiting for me. Jessica looks at me with interest and tilts her head to the corridor.
“This is the girls’ section, and the only way in or out is this staircase. It is also magically cursed so that boys can’t walk down them without being in intense pain,” she explains with a long sigh. “It totally sucks, and the staircase to the boys’ section is cursed as well so that girls can’t walk down it either.”
“It’s actually pretty smart,” Vesnia points out, and Jessica rolls her eyes.
“Anyway, every two rooms share a bathroom, and these two are the last rooms left on this level. There are more rooms down the back, but they haven’t been used in ages,” she explains, lifting her hand and checking out her nails as she talks.
“Right, where do you sleep then?” I ask, counting only twenty doors.
“The four end doors lead to corridors with better rooms. You get upgraded when you choose your wings and you need a balcony. You don’t need one until then, obviously, newbie,” she explains with a sarcastic laugh.
“Not unless they plan to push us off a cliff again,” Vesnia groans, walking to the door marked Room Seventeen. “See you in the bathroom, Katy. Bye, Jessica.”
“See ya,” I reply with a smile just for her. I walk to the door that is number nineteen, and it’s ironic this is my room number when I’m never going to be nineteen. I died before I got a chance.
“Wait,” Jessica whispers, stepping closer to me. With a smile like a cat about to eat a mouse, she leans close, careful not to touch me, her black wings stretching out ever so softly. Now that I finally see why she has dark wings, the darkness in her eyes is easy to see. “The king always belongs to the queen, got it?”
“You might want to tell the king that,” I chuckle as I turn the handle to my room and head inside.
Chapter 6
The smell of dust, cleaning products and cotton flitter through my senses as I step into my dark room and feel the wall by the door for a light switch. After a few seconds in the dark, I find the switch and flick it on. Bright light floods my eyes, making me blink a few times before I can focus on the room which is now my new home. It’s a studio apartment with a white wooden framed double bed taking up most the room, along with the blue fabric sofa pushed up against the end of it. The bed has white sheets in a pile on the end with two pillows next to it. There is a large window on the other side of the room with another door on the right wall, which I’m guessing goes to the shared bathroom. A wardrobe on the other side takes up another big chunk of the room.
I look to my right, and I’m surprised to see two suitcases that look like my own suitcases from home, next to an empty white desk. I feel frozen as I stare at them before I shake myself out of it and rush to my suitcases. I push them onto the floor and open the red one first, finding all my clothes inside. I almost bury my head into them, just because it’s great to have a touch of home here. I unlock the second suitcase and find the handstitched blanket that my mum made for me for my twelfth birthday. I clutch the woven blue and black material and lift it up and wrap it around my shoulders like mum always used to do. I chuckle when I see
a box of Parma Violets sweets in the suitcase next to a pile of my romance books and my Kindle. I get a packet of the sweets that I adore to the point of obsession as someone knocks once.
“Bathroom roomie, can I come in?” Vesnia’s voice comes through the other door.
“Sure!” I shout back and make my way to sit down on the sofa, curling my feet under me as Vesnia comes in, wearing pyjama shorts with pizzas on them and a top that says, “Pizza is life” on it.
“Okay, I thought all this was weird, for the record, but the suitcases full of our things?” Vesnia shakes her head. “My dad never would have let anyone in my room to take my stuff. Especially not if he thought...”
“Same here. My mum and dad wouldn’t have given this stuff up,” I mutter, rubbing my head. I open the sweets and chew on one, offering Vesnia a sweet, but she screws her nose up.
“Ew, no. I hate those sweets,” she says in disgust.
“Good, it means we can be friends. I don’t like sharing anything,” I reply before I eat another sweet, and we both laugh for a moment.
“Call me Ves. My friends used to...” she drifts off before clearing her throat. “Well, my old friends, I guess.”
“Okay, Ves,” I answer with a sad smile. I get it.
“I’m going to get some sleep. I’m exhausted, but I wanted to check on you,” Ves says, heading for the door. “We are in this together, right? We should keep an eye on each other as I have a feeling this place is pretty on the outside but dark everywhere else.”
“Right. I have your back, Ves,” I tell her honestly, and I slightly agree with her.
“I have yours too,” she replies with a big grin before leaving my room. I pop another sweet into my mouth, deciding I need to make my bed and then get some sleep, just as a deep voice makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“The new ones are going to die.” I swiftly turn around, seeing a ghost in front of the window. The ghost’s back is to me, leaving me only to see his black, very expensive looking suit and dark hair. He isn’t as see-through as the usual ghosts I see, and he has a strange white glow to him, much unlike the usual red, blue or green colours I see on the ghosts. I search around him for a light or dark portal, but there isn’t anything nearby. Just this ghost watching the star-filled skies. Like the world slows, the ghost turns around and locks eyes with me. Every danger alert I’ve ever taught myself just disappears as I meet his gaze and stay so still. His hair is the colour of dark smoke, snaking around his forehead in thick locks. His eyes remind me of a twilight sky, touched with purple and blue streaks of light. He is incredibly handsome and strange, a dangerous mixture. I eye his ears and how the tips are pointed up, kind of like an elf.
Is that what he is? An elf?
“You can see me.” He leaves the statement, not a question, between us. I never talk to ghosts or meet their gaze like I am right now. Not since I did it as a kid and learnt what happens when ghosts start to haunt you. When I was seven, I made friends with the ghost of a teenager who called herself True. True died in a car crash, and she wanted to find her parents, but I was too young to help her with that. I told her she could be my friend, and for a while, it worked...then she got restless. True started screaming at me all the time, and then it escalated to her pushing me down the stairs and breaking my arm. I ended up having a four-hour surgery to put plates in my arm to fix what True did, and then when I went home, she was gone. Riley said she might have followed me to the hospital and got lost there, but I like to think she moved on to wherever the ghosts go. I rub the three scars on my arm that serve as a reminder of what ghosts can do when they get obsessed.
“Are you an elf?” I ask, and he laughs, like a full-body laugh that is addictive, and I find myself chuckling along with him.
I’m laughing with a ghost. FML.
“Elf? No, not at all. I am a vampire,” he replies, and I go very still. I search his body for any sign of injury or what killed him, but I don’t find anything. “But that must be our secret for now, or at least until we trust each other more. Angels like yourself do not like the word vampire.”
“Why?” I find myself asking. Stop talking to the ghost, Kaitlyn.
“Such a long story, and we have only just met,” he replies with a secretive smirk. I bet when he was alive, he could get all the girls with only a smile. Maybe he has a ghost harem...it wouldn’t even surprise me. “I’m Erendriel Raloxisys, a master vampire and currently suffering with a dead problem.”
I can’t help but smile a little at him. Dammit, charming ghosts are a new kind of danger, it seems. “I’m Kaitlyn Lightson, I can see ghosts and have been able to since I was five. I also died, and now I’m apparently training to be an angel.”
“Death seems to be our thing in common,” he smiles, flashing me a toothy grin in which I see two fangs. Damn, he isn’t lying. I’m talking to a vampire ghost, and vampires are real.
What fairy tale isn’t real at this point?
“Kaitlyn,” he whispers my name, almost like he is tasting it on his lips. I shiver even though the room isn’t cold.
“Eren...dr...wait, I’m just going to call you Ren as your name is too complicated,” I mutter.
“Ren I like,” he replies. “But then, I’ve not spoken to anyone in what seems like forever, so I am bound to agree with you.”
“How long ago did you die?” I ask, taking a step closer even when the logical side of me tells me I should be running out of this room at full speed.
“Eighty years ago, I came to this castle. I was eighteen, new to my vampire powers, and I thought I could trust the angels. My death in their hands started a war they have won,” he growls in anger.
I tilt my head to the side, wondering why I’m so interested in this ghost. I’ve seen good-looking ghosts before, but I’ve never been stupid enough to interact with them. “The angels killed you. Why would they do that?”
“If you want me to tell you a secret, you must tell me one back,” he counters.
“I don’t play games with ghosts, Ren,” I sourly reply. He walks closer to me, and I smell a strange scent of cinnamon mixed with a musk rosewood, and it takes me a moment to realise I can smell Ren.
And that’s never, ever happened before.
Ghosts aren’t really here...they don’t have scents...they aren’t real in this world. I hide my emotions as best I can because he doesn’t need to know how I’m freaking the hell out inside.
Becoming an angel? No problem. Smelling a ghost? Yep, total freak out.
“I’m going to play all sorts of games with my new friend, Kaitlyn Lightson. When you need me, just call.”
Then he is just gone, and my room feels emptier than ever, and I finally let my shaky legs sink me onto the floor. One thing is for sure, my heart is not safe in this academy. Neither are my secrets.
Chapter 7
“Kat, did you get a breakfast tray too?” Ves shouts through the bathroom door as I finish brushing my hair. I like that we have nicknames for each other when we literally only just met. I guess dying and becoming an angel has a way of bonding people. “Only I hate eating on my own and, well, can I eat with you?” I glance at my skinny jeans, purple tee with “I bite” written on it, and my favourite black Doc Martens that have purple laces in the full mirror by the bathroom door.
“Morning! Come in!” I shout back, and she opens the door as I sit on the edge of my extremely comfy bed. Ves comes and sits by me as I tug my own tray onto my lap and take off the blue lid, revealing two slices of toast, a little cornflake box in a bowl, a bottle of water and a carton of milk.
“Did you sleep well?” Ves asks after she eats her toast. I finish mine off and open the bottle of water, taking a deep gulp before answering her.
“Like an angel,” I wink at her, and she laughs, bumping my shoulder. Which is a giant lie. After Ren disappeared, I spent all night thinking about him, worrying about him coming back, and wondering how many ghosts might be lurking around the academy, waiting to scare
me. What if they have troll ghosts here? Or freaking dragons? I don’t even know if those creatures are real, but I don’t want to see their ghosts any time soon.
“It’s seriously messed up to think we are actually dead,” Ves mumbles.
“How did you die?” I ask, curious about her life. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me. You don’t have to, though.”
“It’s okay,” she replies, clearing her throat. “I lived in France, though my family is from Wales, and we moved to France for my dad’s job when I was twelve. Hence the weird accent.”
“Your accent is nice, though I was curious where it was from,” I reply. “Oh wait, can you speak French? That would be cool.”
“Nope, I’m terrible at French. I was home-schooled and always the outcast,” she admits, biting on her lip. “Anyways, I was bike riding with my dad, something we always did, and it got late. We were heading back when I rode too close to the edge of a cliff. The cliff gave way, and the last thing I remember is my dad screaming my name.”
“I’m so sorry, Ves,” I say, placing my hand on her arm. “I crashed a car with Riley inside it. We died together, and I don’t remember much either.”
“I’m sorry too. Where are you from?” she asks, clearly wanting to change the subject a little.
“Lake District. My mum is an artist and met my dad when he bought my mum’s painting of a house on the lake. That house was my dad’s holiday home, and the rest is history,” I explain, and she smiles at me. We both jump as someone bangs our door before shouting through it.
“Time to get up, newbie. Outside in five!”
“Let’s hurry and eat,” I say, and Ves agrees as she digs into her food. Four minutes later, we walk out of my room and head up the stairs where six other students are waiting. Each of them looks a little less dazed than yesterday and in their own clothes.
“Katy!” Riley shouts my name, and I turn to see him head up the stairs in his usual jeans and a white T-shirt. “You look great.” He tugs me into his arms, hugging me a little too tightly and not exactly what I’m used to. We hug sometimes, but then again, we have been going through a lot these last twenty-four hours. Riley finally lets me go, though he keeps his arm around my higher waist.