“She came back to us, asking to be initiated, offering us those missing pages of Piper’s diary. But then Addisyn was arrested because of those very pages. Eden betrayed us. If she’d stayed away, she wouldn’t be a target. But she wants this, Callie. Eden made it clear in one of our meetings how much she was willing to endure—”
“What kind of fucked up shit are you into?”
Ivy jerks back as if I slapped her. “You put your life on the line to see what crap I’m into. Now suddenly, you can’t stomach it? We’re not nice, Callie. The Virtues aren’t kind. They prey on weakness and test our limits to the greatest extent, so we can come out better. Stronger. We’re given the ability to leave this school and enter men’s playgrounds with the exact weapons required to get what we want.”
I stumble back with each breath she takes. “Stop saying those things. This isn’t you.”
“Isn’t me?” Ivy echoes. “Everything you’ve seen up until this point is who I am. But we’ve only known each other a few months. I couldn’t give you every facet, especially when you started your quest to reveal secret societies on campus. How would you have reacted if I told you I was a member from the beginning?”
“But you’re the one who gave me the Nobles’ name in the first place.” I stare at her, searching for the friend she promised was still in there. “Did you do it on purpose? To test me?”
Ivy’s eyes dart to the side, then come back to mine. “The minute your name popped up as a Briarcliff enrollee, you were considered as a possible initiate.”
“What? That’s not possible. I can’t…” Can’t believe my best friend introduced herself to me with the intention of planting a seed in my mind to prove my worthiness. Can’t comprehend that the instant I stepped on Briarcliff soil, I was societal fair game.
“It can’t be true,” I manage to say. “How could they be interested in me? I’m nothing. No one. Just a girl from the Lower East Side.”
My grip clenches on my phone, and I work to bring our conversation back to Eden. “And I’m still not doing this. Consider me unworthy.”
“Come on, Callie.” Ivy cocks a hip. “You’re willing to give up everything, even after the gaslighting you went through to get to the Virtues’ door? Don’t be like this. You’re so close.”
“Shaming another girl isn’t something I’ll ever take pride in,” I say. “I’m really disappointed that you think it’s a weapon that will positively shape your future.”
I push past her.
“They won’t stop, Callie. And whatever task they substitute for this one, it’ll be worse. Please. Do as they say.”
Ignoring her, I turn into the hallway.
“I’m trying to help you!” she calls. “Please, let me…”
But her voice becomes softer, then fades away entirely, as I put more distance between me and the one person at this school who had my trust.
6
Lunch hour is safer in my dorm room.
After the last morning bell tolls, I bypass my peers jumping up from their desks and grouping into cliques, ducking from the classroom well before my exit is noticed by Chase or Falyn.
It’s not that much of a feat. Their attention was so focused on the professor during class, I could’ve put a Mentos in a coke bottle, and they wouldn’t have turned. When it comes to my presence, Falyn must’ve decided against threatening me in public, and Chase seems to be intent on keeping up his unconcerned veneer.
That kind of self-control, after the weekend I endured at their orchestration, actually scares the shit out of me.
It shows just how serious they take their positions in Briarcliff’s secret societies.
When I arrive at Thorne House, there isn’t much activity. Most students take their lunch in the dining hall where they can catch up with their friends, crushes, and latest gossip. My heart pangs at the thought.
Any normalcy I craved when coming to Briarcliff left with Ivy once she jumped into the lake and dragged me out.
Upon entering my apartment, I expect to see Emma at our small kitchen counter, hunched over her food and eating quietly and alone—how she prefers it, and lately, how I’m coming to like it, too.
What I don’t expect, once I shed my jacket and dump my bag, is Eden to be eating with her.
“Oh. Hi,” I say.
All I can see when I look at Eden is the picture stored in my phone.
Their heads snap up at my voice, and both straighten from their conspiratorial positions on the couch.
Emma speaks first. “Hey.” She puts down her chopsticks. “Didn’t expect you back so early.”
I open the fridge. “I lost my appetite for the dining hall.”
Eden says, “I would’ve brought you some pho, had I known you were coming.”
I shrug, preferring to bury my face in the cold icebox of the inner fridge than make eye contact. I’m a terrible liar. If they see my face, they’ll know.
“I think there’s some jelly back there,” Emma says, her voice light as air. “Make yourself a pb and j, then come sit with us.”
I do what she suggests. After slathering peanut butter and strawberry jelly between two pieces of bread, I join Emma and Eden on the couch.
Emma finishes her bite of noodles, her attention straying to the sandwich, remaining untouched, on my lap, before snapping back to my face. “I told Eden what you went through over the weekend.”
I swallow, my saliva thick and unyielding. “I figured you would.”
Eden makes a low sound in her throat. “They think up the most fucked-up things, don’t they?”
My traitorous mind flies back to her naked picture on my phone, burning my retinas. I blink against my dry eyes. “I wasn’t prepared for that kind of initiation. I wish you would’ve let me in on your plans after Addisyn was arrested.”
Eden shrugs, as if tossing me into a frigid lake was the least of what could’ve happened. “We weren’t sure it was going to work. Yes, betraying you in Addisyn’s room was believable, but it wasn’t just Addisyn we had to convince. We had to lower the Virtues’ guards enough to get them to allow us to be the ones to collect Piper's diary pages from you. That was the easy part, since we had a closer relationship to you than any of them. It was exposing Addisyn and having her arrested before they found out what we really did with the diary pages that was difficult.”
“You put yourselves in so much danger,” I say.
“Exactly,” Emma says simply. “We knew there would be punishment and didn’t want to involve you so soon. Not until…”
“I took Addisyn’s vacant seat in the Virtues,” I finish, then glance between the two of them. “The Virtues are so pissed at the both of you.”
“They're biding their time to retaliate.” Emma shrugs, but her eyes burn bright. “What’s worse than what they’ve done to us before?”
I lean forward on my elbows. My phone, stuffed in my jacket near the door, blares a Siren’s call only I can hear, but not yet. Not yet. “Explain to me what happened to you, Emma. I can't be left in the dark anymore.”
Emma sets her bowl of pho on the coffee table while Eden huddles deeper into the couch cushions, bringing her noodle bowl closer to her chest like its warmth can replace what’s missing in her chest.
“Don’t I deserve to know?” I ask. “After you two colluded—”
“Successfully, I might add,” Eden cuts in.
I sigh. “Achievement or not, the three of us are in a whole bunch of shit because of it. I need to know what I’m working with if I’m to take this ruse any further.”
And put your entire life back into misery, I silently add, but internally shake myself out of it and push on, saying to Emma, “I can maybe understand why the Virtues believed Eden and that she wanted to prove herself by stealing Piper’s diary pages from me the instant I found them, but you? You burned down a library. Why would the Virtues think you would still be on their side?”
Emma’s brows jump before her lips turn down. “You may know I set the fi
re, but you have no idea what’s been done to me these last two years.”
“Then help me understand.”
“My father is the king of the Nobles. My brother, the prince. They’ve spent their lives working themselves to the bone to keep the Nobles a secret, and because of that, they have to work to keep the Virtues a secret, too.”
“And you put all that in jeopardy by drawing national attention to Briarcliff Academy by setting that fire,” I surmise.
Emma’s chin dips low in agreement.
I set my sandwich down beside her bowl. Emma watches the maneuver.
“My father spent these past two years indoctrinating me back into the Virtuous mindset. He used therapists that were Nobles, trauma counselors that were Virtues, and I spent months being told the societies weren’t the problem. I was.”
I think of the three days I spent in a psychiatric hold after physically attacking my stepdad, and the pills I swallowed along with the words from doctors and nurses that I was experiencing a break with reality due to the trauma of losing my mother.
If only you’d listen to us and take your medication like a good girl, then you’ll be back to normal in no time. Your father isn’t a murderer. Cocaine and Oxy and a hard-partying lifestyle are what fuel your paranoid delusions. Your mother isn’t coming back.
I was in that suffocating, nauseating fugue for seventy-two hours. Did Emma have to endure it for two years?
“Chase allowed that?” I whisper.
Emma shakes her head. “Not even close. But he was forced to watch it happen.”
I wait for her to continue.
“My brother … I had to make him understand we were playing the long game. Instant retaliation doesn’t work. I set the Virtues’ temple on fire and look where that got me. The only consequence of my efforts was that they had to build a new one.”
I choke on Emma’s revelation, wishing I’d grabbed some water. “The Virtues’ secret meeting grounds was hidden in the old library?”
Emma responds with a droll look. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a pyro who sets revenge fires just because a mysterious masked man who jumped me there was still running free.”
“So, it was the Virtues who attacked you.”
Emma cants her head in partial agreement. “It was their way of permanently severing me from the Virtues. Fracturing my face…” Her words hit a rough patch, and Emma clears her throat. I take that as a clue that all of us are in need of water, so I hop up and pour three glasses.
“An edict of being Virtuous,” Emma says as I return, placing the drinks on the coffee table before reoccupying my seat, “is that you have to be beautiful. If you don’t have beauty, you’re no use to them.”
Eden drops her head, her long, black hair swishing against her cheeks, obscuring her profile. My chest tightens as I glance between them, their minds more battered and disfigured from the existence of the Virtues than their bodies ever will be.
I hate them, I think with ferocious venom. I hate these societies.
“So, you tried to destroy the Virtues’ property as payback,” I say, thinking this through as delicately as I can. “Except, you were somehow trapped inside while doing it.”
Eden nudges Emma. “Might as well tell her everything.”
Emma watches me for a moment, then parts her lips. “I wasn’t trapped. I was locked in.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“It wasn’t my intention to destroy the whole building,” Emma says. “I only wanted the underground temple to burn for what they did. But the queen caught me, and instead of screaming at me to get out, she shut and locked the door in my face.”
I hold a hand to my neck, my stomach lurching. “But you managed to escape. You survived.”
“Because my brother saved me.”
The mention of Chase’s name holds the same power it always does, my heart cleaving in two at the thought of him running into flames to save his sister, and the lies he had to weave to ensure both his and his sister’s survival at this academy.
And I told him I couldn’t trust him.
“Do you see, Callie?” Eden asks, shuffling closer to Emma and putting her arm around her shoulders. “Can you understand why we duped you? We need someone on the inside, to get to the Virtues’ written recordings, to collect evidence against them, to expose them for who they really are.” Eden waits a beat, both of them watching the information they imparted slip under my skin, erode my bones, and turn my insides to ash. “Are you with us?”
I lick my lips. Take a long, cold gulp of water.
Piper was their inside girl before me. And now she’s dead.
So is my mother.
So is the carefree, beguiling, cheerful Callie Ryan that I used to be.
I raise my head, including both Emma and Eden when I say, “Yeah. I’m in.”
7
“I have a confession to make,” I say to Emma and Eden, threading my fingers together on my lap. “The Virtues contacted me this morning.”
Emma’s brows lower. “What did they say?”
I lock my jaw, my gaze sliding over to my bag, slumped innocently beside the door. “It’s … well, let’s be real. It’s Falyn, and she’s teed me up for another screwed up test.”
Eden nods. “That’s usually how it goes.”
“How many?” I ask, mild desperation lacing my tone. “How many will it take before I’m robed?”
Emma answers. “Hard to say. Each girl is different. You’re not a legacy, you’re a senior, and they’re letting you into the society because you’ve basically strong-armed them.”
“And Falyn’s in charge of your initiation,” Eden adds.
“Gee. Anything else?”
“I’m betting on a pretty brutal future for you,” Eden says, her eyes as flat as her voice. “But if you can take it, I’ll have mad respect for you.”
“God.” I rub my eyes.
“Sack up,” Emma says. “You can do this.”
I nod with forced vigor, because I’m not looking forward to what I’m about to say. “Eden, what they’re asking me to do is about—”
A hard knock sounds against our door, making all three of us jump. Eden’s pho splashes on her white button-up shirt, and she curses.
Ivy’s voice floats through the gaps. “Callie? Are you there?”
Emma mumbles something close to an insult then leans back and crosses her arms. She says to me, “Your move. I’m not letting her in.”
My attention flits between Emma and Eden—two people on my side, but who’ve proven their willingness to throw me under the bus if it suits their larger plan—and Ivy, the girl who saved me from drowning, yet disillusioned our friendship to the point that I’m questioning if it ever existed in the first place.
Are these my choices?
Standing, I sigh. “I’ll get it.”
Emma frowns. Eden’s expression becomes unreadable, but she watches the door.
I stride over and unlock the deadbolt, revealing Ivy, unkempt, windblown, and bringing in the scent of a chilled forest with her. Her shoulders sag at the sight of me. “I wasn’t sure you were going to answer.”
“I debated it.”
She nods, her gaze falling to the floor as she wrings her hands. “Can I come in?”
“No,” Eden calls behind me.
“Yes,” I say, and step aside. “But if it isn’t obvious, I’m not alone.”
Ivy tiptoes in, her focus centering on Emma and Eden, both rigid and watchful. Neither have resumed eating.
“Hi, guys,” Ivy says to them quietly.
Emma levels her chin. Eden glares.
“I’m glad you’re all here,” Ivy says. With the way she stands in the center of our room, leaving her coat on and her bag strapped on her shoulders, it’s clear she doesn’t think she’ll be staying long.
My heart aches at the sight. Just a few days ago, Ivy was bursting in here, her jacket, shoes, and books flying everywhere before she splayed on my bed and asked
me how I felt about binge-watching baking shows.
“We know about last weekend,” Eden supplies. “And what was done to Callie.”
The memories get the best of me. I blurt out in defense, “Ivy saved me. When I was in the water, she jumped in and swam me to the docks.”
Eden’s brows hike up. Emma’s lips thin.
Ivy turns to me, her blue eyes lighting up with a familiar smile. “Obviously, Callie. I couldn’t leave you to drown.”
Eden makes a sound of disgust. “I can’t with this drama. The water’s like, ten feet deep under the docks. It’s not like Callie couldn’t—”
“I can’t swim,” I say.
Eden’s mouth falls open.
“Wait a second,” Emma says. “You can’t swim, and you managed to find the Virtues’ key under the docks?”
“Badass,” Eden says, her expression turning to one of admiration.
Ivy ignores them both. “Callie, you may think less of me because I hid my membership, but if you keep up your initiation, you’ll understand why. The society doesn’t play around. I couldn’t tell you, even though I really wanted to. I tried to leave clues…”
“Like telling me about the Nobles when I first came to Briarcliff,” I say. “Then denying you ever said anything.”
Ivy slumps. “This world we’re in, it’s a gift and a curse. With the Virtues, our future is pure gold.”
Emma snorts. But Eden’s stare becomes almost feverish as she listens to Ivy.
“But the curse…” Ivy continues, “the curse is to sign away your soul.”
My eyes narrow at the sudden turn. I study Ivy harder. “We’re talking real life here. They can’t possibly own your soul.”
“I didn’t come over to convince you to be one of us. I’m here to—I’m here…” Ivy trails off, one hand massaging her throat as she glances at Eden, but lands on Emma. “Eden was humiliated, you were hurt, and Piper died. The Virtues aren’t who I thought they were when I pledged in eighth grade. I’ve seen things, I’ve—I’ve done things, I—”
Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3) Page 5