In the few seconds it took to state his fear, their roles have shifted, and all I can do is watch Chase’s strength ebb, then flow, into Emma.
“I have doubled Briarcliff’s grants and donations this year,” Sabine growls at her fiancé. “And despite losing two children, my Virtues have blossomed, and the graduates have taken their places to resurrect change in the most powerful of chairs. Do not question my authority, my love, and how dare you subvert my claim on Calla Lily Ryan and all she holds dear. Including. Your. Son. If the situation were reversed, there’s no doubt what your actions would be, or can you look me in the eye and protest any differently?”
Low voices circle above us but are shut silent with a raised look from Sabine. She doesn’t direct it at any one Cloak, but she doesn’t have to.
Daniel glances at his son. Then back to his fiancée. And it is with the blackest of stares and the worst of promises that he finally lands on me.
“As you wish,” he says, his lips moving with barely enough space to emit sound.
Sabine spreads her arms, lifting her chin and radiating all the color she’s leeched from the temple and into herself. “Then it is to the Nobles’ tomb that Chase Stone will endure Calla Lily’s punishment for the rest of tonight and long into tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, at midnight, he will be released.”
Voices laced with confidence and eagerness float from the rafters and into our ears. The Nobles’ code of honor is chanted, over and over: We fly high in the dark.
“Celebrations are allowed to ensue,” Sabine concludes. “You may all reconvene in the Nobles’ ritual room for the true celebration of winter, our strongest and most honored season.”
Movement follows, the Cloaks filtering out.
“Calla Lily, you are to come with us,” Sabine says, then includes Daniel and Chase. “As for the rest of you, back to your dorms.” She stares at Emma. “You must understand by now that you are not welcome here, and if I catch you within these walls again, there will be more than your beauty at stake.”
Emma’s hand clenches around Chase’s, but Chase urges her to the exit with assurances that he’ll be all right. Eden stumbles forward and clasps Emma’s arm, dragging her away, but Emma refuses to break her stare from her brother’s until the stone walls force her to.
In a flash of emotion before she follows Eden and Emma, Ivy sheds her mask, her eyes vivid with sorrow and fury as we connect.
I use that moment to form my own mask, because my night is far from over. Chase will suffer, and it’s because of me.
The temple empties within minutes, and Sabine directs me through another door, this one leading down a vast, stone staircase lined with electric sconces.
Daniel leads the way with Chase behind him. Sabine follows next, as if deliberately coming between Chase and I as we walk single file down the winding steps. As much as I wish to be close to Chase, I’m aware of the futileness. He won’t linger with emotion, nor will he search for my hand.
If Ivy wore her emotionless, blank mask, then Chase has just donned one of iron.
I can’t even use this time to mull over where we screwed up, or how Sabine got so ahead of us in such a small amount of time. I’m too afraid of the consequences—if Ivy really did confess our plans to Sabine. Of what Chase will endure and if he can handle it. His father wasn’t even aware of his phobia.
A loud creak comes from darkness below, and as I hit the last step, I notice Daniel has traversed to the end of a dim corridor and opened a wide, wooden door.
The Briarcliff underground resembles more of the barracks of an ancient castle than a school, and I shudder under the thought of heading into some kind of windowless dungeon.
Chase’s strides don’t hitch as he follows his father, his gait sturdy and his head held high. I try to exude the same confidence, similar will power, but he’s been in this world a lot longer than I.
Once through the door, I take quick stock of the brick walls, and the oil sconces lit by Daniel’s hand. Large, dusty gray stone lines the floor, each large tile reminiscent of a honeycomb—if hornets made their nests underground. Chains are attached in the middle of a select few, rising to the ceiling, and stacked high in one corner are broken, splintered pieces of old, rotting wood.
I almost recoil when I follow the chain-link trail to Daniel. He pulls a lever mounted on the wall. Chains clink, and neglected, unoiled pulleys spin, until a cylindrical cage is pulled from the ground through a cloud of dust.
Once the bottom of the cage meets the stone floor, the screaming creaks and clangs stop, but not their horrendous echo.
Daniel stares at the contraption, unblinking. “We haven’t used this for over fifty years. It was meant for the foulest of betrayals.”
“Then I guess it’s time to pop its modern cherry.”
Those are the first words I’ve heard from Chase since this shitstorm began, and my eyes cut to him, noting the sarcasm but studying the trepidation.
The muscles in his neck pop out and strain. His eyes, while focused, count each bar on the cage, wide enough to fit one person.
Him.
“Step in,” Sabine says. Out of the three of them, her voice is the loudest. “And dear Calla Lily. Watch.”
Chase’s Adam’s apple bobs, but he takes one step. Then two. After four, he’s through the open door of the cage and turns around, facing me.
I mouth his name, because that is the only word that has meaning, and my heart wants to speak.
His brows smooth. He sets his jaw and clasps his hands. But he’s shaking. “Do what you’ve been waiting years for, Sabine. Drop me into a black hole and jerk off to it already.”
“Son,” Daniel snaps.
Chase’s gaze slides to Daniel. “Stop pussy-footing around.”
My fingers tremble. I take one step forward, then back. I’ve never been great at family dynamics, but this is another, twisted level. One I should rip Chase away from and run until we’ve climbed our way out of here, fingers bleeding but hearts intact.
With forced steps, Daniel comes to the cage’s gate and swings it shut. He clicks the rusted lock closed. “You brought this on yourself, Chase. I warned you, several times, to keep your relationship with Callie at a superficial level.”
Chase stares at his father through slitted eyes. “Then I’ll deal with it.”
“Chase.”
His name bursts from my mouth, filled with too much emotion. It opens a window to vulnerability, but I can’t control it.
We lock eyes. He murmurs, “It’ll be all right.”
But Chase shouldn’t be the one assuring me. I should be saving him. As Sabine commands Daniel to lower the cage into the ground—into the black—I should be protesting. Screaming. Asking them why this needs to happen.
I do none of it.
The Virtue I’m supposed to be takes control, whispering and stroking my conscience until it slumbers under its soothing hand like a purring kitten. Chase can stand a full day in the dark. He’ll take it like he endured the beating in the pavilion, the orders of his father, the trauma of his sister. Because he’s doing it for the greater good.
I admit, as Chase’s feet, then his knees, disappear into the ground by the slow crank of chains and pulleys, it’s becoming harder to see the big picture.
“Chase,” I try again, his name more rasp than sound.
He doesn’t break our stare as he submits to be buried alive, but he can’t hide the terror slithering behind the bronze, tarnishing his arrogance.
We are both so composed on the outside as he’s lowered into the jaws of his deep-seated fear. But inside, we’re destroyed.
The escaped strands of his smoothed-back blond hair go bone white as the sconces spotlight his descent, and I inch forward, my fingers twitching to grab onto the bars and pull him out of there through sheer willpower alone.
He raises his head, and the corners of his lips curve as he attempts a smile. But he doesn’t make it all the way. Shadows pass over his face before the gleam
in his eyes snuffs out, too.
With a loud clank, Chase is sealed in a tomb, the octagonal lines of the roof fitting in seamlessly with the other tiles.
Those borders are the only sign of him in the ground.
22
“You are to go directly to the underground dance,” Sabine says to me, but her attention remains on that middle tile—the one containing Chase. “You are not to mention—not even once—what transpired in this tomb. You are not to return and try to free him, for if you do, my punishment will be ten-fold. Do you understand?”
I blink back unshed tears and nod.
“Lovely.” Sabine smiles, her lips remarkably red and unblemished throughout this entire ordeal. “Darling, I believe we’re missed at the Societal Ball as well.”
Daniel blinks out of his trance, his expression so different from his fiancée’s, so silently torn.
“Don’t you feel one ounce of guilt?” I ask him, my voice ricocheting in the chamber. It’s the first time I’ve truly spoken in this crypt.
Daniel’s gaze centers on me, that infamous, Stone cold stare. “My son chose his destiny the moment he decided to abandon his orders and protect you instead of use you.”
“And might I add,” Sabine says to me, “you are the one who chose to do this to him.”
I’m about to scream at her that it wasn’t my choice but stop myself. Of course, it was my choice. I said his name. I pointed to him as the recipient of punishment.
“After you, child,” Sabine says, motioning to the door.
I can’t tear my gaze from the floor. Is Chase screaming by now? Has he lowered to his knees and slammed his forehead to the ground, clutching his head?
The dude hates small spaces, Tempest had said to me in the library one day. He never takes elevators.
That seasick swill in my gut splashes into my throat. This is so much worse than an elevator. There’s no light. No air.
Can he breathe?
“Callie,” Daniel bites out, and I jerk to attention, though it physically hurts to leave Chase’s prison.
I’ll be back, I silently vow. I won’t let them do this to you.
I stride forward, the soft breeze from the motion chilling me to the bone. My arms are damp with sweat, my chest probably shining with it, and the silk wisps of my dress feel like wilted petals against my legs.
Out in the corridor, Daniel takes the lead.
As I follow Sabine and Daniel through more underground tunnels, ostensibly leading to the Societal Ball, neither of them looks back.
Not even once.
When our footsteps stop echoing off the walls, and instead are replaced by the pounding vibrations of music, we’re far enough away to never hear Chase’s screams.
Sabine and Daniel take me through a wide archway and into another chasm of space—this one governed over by the large, black wings of a raven crest.
Bodies twist and writhe in the middle, some shedding their cloaks, others pulling down their hoods, and the rest cloak-less and carefree, their gowns and tuxes more stained with sweat and drink than when they started their evening.
Enough light emits from the walls and carefully placed spotlights on the ground. On the opposite side, the staircase I descended one time before blinks in and out of shadow as the moving spotlights crest over and around.
“Callie!” Ivy cries through the music. Once she reaches me, her damp, cold hand clasps mine.
Emitting nothing but joy, Ivy grins at Sabine, lifts my hand to twirl under it, then drags me away.
Ivy spins me in time to witness Sabine’s approving nod at her replacement princess, and Ivy doesn’t stop until we’re well on the other side, and she pushes a glass of champagne into my hands.
“Drink,” she says.
Even though my mouth is as dry and barren as the corridors I’ve wandered through, I say, “I can’t.”
“You have to.” Ivy presses the slim flute to my lips despite my choking protest. “Look like you’re having fun.”
I ask over the rim, “How am I supposed to do that? Eden and Emma have been taken God knows where, and Chase is fucking buried—”
Ivy shushes me, then responds in a low voice. “Eden and Emma are safe in their dorms. Sabine promised only one would be punished. And you’re safe now, too.”
“You sold us out,” I blurt. I’ve only had one, forced sip, but my cheeks are hot.
The meager light remaining in Ivy’s eyes dies out. “I wasn’t given a choice. Sabine has Chase followed, Callie. She tracked him and his sister to their lake house on multiple occasions, even has pictures of you and Chase secretly meeting up at Lover’s Leap. If I wasn’t honest with her, what happened a few minutes ago would’ve been worse. She would’ve caught you, either way, but with my input, I tried to make the repercussions less lethal.”
I hiss, “You could’ve warned us!”
“You wouldn’t have attempted the break-in had I warned you. You would’ve kept seeing Chase. I would never have gotten the opportunity to show you what she’s doing to her princesses—”
“Do you think I wouldn’t have believed you if you had just told me?” I ask her, appalled. “Ivy, you didn’t have to show me a sick bedroom to prove you were being molested!”
Ivy shushes me, her features rippling with desperation. “You have to act like Sabine to outsmart her, and that’s what I did. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m sorry Chase is suffering and you’re mad at me, but I’m glad I did it, because you’re standing here. Livid and alive.”
My anger simmers down. “You honestly believe she’d kill me for continuing to see Chase?”
“For transpiring against her.” She croaks out her answer, then takes a long sip of her champagne. “She’d kill her own daughters if it came to choosing between them or ruling the Virtues.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Hate me all you want, but I did this to save you guys. Remember that.”
“Instead of being expelled, or beaten, or set on fire, I’m standing here with you drinking fancy champagne in a secret ritual room. Tell me what part of that is supposed to make me feel safe.”
Ivy cups her own glass. “Sabine manipulates. You’ve seen it. Expelling you, beating you, exposing you isn’t what would’ve broken your spirit, like it did Emma and Eden. But putting Chase in a box? You have to prove to her that’s not your kryptonite, either. Get yourself under control, because if she senses your fractures, she’ll go in for the final stab.”
“He’s in the ground.” I breathe, in and out, attempting to regain control. “And I put him there to save my own skin. I can’t feel good about that. I can’t drink this shit and dance like the rest of you while he suffers.”
Ivy scans those around us and pulls me closer, ensuring privacy. “She’s keeping you for a reason. We have to figure out why that is.”
“The last time we thought of the perfect caper, we ended up as theater for the rest of these assholes.”
“Exactly. It’s all a show. Outwardly, at least. On the inside, she’s poisoning us.”
My gaze sweeps around the room, but it isn’t calculating like Ivy’s. It’s furious.
“Listen, I’m all too aware of what it’s like to be put on display,” Ivy whispers near my ear.
I absorb her words. My shoulders slump. I can’t stay mad at her with what she’s being forced to endure. Blackmailed and manipulated into Sabine’s control. How didn’t I see how easily Ivy has to cave to Sabine’s wishes when we were planning the break-in? “What you said back there, about being forced into sex…”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about that. Now, it’s all about making a happy face and pretending Sabine awarded you the greatest honor by keeping you a member.”
“Ivy…”
“Do it.” Ivy’s expression dims. “It’s how I’ve survived these past few months, and it’s how you will, too.”
Ivy darts a look over my shoulder then spins me around with deceptively strong arm
s. There’s no time to marvel at her strength—both inside and out—because it’s as if the three Furies from Greek Mythology descend on us.
Falyn, Willow, and Violet, their cloaks clasped but hoods down, form a half-circle around our forms.
“Quite a scheme you cocked up, Callie,” Falyn says. In this light, her pale-colored eyes take on the yellowish hue of the underground ballroom. “What were you hoping to find, exactly?”
The hidden bedroom comes to mind, and I glance at Ivy. The image must be written all over my face, because in those few seconds of connection, Ivy pales, then jerks her head side-to-side. Falyn doesn’t know.
Falyn doesn’t know…?
Repeating the question doesn’t help. Who are the girls Sabine puts in that bedroom? And how many are there, because so far, I can only count three. Ivy. Piper. Emma.
And only one of them stands in this room.
“I was hoping to discover more information on Piper’s death,” I answer Falyn.
She snorts.
Willow mutters, “Not this shit again…”
Violet cants her head sadly, like it’s hard to believe I’m still on the investigative track.
Falyn says, “When are you going to understand that being a Virtue is a privilege? Acceptance into the Ivies is guaranteed. A job in the Forbes Top 100 is an easy option. Marrying a billionaire is less of a chance and more of a given. What part of that displeases you?”
“What’s the price you pay for those riches?” I ask. “Have you ever thought on that?”
Falyn curls her lips. “So far, being me is pretty fabulous. To be you, though … I fully understand why you’d rather fuck up than level up. You’re not meant to be successful or admired. You’re not one of us.” Falyn’s gaze rakes me up and down in an assessing, disgusted sweep. “Our queen may want to keep you around in order to contain your screw-ups and prevent them from being made public but understand this: none of us think you belong. Nobody wants you here.”
I sigh, having heard this—and predicted it—well before she approached me.
Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3) Page 17