My head whips to the door, and the Home Alone trap I’ve made. So far, it’s undisturbed. “We have some time yet.” Emotion blooms in my chest, then swells in my throat. “I don’t want to go.”
“I know.”
“I can’t put you back down there.”
“You have to.”
“I’ve weakened you in front of everyone.”
Chase squints. “Don’t think I won’t make a splash when I get out of this fucking thing. I’m okay, sweet possum. We are okay.” He motions to the bottle. “Thank you for the water. And…” His eyes soften. “Thank you for checking on me. I can’t remember the last time someone’s done that.”
“I’ll stay with you. Right here. Whatever happens.”
Chase shifts, his hand coming between the iron bars and drifting across my cheek. “You would, wouldn’t you? Stay here until someone comes, damn the consequences.”
I hold onto his wrist and squeeze. Answer enough.
“That’s not the way,” he murmurs, brushing the pad of his thumb along my lower lip. “Go pull that switch, then step on the iron lever by the wall you came through and get back to your room. Tell no one you’ve come here.”
“You know how I got in.”
“I’m aware of a lot of things, even when I’m put into the black.”
“I—”
“Now, Callie.” He hands me the empty bottle.
Though every muscle protests the command, I rise to my feet and move to the lever. I glance once more over my shoulder. Chase has risen to a stand, his arms folded. Though he looks in complete control, smudges of dirt mark his tuxedo and his white shirt is missing buttons, like he tore at it in the dark. The whites of his knuckles poke through his skin as he clutches his biceps.
“Do it.”
I catalogue every tear, every mark of pain left on his body from having to endure being buried alive. “I won’t let this happen to you again.”
Chase nods, but his eyes have glazed over with a faraway look, committing to his entrapment by initiating a mental disappearance.
I yank on the lever, a rusted squeal bursting from my hands. The chains begin their rattle, and I’m seized with panic. I can’t stay still and watch this. There’s no way I can be a bystander for the second time.
I sprint to the cage, grab Chase by his lapels, and pull his lips to mine.
I kiss him, and kiss him deeply, our mouths rubbing together with desperate passion, and I sink along with him, bending my knees, then bowing forward, never breaking that kiss as he’s lowered to the ground.
Not until the distance forces us apart.
24
I slink from the tomb, through the chem lab and deserted academy halls, and step outside into the dark, frozen tundra of the Briarcliff landscape, my ribs feeling like icepicks poking against my skin.
Snowflakes catch in my lashes, descending from the ink-black depths of the sky on a silent drift of wind.
My walk to Thorne House is heavier than when I left, my feet filled with leaden angst as I leave Chase in depths without snowflakes, without wind, without … anything. He says it’s the right thing to do, but I’m not sure it’ll ever feel that way.
When I unlock my door, I’m surprised to find Emma staring into the creamy swirls of her mug. She looks up when I set my bag down beside her on the counter.
“You didn’t have your phone,” she says as greeting.
Shedding my outerwear, I say, “I had it. That looks good. Mind if I make myself a cup?”
“Why didn’t you pick up? I thought something happened to you when you weren’t answering.”
“And I thought you were asleep.”
“How could I sleep after sending you into the Nobles’ tombs?”
I pause, lifting a mug from our little tree by the coffee machine. “There’s no shortage of blame to go around, Emma. I shouldn’t have asked you to be a part of tonight.”
“You didn’t ask. I demanded. I thought I could follow in Piper’s footsteps.” She wipes a hand down the unscarred portion of her face. “But I couldn’t. I saw Sabine, and I couldn’t.”
I finish making my coffee, then sit beside her, my spoon clinking as I stir in cream. “If you were testing your willpower, that was a difficult way to do it. You went all-in. Maybe next time, see how you react if you spot her from a distance on campus.”
“You made a joke.” Emma huffs out a weary laugh. “Impressive, considering our circumstances.”
“I’m not sure they’ll get any better, so I try for gaps of time when I smile.”
Emma slides a saddened gaze my way. “How was my brother?”
I start to lift the rim to my lips, then think better of it. “Surviving. Posturing. Pretending it’s all good.”
Emma breathes through tightened lips, but her shoulders slump. “He’s continually protecting me, but when it comes to needing my help, I’m useless to him.”
“I feel the same way. But he seems to think this is all for the greater good.” I spin the mug, its hot ceramic searing the pads of my fingers until I lift them for relief, a maneuver I wish I could pull off in real life. “I can’t imagine being forced to endure my greatest fear.”
But I can, and I did. Drowning in the brackish water of Briarcliff Lake before Ivy saved me. It was the type of explosive, thundering feeling in my chest I never want to experience again.
And Chase has to endure hours and hours of it.
“I’m glad you saw him. I’m glad he was able to speak to you.”
I nod. “It was almost too easy. Yes, I used the secret tunnels you suggested, but there was nothing. No one to get in my way.”
Emma makes a sound in her throat before sipping her coffee. “I bet Sabine knew you’d go after him.”
“And she let me.” I lean on my elbows, the mug centered in my hands. “I wish I could get into that woman’s head. She’s hidden articles—”
I stop myself. The sickly sage color of the bedroom floats into my vision.
“What?” Emma asks, but her expression holds warning. I’m not ready to talk about it.
I say, quieter, “I found newspaper clippings and articles about my mother’s death in a binder Sabine was hiding.”
“She was researching your past.”
“Well before I enrolled here. The dates are from more than a year ago.”
“It makes a sick kind of sense. Your mom was having an affair with her ex-husband, right?”
“Yes, but remember when I confronted her tonight? Sabine explained the binder was for Virtuous prospects. Why would she ever consider me as a Virtue, after what my mother and her husband did? I was his illegitimate child for a hot minute there.”
Emma shrugs. “With that theory, why has she let you in now?”
“Because she assured me I’m not Mr. Harrington’s bastard daughter. And hell, she could be enlisting me as a Virtue now as a sick sort of revenge on my dead mom’s ghost, by making her daughter a kind of Virtue not even the Nobles know about—”
Again, I stop, inwardly cursing.
Emma visibly stiffens beside me, her fingers flattening against her mug.
She asks, her breaths shallow, “Where did you say you found those articles?”
My hair falls on either side of my face, and I find more solace in the dregs of my coffee than I do by looking up. “I didn’t.”
“Tell me, Callie.”
I sigh. Tuck my hair back. “I mentioned it before I left to see Chase. It was in a kind of … bedroom.”
Emma’s brows lower. “Is it the kind of bedroom that can only be accessed through the back of a fireplace?”
I lift my gaze in answer.
“So, it’s official. Ivy showed you the irony of becoming a Virtuous princess. Did she tell you all of it?”
“Most. The rest I could glean for myself.”
Emma moves to stare vacantly across the room.
“You don’t have to talk about it.” I lift my hand to offer comfort, to rub her back or squeeze he
r shoulder, but instead of doing any of that, my arm comes back down. She’s not the kind of person to seek comfort, only strength.
Her attention shifts, her eyes sharpening as they land on me. “Maybe it’s time I did.”
I’m wary of spooking her, so I say nothing.
“In ninth grade, Sabine awarded me the title of princess. I thought it was an honor. Took it as entitlement. For as long as I can remember, my family has drilled into my ears the importance of becoming royalty in the Nobles and Virtues. And it was about time, too. Chase had become prince two years prior.”
I push my brows together. “In seventh grade?”
Emma shrugs. “The Nobles don’t have the—responsibilities—that we do. To be prince means to be groomed for leadership and granted privileges unavailable even to other society members. Like the best dorm room, a rigged top of the class ranking, make-up exams when you don’t feel like taking them at the time, first seat in Briarcliff’s nationally renowned rowing team. All orchestrated by the headmaster. All so it looks terrific on an Ivy League application.”
I drum my fingers against the laminate counter. “He doesn’t act like any of his positions were bought and paid for.”
Emma offers a jaded smile. “Because they weren’t. Chase gave the best boys’ room to Tempest. He’s at the top of the class because he earned it and is both captain and stroke of crew because he has the racing stats to prove it.”
I smile. That sounds exactly like the Chase I’ve come to care for. “And what about the Virtues? How is the princess awarded?”
Emma’s chest concaves. Despite the thorns she rims around her body and the steel she wraps around her heart, she seems so fragile right now. So brittle and broken as she hunches over her cold coffee. “It used to be that way, too. When my grandmother guided the Virtues, we had all those privileges, but … it’s a man’s world. We were never awarded the status of a Noble Prince. The princess was ranked second in the class, given stroke and captain of crew, but the girls’ rowing team isn’t as widely recognized as the boys’. And exams…” A mirthless laugh escapes her lips. “Most of the time, the princess did better than the prince. But who got the top marks?”
I nod. “My mom, she worked in a male-dominated industry and was made to feel like a bitch when she wanted to be seen as an equal, and a single mother when she needed to take time off when I was sick, like it was some kind of handicap to gaining respect. I’m pretty sure I was aware of gender norms when I was five.”
Emma snorts in agreement. “Yeah, but what did your mom do to combat it?”
“She stayed the course, got together with the other two women at the precinct, demanded equal pay, and worked hard to change perceptions, even to the smallest degree.”
“Yep. The hard way. And I’m sorry you’re mom’s dead, but she didn’t make much headway, did she?”
I’m forced to agree.
“Sabine Harrington, or Sabine Moriarty, back then, when she took my grandmother’s place, didn’t want to work that hard for recognition. She wanted it now. She made deals behind the Nobles’ backs—starting with Nobles who’d automatically graduate into top positions in the country. She married one. You’d think they’d stay loyal to their own society, and most did, but there were some willing to bend the rules, including Paul Harrington.”
I force a deep breath, waiting for what will come next.
Emma whispers, “Sabine used the most ancient power a woman has over a man. Sex.”
I wrap one hand around the back of my neck, massaging out the goosebumps. “She negotiated the bodies of the girls in the society to gain favors from these men?”
“Only some girls. The most innocent, the sweetest. The ones less likely to talk.” Emma shakes her head, a hollow swing, side-to-side. “I wasn’t like my brother. Not boisterous, or sociable, or aggressive. I preferred Harry Potter in bed to societal events, Comic-Cons over sports, Reddit forums to talking to friends in real life. That’s why, when Sabine picked me, me, I was shocked and over-the-moon. Yes, I was a Stone, but for the most part, I went unnoticed as a Loughrey. I chose my mother’s last name instead of becoming a Stone. I was a legacy in the Virtues, because I had to be, not because I earned it. And my dad, he was so proud I’d taken the Stone status. My mom, too. I’d never experienced so much warm attention, not to mention, the open respect it caused. And it’s because of that I was willing to do anything to keep Sabine happy. Anything.”
“Emma, I’m so sorry.” Though it’s never enough. The platitude, even genuine, will never bring back what was lost.
“It was Piper who figured out what was going on, first. Why I always disappeared the first Tuesday of the month and came back quieter, lesser. And she wouldn’t stop asking questions.” Emma rubs her eyes, but a smile creeps along the edges of her mouth. “God, she was so fucking annoying. But I thought, being Sabine’s daughter, she was on her mom’s side. I thought she supported what Sabine was doing. Turns out I was wrong.”
I bite my lip in thought. “Was Sabine keeping her daughters blind because she wanted to protect them?”
“Maybe. But remember the qualifications were innocent, quiet, sweet. Piper was none of those. She couldn’t fake innocence if she tried. Same with Addisyn.”
Remembering the Piper I met, I murmur, “Good point.”
“I’ll never understand it, not in a million years, but one night, I decided to tell Piper the truth. Scream it at her until it tore her open. I didn’t care if she told the entire school. Didn’t give a fuck if she called me a slut. I wanted it out.” Emma clutches her chest, as if she can feel a bullet wound. “I wanted the poison out.”
I ask, with bated breath, “What did she say?”
“Piper did the last thing I expected. She offered to help me.”
The dorm is silent, but Emma’s words trickle into my head with the steady drips of a faucet, pooling into a watery puddle of answers, growing hotter the longer I study Emma’s face.
Her wounds.
Her scars.
“Back then, we only knew of one way to get out of Sabine’s control, and that was to make me no longer desirable for her needs.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh Jesus, Emma…”
But Emma forges on. “We agreed to meet at the library—the old one. The Virtues original temple was underground, built almost as a mirror to the Nobles. We figured the best way to really piss off Sabine was to do this on her turf. Piper brought along a baseball bat.”
“She’s the one who attacked you?”
Emma raises her head. “With my permission. I didn’t want to be me anymore. Didn’t want to be desirable, or special, or Sabine’s princess. The men, they were old, stinking, vile, and I couldn’t take it. I needed it to stop. How else was I supposed to do it? Go to the school? Marron wouldn’t believe me. My own father didn’t. The one time I tried, he asked why I was back into reading fantasy again and that Sabine would never do such a thing to the future accessories to our country. That’s what he called the Virtues. Accessories to the Nobles. Like we’re the arm candy to the true leaders. And my brother … Chase was too busy being Mr. Popular and proving to our father he deserved to be a prince on his own merits.”
I scrape my hair back from my face. “Holy fuck. This is—I can’t even.”
Emma nods sagely. “I asked Piper to hit me as hard as she could. Multiple times. In the head, in the ribs … if she killed me, I didn’t care.”
I reach for Emma, but she recoils, and I’m forced to sit there, arms hanging limp, as Emma’s trauma unfolds in my head.
“She was scared at first, but it’s like … a switch went off in her once she really got going. I don’t know what was going on in the Harrington home, and I still don’t, but that night told me Piper had hidden rage in her, too.” Emma takes a breath. I use that time to grab her mug and push it under the coffee machine. If she won’t accept my comfort, then I’ll give her another form of warmth.
“I blacked out and didn’t come to until I was in the
hospital, with Sabine leaning over me.”
Tears pool in Emma’s eyes, and I rush to set the fresh coffee down and rub between her shoulders. If she shrugs me off, so be it, but she doesn’t.
“Guess what that bitch said? None of my injuries would cause too much scarring. And any that formed, she’d personally pay for a plastic surgeon to fix. I’d be back to beautiful in three months and could resume my princess duties after that time.”
The coffee I’d gulped down rolls in my stomach. “I can’t believe…”
“That’s when I knew there was no escape. And that’s when I decided to start the fire and burn the whole fucking place down.”
I risk prodding, “You said you were trapped inside, against your will.”
Emma looks down at her untouched coffee, but her hands wrap around the ceramic. “Sabine caught me before I lit the match, and the look on her face when she did… it was like she was some kind of demon. I saw her true self that night, just like I was showing her mine. She pulled out a lighter in her purse, sent the bookshelf next to her up in flames, then turned around and locked me in.”
Black stars come across my vision. I need to lie down but can’t. Won’t. Not until Emma finishes.
“Piper followed me that night. She’d hidden behind a tree when her mother stormed out, saw the smoke, and ran to get Chase. I was cornered by fire and smoke. I couldn’t see or move. They unlocked the door, dragged me upstairs, broke a window and escaped, and the next thing I know … I’m scarred. Burned. The fire is labeled arson and connected to the same perp who attacked me a few weeks previously. It remained unsolved and then … forgotten.”
I stare unseeingly at the fridge, the conjured scenes of Emma’s confession playing out in my head as if I were there. “This is terrible. Worse than I could ever have imagined.”
“Which part?” Emma tries for a smile, the scarred ridge of her face moving with rediscovered mirth. “That Sabine is, at the very least, an attempted murderer and pimp, or that Piper was nice and saved my life?”
I answer honestly. “Both.”
“Piper changed after that. She took the role of the princess, which Sabine accepted, since my situation was so costly to the Virtue reputation she’d garnered. While Piper was princess, there were no ‘meetings’ with men. I guess Sabine had a line—her own flesh and blood couldn’t be trafficked. I could’ve spoken my truth. Piper would’ve backed me up, adding heavy credibility as the queen’s daughter. But we both decided to stay quiet and bide our time, because we only had my word as evidence. Piper was working to find more. She went all the way back to the origins and Rose Briar, started collecting secret messages Rose had written to Theodore and even unearthed a Briar’s birth certificate she wanted to talk to me about, but then she…” Emma changes tactics. “She’d be the expected bitch by day and the Virtuous princess by night. But in between, Piper was my savior. And she was working to save all of us before she died. Then she was pushed off Lover’s Leap, and … it’s like a reset button was hit. Sabine could begin again.”
Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3) Page 19