Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3)

by Ketley Allison

  I roll and stare at the ceiling, folding my hands over my stomach. I’m worried if I look at Ivy, the smallest tic of inner knowledge will show on my face.

  It doesn’t feel great to dupe my friend, but Chase’s and my deal is working. Ivy believes he’s turned.

  “He’s angry,” Ivy continues. “After what happened to him, I was worried he’d take his anger out on you, and it looks like I’m right. I think you should be sick for the rest of the week. Catch up on some sleep. Stay away from him and wait for his rage hurricane to end.”

  “I would,” I murmur, “but I’m failing my classes and finals are in a few days. I can’t miss them.”

  Ivy grabs my hand and squeezes. “Then I will do everything I can to help you stay out of his way.”

  My mother, I think as a wave of guilt crashes inside me. Think about getting answers. Not about hurting Ivy.

  I turn to her and envelop her in a side-hug. “Thank you. I love you … you know that?”

  “Ack.” Ivy laughs tightly. “You sure you don’t want to row? You’re squeezing me like you want me to be an oar.”

  “Maybe next year,” I say as I release her.

  Ivy frowns. “But we graduate this spring.”

  “Exactly.”

  Ivy smacks me on the arm as I roll and pull the covers over my head. “I’m glad to see you sassy, at least. Get some sleep. I’ll come by tomorrow morning and walk with you to class. As the Virtuous princess, I can order Falyn to stand down. But Chase and the Nobles…”

  “You have your own shit to worry about, too. I can handle stupid school pranks.”

  “That’s just it,” Ivy says, her pensive face growing smaller as my lids get heavier. “We’ve moved way beyond hazing.”

  “Mm?” I mumble sleepily.

  “I’m worried about you, Callie. The Virtues and Nobles are out of control.”

  “Callie? Possum. Possum. Hey. Baby.”

  My shoulder’s jostled a few more times, the last few shoves so hard, I’m positive I’m no longer running toward a cliff with ravens nipping at my back.

  “Wha…?” I crack open an eye, but I shouldn’t have bothered, since my room is as dark as my dreams.

  “There you are.” A vague outline of Chase’s large body takes shape. “You were so KO’d, I was about to leave you to the Sandman.”

  I sit up, scrubbing my eyes, then scraping my hair back. “I’m ready. Just give me…”

  “Callie.” His hand falls on my shoulder, a leveler on most occasions, but it feels like an unwanted anchor tonight. “You should stay here. It’s obvious you need the sleep.”

  I throw the covers off and my feet hit the floor. “I want answers more than a few more hours of rest. I’ll get dressed, and we can go.”

  “If you say so.”

  Chase backs off, but his residual grumble makes it clear he’s not happy about it.

  I pad around my bedroom, finding my sweats and socks and pretending I don’t see the cool, unbothered Chase reclined in class today instead of his current shadow waiting along the edges of my room.

  His lack of features in the night makes that impossible, and my movements are stilted and clumsy, reflecting the emotions toiling away in my chest.

  “You good?” he asks after my third curse when I bang my toe against my bedside table.

  “Fine.” I fumble for my hair-tie and call myself ready. “Let’s go.”

  “You can change your mind.”

  “Nope.”

  I lead the way from my bedroom into the low-lit gloom of our kitchen appliances. Emma’s light is off, and while she spent time eating with me at our counter tonight, I was so shell-shocked and desolate, she wisely left me alone with my feelings for the rest of the evening.

  “Emma doesn’t know?” I whisper over my shoulder, verifying that she’s sleeping on the other side of her door.

  Chase’s voice, rough even when controlled, responds, “Not a clue. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  These twins keep too much from each other, I think sadly. But right now, my mother is the priority.

  Chase cuts past me at the apartment door while I’m putting on my coat and pushes the stair’s door open to slide through. We silently descend the three flights, and when we burst into the frigid, winter air, I let myself squeal into the collar of my coat as I follow him to his car.

  We take a hidden path through the forest to a back road, probably for vendors and staff to travel unnoticed around the edges of the academy. Chase’s car lurks quietly on the plowed drive, shining iridescent black against the opaque darkness of the trees and sky.

  He opens the passenger door, and I’m thrown into the memory of the last time I rode in his car, with the smell of caramel, fresh-baked bread, and him permeating the interior, stimulating both my stomach and pheromones.

  Just the thought has saliva building in my mouth and clenches my core. I’m desperate to tighten myself around him again. Rules be damned—I want him to take me in his car, surrounded by forest, and out of sight from our enemies.

  Chase gets in on the other side, his eyes dark but shining when they land on mine. Every line of his shadowed expression communicates his same need.

  “Chase, I—”

  He growls, then clamps his hand on the back of my neck and pulls me in for a hard kiss. Chase’s tongue plunges, explores, and I part for him easily. A needy mewl sounds from my throat, and I guide his free hand between my legs, aching for him to fill me and for my walls to clench around something other than emptiness, but he rips away with a curse.

  “I knew this was a bad idea.” Chase swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, staring straight ahead.

  “I told you, I have to be the one to discover anything about my mother. She’s mine, Chase. She was everything to me.”

  “That’s not what I’m referring to.” His gaze slides over me but flicks away the minute heat builds between us. “If I’m to follow orders to keep my hands off you, we can’t keep finding ourselves alone.” His tone falls into velvet when he continues, “Because I will take every advantage. I’ll have you naked before the end of the night. I won’t be able to bring you home until I’ve tasted you again. Fuck, I miss your taste.”

  I lick my lips, but they’re not the flavor he’s looking for.

  A tingling hollowness builds low in my belly. I squirm in my seat.

  “Drive,” I manage to garble out. “Before I climb on top of you and end this charade.”

  The engine rumbles to life, and my head falls back on a sigh when the vibrations hit my seat.

  It’s not enough, it will never be Chase, but it takes off the keening edge building at my middle.

  We don’t talk as he navigates the private road and onto the main passage of Briarcliff Academy, and I’m grateful, because that time of quiet allows me to regain rationale and logic. And memories of today.

  “You’re quiet,” Chase muses as he turns out of the academy gates. “But I can hear you thinking.”

  I stare out my window. “It’s nothing.”

  He turns left, the wheel gliding between his skilled fingers. “You come better than you lie.”

  My cheeks grow hot.

  “Fine. I don’t need your words to be confident in your hatred for me at the same time you want to jump my bones.”

  “Don’t simplify it like that.”

  “Why not? It’s exactly how you’re feeling.”

  “I had a used tampon thrown at my face.”

  Chase arches a brow. “I told you I wouldn’t be kind.”

  I rear away from my seat, so incensed, it’s difficult to form a sentence. “What the hell is the matter with you? I expected name-calling. I practically guaranteed Falyn’s bitchy involvement in some way. Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if James joined in and my locker was fucked with again. But you convinced a girl to yank on a string between her legs in the middle of class and toss it, then you sat back and enjoyed the show. That’s fucking gross, Chase. It’s despicable
. And you orchestrated it.”

  Chase’s hands relax on the wheel, and I note the small smile playing against his profile. I’m about to punch it off his face.

  “Did we not agree to convince the Nobles and Virtues that I’ve taken their side? Bowed to their rules after a night in a cage? I couldn’t play by the normal bullying rules. It was the only way, and the reason you’re in my car right now. Sabine’s cronies won’t be tailing us after that display—and even if they are, I went through a lot of bullshit and dollar bills to make it look like I’ve locked myself in my room with a random sophomore tonight.”

  The thought of Chase with someone else—even pretend—makes me sick. But I can’t argue the point, so I fold my arms and counter, “Don’t be surprised if I pee in your sports bottle before your next rowing practice.”

  “Now, Callie,” Chase says as he pulls into the driveway of his lake house. “That’s just gross.”

  30

  The lake house is quiet and undisturbed, the small porch light offering mild illumination of the front steps, and I follow Chase through the front door.

  We don’t stop in the kitchen and talk over coffee like last time, and I try not to reminisce on how close he was when we sat next to each other and how the heat of his skin acted like a magnet to the little hairs on my arms, drawing me closer, my lips softer, my body on fire.

  Chase tosses his jacket on the couch and descends the stairs two at a time, and I scamper to keep up with his long legs and sure footing. He turns on the study’s light before I arrive at the bottom, and I swing into the office right as he’s rounded the desk and started typing on the keyboard.

  I come up beside him, admiring the toned bulges of his muscles through his shirt as he bends, but getting to the task at hand. “I thought you said your dad used hardcopies.”

  “He does, but he keeps a catalogued system on his computer. Rather than search through all his file cabinets, I’m going to locate the ones we need in his spreadsheet.”

  “And he’s given you his password?”

  “He gave Sabine his password. Piper watched her type it in one night, then she told me.”

  Piper’s name causes a squeamishness in my gut, more because of my inability to see just how good she was at working the room while being a completely different person behind the scenes.

  “I underestimated her,” I say, folding my arms.

  “If you’re wishing you had the time to get to know the real Piper Harrington,” Chase says, while a spreadsheet pops onto the screen, “I tend to agree with you.”

  My lips pull into a sad smile. “I’m hoping I can properly avenge her instead by picking up where she was forced to stop.”

  Chase turns to me. “I love you for it.”

  I shift on my feet, unsure of his proclamation and where it should land. Chase has never said anything near that level before.

  And, because I’m a coward, I pretend I didn’t hear it and ramble, “What’s your opinion on Addisyn being the killer? Now that I’m an initiate, I’m seeing all these holes…”

  “Nah. Piper may have been a double agent, but she wasn’t killed by her mother. Addisyn did it. To be sure, I visited Addy in holding. Ah. Here we go.”

  Chase taps the screen and straightens.

  “Wait, you visited Addisyn?”

  He nods, his posture loose, like he just told me he had a burger for lunch. “I had the same misgivings you did and needed to hear it from Addisyn’s lips. Why she killed Piper. Why she worked so hard to eliminate her sister.”

  I raise my brows. “And?”

  “It was jealousy, through and through. Over Piper being a Virtue before her, then becoming the princess. Then, Piper sleeping with Addisyn’s boyfriend and getting pregnant. Those two … Addy and Piper … they didn’t have the best upbringing.”

  I think back to Sabine’s graduation photo, and the realization of what Piper was to her. Addisyn might’ve been the same thing. A weapon. A leg-up. A power play. It must have affected those girls. So much so that it ended it murder. Both their lives, over.

  I say, “It’s just so hard to believe, especially after hearing about what Sabine is doing to the Virtue name and to her princesses…

  I stare at Chase, watching for his reaction. It’s hard to believe that he’d be aware of the trafficking and not become an apocalyptic incendiary device. Emma’s keeping the worst from him to protect her cause. Can I take away her right to confess when she’s ready?

  In this office, surrounded by the Stones’ trinkets and deadly creatures, I dare to add, “Chase, do you know the full story of Emma’s—?”

  He spins to the wall of books behind us. “The files we need are in the panic room.”

  I allow the change in topic, since I haven’t even collected more information on Mom yet. “Oh, so it’s not just for robberies, huh?”

  Chase sends me an unamused look before typing in the code. “That was before you stuck your nose in this shit and got yourself initiated into a dangerous secret society.”

  I stand back as the wall pushes out, then slides apart to reveal an industrial gray door.

  Chase motions to follow him through the door. “In here.”

  Despite my resolve, guilt remains heavy in my gut. I can’t know these things about Emma and not lay down clues for him. “Addisyn was made a Virtue after killing Piper. Don’t you find that suspect? Wouldn’t you think Sabine was complicit in the murder by protecting Addisyn?”

  “Both are her daughters, and both had deep-seated issues with their family. I believe Sabine was shielding the one legacy she had left, regardless of whether she saw Addisyn as her second favorite. Her favorite was gone. And as a mom…” Chase shrugs but continues striding to the back of the panic room where a set of file cabinets are built into the wall. “I’ll never say what she did is forgivable. I miss my friend a whole fucking lot. But when it comes to family, to my sister, I would do anything to protect her.”

  “That’s different. You did that out of love. I don’t think Sabine’s capable of that. Every action she makes comes with a plan.”

  Chase pauses near the gray cabinets. “You’re right. But I thought we were here about your mother, not Addisyn or Sabine.”

  “Pretty sure it’s all relative,” I mutter as I sidle up to him, but he’s so focused on locating the correct cabinet, he doesn’t hear me.

  “Got it.” He pulls one open on a squeal of metal wheels. “These are the members from the 1980s and before. After that, we were put into a computerized system, but after Y2K, my father preferred to keep the originals, too.”

  “Thank God for that,” I say, and lift my hands to dive in. I’d heard about that strange year in 2000 when everyone was terrified computers would either crash forever or take over the world.

  Chase blocks me with half his body as he sifts through the files with sure fingers. “Your mom was in the same class as my dad. If she was a Virtue, it’ll be in here.”

  My heart leaps, but it leaves a nauseous wake. “And my stepdad. Peter Spencer. And stepmom, Lynda Meyer.”

  Chase nods, pieces of hair falling into his eyes as he focuses on the files. “I’ll find them.”

  I swivel to the opposite side of the open drawer. He tracks me with his eyes. “Let me do this. I’m familiar with my dad’s system.”

  “Sure. But I want a front row seat.”

  Chase stares at me, setting his jaw as if preparing for an argument, but must second-guess himself, because he returns to his search.

  After a few seconds of rifling paper and the low hum of air vents, Chase speaks. “I found her.”

  “Oh my God,” bursts out of me, and I reach for the file before he’s pulled it all the way out. “Let me see.”

  “Hang on.” He lifts it out of my reach.

  “Chase,” I warn. My muscles are primed to leap. “I will tear that thing out of your hands with my teeth. Give it.”

  Chase levels me with a look. “Despite you being here, the Nobles require plenty of co
nfidentiality. I need to make sure there’s nothing in here you’re not meant to see.”

  “Like what? My mother would’ve been a Virtue, not a Noble, and that negates any confidentiality you may have, because I’m a—”

  “You’re not a Virtue yet. And at the rate you’re going…” Chase gives me a droll look.

  “I don’t give a shit, so long as I understand why my mother died.”

  Chase freezes with the file dangling high above my head. “What did you just say?”

  I clamp my mouth shut, but my chest heaves. “I didn’t mean to say that. You have to understand. With Piper’s death, and all these secrets surrounding my mom and Briarcliff, can you blame me for thinking her death might be related? Her killer’s never been found.”

  “The societies don’t murder.”

  I scoff, shaking my head. “Even now, after all they’ve done to you, you’re still loyal to the Nobles.”

  “I’ve told you before, sweet possum. I will lead them. In a different way than my father, sure, but I’ll never leave them.” His voice goes quiet. “I don’t bow to them. They submit to me.”

  “I … just give me the file, Chase. Let me see what the Nobles have on my mother.”

  Chase lowers the file, but with the open cabinet still between us, he’s able to fan it open and read it before I can get to him.

  “She was a Virtue,” he says, right as I’m about to snatch the papers away. “Says it right here.”

  He points to a list of the graduating class of 2002. After their full names, the students are ranked by status.

  And there, right in the middle, is my mother in typed font. Meredith Ryan. “She was a marquess?”

  “Meaning she was initiated into the Virtues, but not as a legacy. Instead, she was a promising achiever.”

  I run my finger along my mother’s name. She was never one to talk of academics or brain power. I remembered her with an insane work ethic and an encouraging smile whenever she caught me struggling over homework. She always assisted me with the harder problems and the heftier math equations, but I never, for one moment, assumed she was a genius achiever great enough to be noticed by a coveted secret society.