Heaven's Fall: A Paranormal High School Bully Romance (Pandorax Academy Book 1)

by Ember Hollis

  Maybe the boys are right and I really am not supposed to be here.

  I cringe at how the voice in my head sounds. What happened to the confident, brave girl I’d been, the one who could wrap guys around her little finger and make them dance to her tune?

  But that was before Mom died. And before I got dumped here in this strange world where everyone hates me with visions of my dead mother pursuing me. I swallow thickly and look around, wondering if I’ll spot her again somewhere between the trees.

  “Don’t worry,” Noah says, reaching out to clasp my shoulder. “You’ll be fine. And if you’re not, I’ll be here for you.”

  A cheesy line, but the look of earnestness on his face warms me and brings a real smile to mine. “Thanks. I feel better knowing that.”

  Noah squeezes my shoulder again, while Sybil stares.

  “Flirting, much?” she whispers to me when Noah’s back is turned.

  “Making allies. For finals,” I reply, sensing she wouldn’t understand that I need to know that I have at least one guy around me who likes me and is on my side.

  “Oh.” She hesitates, then nods appreciatively. “Wise move.”

  Professor Chiros arrives soon after and starts putting everyone into groups. I expect to be one of the last ones leftover, while the more powerful students get called first. But instead, Chiros calls my name almost immediately, along with Bane’s and Sibyl’s.

  “You will be in my Hunting stream for today,” he informs us. “I checked on our Parnassus perennials yesterday,” he waves his hand in the air, forming a sparkling image of a star-shaped flower with white petals. “And some patches looked as if they might be in bloom today. I want all three of you to work together to use your talents to find a fully bloomed flower and bring it back safely.”

  “But sir, I don’t have any powers yet,” I remind him.

  “I understand, Miss Ramsey, but you should start training by attempting to expand your senses. If you try, you might find that you have a unique ability to sense the sacred energy of a Parnassus blossom, which would no doubt be very useful in finding it. As for you, Miss Deloria, I expect you to practice your control over your powers as usual while you guard and aid the others. And finally Mr. Holloway, you must be the one to pluck the flower and keep it alive until you can hand it to me. Now good luck, and do try to make it back by the end of the evening, you especially, Miss Ramsey.”

  With that, Professor Chiros turns to another group, leaving me standing between Sybil and Bane, both of whom stare at me with varying degrees of hostility.

  Chapter 15: Heaven

  “What?” I ask them.

  Bane’s angry purplish-blue eyes just slide away from me as he turns to stride into the forest. His silvery white hair is like a halo, making him stand out even as he passes into the shadows.

  Sibyl on the other hand is so still, she practically blends into the forest, what with her dark skin and greenish silver scales.

  “This is bad,” she whispers, before she stops glaring at me and heads into the forest too. “Chiros never grouped me with anyone until now. And with Bane and you of all people!” She scowls at me. “I thought things would be better this semester, but this is literally a recipe for disaster!”

  “But how bad can he be?” I say as I follow behind her. After all, of the Four, he’s the one who’s bothered me the least. “The most he ever does is stand around and look scary.” And predict my death, I recall with a shiver.

  “Oh, you wait and see,” Sybil shakes her head. “He doesn’t look like it, but he’s the worst of the Four.” She glides over roots and rocks, moving so silently and quickly I struggle to keep up, until I step onto her tail, jerking her forward to fall flat on her face with a shriek.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I exclaim, bending down to help her up. “Here, let me—”

  “Stay back!” Sybil cries. She flaps her arms at me hysterically, her eyes squeezed closed. “By Zeus, where’s my sunglasses? Find my sunglasses!”

  “Uhh…” I turn around, trying to spot the blue sunglasses that Sybil wears everywhere, even to bed, but we’ve moved beyond the clearing and the hollows in the ground are blanketed in shadow. I take a step backward to retrace our steps and that’s when something crunches under my shoe. “Oops.”

  “Don’t tell me that was it,” Sybil hisses. She looks murderous though her eyes are still closed. “Just don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s so dark here anyway. I’ll get you another pair as soon as I—”

  “I don’t want another pair, I need this pair!” Sybil shrieks at the top of her voice, making me jump back in surprise.

  “What on earth are you two yelling about—”

  Two things happen all at once when Bane steps up from behind me and growls at us. The first is that Sybil opens her eyes in shock, revealing glowing orbs of pale green light. And the second is that twin green lasers beam directly from her eyes towards us, turning the ground, trees, and leaves before us to stone.

  “Sybil!” I scream, throwing myself sideways. The light flickers off and I’m blinded by the sudden darkness in the aftermath. All I can feel is stony soil beneath me and something hard and warm under my hand.

  Sybil howls something muffled that sounds like ‘I told you so!’ before she streaks off into the forest, her sobs trailing behind her.

  An orb of purple light flickers into being and I look down into eyes ringed by stark white eyelashes. For a moment I have no idea whose beautiful, delicate eyes I’m staring into, then the lids narrow and I realize to my heart-pounding dismay, that I’m lying on top of Bane.

  I open my mouth to apologize, only to freeze when I feel soft, smooth lips brush against mine. Warm tingles shoot from my lips right down to my toes, and thoughts whirl through my mind at the speed of light.

  I can’t believe Bane’s kissing me! This is just like in the movies! Does this mean he’s liked me all along?

  Before I know it, my body unfreezes. My hand curls in his hair and I press my lips closer against Bane’s, luxuriating in the feel of his velvet lips and the gleam of his pretty purple eyes. I’ve never lost control this way with a boy before, yet something about Bane is irresistible to me.

  Until the words he’s saying registers in my mind.

  “Get off, whore.”

  A hand grips the hair at the nape of my neck and pulls, forcing me to arch my neck painfully. Bane does something with his legs to flip us suddenly over so that he’s straddling me. The tables are turned now, and he has the upper hand.

  Bane looms over me, his expression for once not coldly amused or piercing. Instead he looks furious, so angry that I swear I see flickering purplish black flames flickering around his white hair and pale skin, like the antithesis of a halo.

  “I knew you weren’t a real angel, slut.”

  The sudden absence of his body allows rational thought to finally return to me, and the way he spits that word out makes me cringe.

  “What did you call me?” I demand.

  “Exactly what you are. Who else would kiss someone they just happened to fall on?” he says, his voice returning to the infuriating, calm tone he uses all the time. He says it again, enunciating the word with elegant, infuriating precision. “Slut.”

  I can see he’s tamped his temper into a frigid, seething ball that churns in him, just below the surface. Coupled with that sexy, arrogant accent of his, it makes my blood rise, in more ways than one.

  I feel perversely tempted to taunt him, and as he insults me while glaring with that condescending way of his, I feel my old self return, and decide to throw caution to the winds.

  “You only call me that because you want me,” I shoot back, cocking my head to the side. The sleeve of my blouse drapes down my shoulder, revealing the expanse of my neck and shoulder.

  Bane’s eyes flick down and I grin inwardly. How may times have I seen Mom use this very pose to rile a man up, or to get what she wanted?

  “You’ve probably never even been this
close to a girl before, have you?” I continue, arching my back for added oomph. “If even a little accidental brush of the lips turns you on. What was that, your first kiss?”

  I only meant to tease Bane, but when his eyes widen slightly, I’m hit with a sudden realization. And then another. And another.

  “It was… and you really do want me,” I whisper. “That’s the real reason you want me to leave. Not because I’m part angel, or because I might die here. You just can’t stand to have me here and not… have me.”

  Sometimes, I get huge newsflash sort of insights that just roll in, one after another. Mom used to call it women’s instinct when I guessed from the way she flirted with a taxi driver, that tomorrow we’d be sitting in his car again in the dead of night, with our luggage packed, speeding away from her most recent lover’s house to a nearby hotel so they can hookup. Or when I saw her glance at a wedding magazine rack at a kiosk and figured out immediately that she’d met someone she liked well enough to make me call him my new step-dad. I always thought it was because I’d been trained from young to figure out her promiscuous habits and rhythms, but now that I’m staring at Bane glaring daggers at me, I wonder if I just have a radar for desire in general.

  Bane’s eyes are slits now, and the air between us feels like a thunderstorm has just rolled in.

  “If I really wanted you, slut,” he hisses slowly. “Would I do this?”

  He leans sideways then runs his glowing hand down my side, raising goosebumps on my arm and waist. Then he backs off and stands up, all the while looking at me with a cold, cruel smile on his face.

  “What, you think groping me will prove a poi—” I begin, then stop.

  Something rustles by my side. It pokes and claws at me, and when I move out of its way, it utters a chilling, yet eerily adorable coo.

  “You didn’t,” I gasp, as my satchel shudders under the force of beating wings. “You can’t! It was dead!”

  “You know nothing about me, slut,” Bane smirks. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”

  My fingers shake as I move to open the bag. I have to see. I have to make sure…

  “If I were you, I’d start running,” Bane continues. “You’ve delayed our task long enough, and I have a thousand ways to motivate you to make up for it.”

  He kneels and slams his hand to the ground, causing the earth to rupture in a network of purple light. Beneath the torn up soil and stones are the skeletal remains of birds, snakes, deer, wolves, and a hundred other animals, all of whom begin wriggling to stand. As I watch, rotten flesh rolls over their bones and stringy muscle coils across their limbs.

  I don’t even realize when the bag drops from my hand and bursts open, until the dead dove comes zooming at my head. The dove’s beak streaks at me with the force of a javelin, aiming straight for my eyes.

  “Get away!” I scream, raising an arm just in time to bat the zombie bird away. It slams into a tree and slides to the ground, leaving bloody feathers caught on the bark. I expect it to stay down, but it struggles up again, dragging its broken wings on the ground as it tries to get to me. A sick, hollow feeling burns in my stomach as it approaches, and I fight the urge to vomit. There’s something inherently wrong with what Bane’s done to the little bird.

  “Please, stop,” I beg, turning to Bane. “Let it rest in peace! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said!”

  But all he does is smile at me. He looks achingly beautiful, even with the dirt covering his hands and his clothes in disarray, but I know there’s no mercy in him.

  “There’s no such thing as resting in peace. At least not for them, or you, until you find those flowers,” he says with infuriating calm.

  “Are you kidding me?” I scream. The animals are on their feet now and starting to come for me. I take a few steps back, then several more. “Chiros will get you for this!”

  “On the contrary,” Bane says, “He knows exactly what I can and will do. Why do you think he grouped us together, hmm? It can be hard to know what’s sacred and pure without something to compare it to. Now you’ve got a hundred little touchstones to use as comparison.”

  I shake my head, then snatch up a tree branch to whack the nearest animal away. The deer’s leg breaks, but an undead wolf just takes its place, lunging forward to sink its teeth into my calf.

  I dodge it and turn to run.

  “You’re a monster,” I fling over my shoulder.

  “Takes one to know one, slut!” he calls back with a mocking laugh.

  Chapter 16: Heaven

  I run through the Shattered Forest for what feels like forever. Wherever I go, something comes for me. Birds dive into my hair and snakes tangle my legs. I’ve fallen down so many times and been almost bitten to death by undead wolves that I’ve got my routine down pat. Trip… roll in the dirt while flailing my stick to knock away the animals… then push myself up and keep running while flailing overhead for the dive-bombing birds, until I trip over something yet again.

  It feels like I’m in a nightmare, trapped to run around in circles. Bruises and scrapes line my legs, and scratches and claw marks railroad across my cheeks and forehead. Chunks of my hair have been torn off, and my uniform is in tatters, with blood, dirt, bird shit and vomit that I couldn’t keep down caked all over me. But I can’t stop to wash it off or wrap my wounds, not with Bane’s animals chasing me. And no one else cares enough to help.

  Because of course, there are other students in the forest.

  Every so often, I stumble across a group of them as they work on the assignments Chiros gave them. If I’m lucky, all they’ll do is gape or laugh at me when I run past. If I’m unlucky, like when I stumble across Briley playing hooky and making out with Christian on a slope beside the Onyx River, it gets even worse.

  “Oh, look, the bitch finally found her tribe!” Briley hoots.

  Even with Christian’s hand down her blouse and her skirt hiked up to her hips, she manages to look down at me as I scurry along the path above them.

  “I like this new look you’ve got going, it’s very nouveau thrash,” she sniggers. “Even a troll wouldn’t take you to wife with you looking like that.”

  It’s not even funny, but it does cut deep, especially when I see Christian wrinkling his nose at me.

  “Bane’s up to his old tricks again, huh,” he says. I never thought I’d care what the lecherous bastard thinks of me, but the distasteful look on his face makes my own flame red with pure embarrassment that only slightly abates at his next sentence. “Say you’ll spend a night with me and I’ll help you get rid of them,” he says, “after a bath of course.”

  “What? But I’m right here!” Briley squeals. Christian just grins down at her, then shrugs.

  “I sleep with everyone, you know that,” he tells her, before bending to give her a kiss.

  I think they’re distracted enough to ignore me while I pass, but Briley’s got other ideas. When I get close enough, she hooks a hand around my ankle and pulls it out from under me, sending me rolling head over heels down the slope and into the churning river below.

  * * *

  The water sweeps me away, tossing me around like a beanbag. In the few precious seconds when I find myself above the surface, I suck in deep breaths of precious air. Then its back to being hurled willy nilly against the mud and stones at the bottom of the river.

  After a while I’m too exhausted to even fight my way to the surface. I feel like giving up and letting myself sink to the bottom. My world has become a nightmare, and I’m beginning to believe I’ll never wake up.

  The next time the water throws me against a rock, I don’t even try to shield my head. The blow it deals me feels like it splits my skull in two, and stars begin to spin in the darkness of my mind. I close my eyes and let myself fall slack. The water is too brackish to see through anyway, and the current too strong to fight.

  One more hard knock, and maybe all the hurt will go away.

  The pain reminds me of how Mom used to slap me every
time I did something she didn’t approve off. I never did learn to obey. Perhaps this is what happens to girls like me, who don’t know when to stop pushing people’s buttons. Eventually they meet someone who pushes back hard enough that it all ends.

  But not now. Not like this… Not when I’ve just discovered I’m part-angel.

  But isn’t that every girl’s dream too? To somehow find out that the whole life they’ve been living is an illusion and that there’s something wholly unique about them that makes them special?

  It’s all just bullshit, and I’m pathetic for thinking otherwise.

  Half-angel or not, I can’t do anything. I have no powers. All I have are my looks and my mother’s charm. But they were the death of her too.

  An ache fills my chest and I press a hand to it, trying to relieve the pain. It doesn’t do anything for it.

  But then I realize all of a sudden, that the water isn’t throwing me around anymore. I open my eyes and find that the water here isn’t as dark as it used to be, and that I can make out the vague outlines of trees overhead.

  The burning in my chest is almost unbearable now, and instinctively I kick my legs again and again until my head breaks through the surface. I draw a deep, choking breath, spluttering as the ache in my chest finally eases.

  When I look around, I find that I’m no longer anywhere near the Shattered Forest. In fact, the Onyx River’s brought me all the way around the mountain to a meadow on the other side, where the river’s widened into a deep, still lake. Beyond the mirror-like surface of the water are steep cliffs, and across from them stands Pandorax Academy, its reflection mirrored on the surface of the lake.

  I gaze around me in wonder, marveling at the beauty all around me. The undead animals that were chasing me are nowhere to be seen, but I can’t even imagine them coming into a place like this.

  Starry white flowers stud the lush green grass on the banks of the lake, and trees heavy with jewel green leaves waft gently in the breeze. The mist from the churning river that feeds the lake forms a magnificent double rainbow that shimmers in the sunlight. Everything here seems softer, as if bathed in a warm, ethereal glow.