Montrose Paranormal Academy, Book 1: The Nexis Secret: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel

by Barbara Hartzler

  I snapped the photo, and then the world stopped for a second. Camera spots flashed in my eyes, gradually fading until I caught him staring at me.

  “That’s the idea.” Shanda twirled in the ivory Marilyn dress that contrasted perfectly with her chocolate skin. “You should see Laura’s Hollywood set designs. It totally blows this out of the water. She could go on Broadway with those babies.”

  Laura’s blush highlighted the emerald green of her A-line dress. Made me wish I’d raided her closet instead. As if I’d ever fit into any of her doll-sized clothes. I toyed with my silver sequined hem again.

  Tony sneaked up behind Bryan, eyes glued on Shanda. “So what, I got to use a chainsaw for these cutouts. How cool is that?”

  “Don’t do your victory lap yet.” Lenny edged us out the door and into the stairwell. “Kevin’s creation is ten times better than ours. You’ve gotta see the fourth floor. You’ll freak out. Literally.”

  Chapter 20

  We trailed Lenny up the stairs, straight into a long black dungeon. The lights glowed red. The walls were covered in black plastic, and skeletons dangled from the ceiling. Ghoulish sounds echoed off the cement-brick walls. The creepy, sweet smell of dry ice fogged up from the floor in a misty cloud.

  Shanda batted at the little skeletons. The movement triggered a net of cobwebs that dive-bombed us from the ceiling.

  I flung my arms over my head as the sticky gauze swooped over us.

  “My hair.” She shrieked, and the boys laughed.

  Goosebumps popped up my arms in a wicked tingle, sending all the butterflies screaming away. The fog billowed with each step, reminding me of the shadows I was sure would descend at any moment.

  Lenny pushed a button on the wall, and the spider-web net retracted back in place with a mechanical sound. “Done this a few times.” His slightly crooked smile was half-shadowed.

  I nudged Bryan in front of me. “You block the creepy things, okay?”

  “On it.” His chest puffed out as he laced his warm fingers through my icy-cold ones. His next footstep triggered a crash of thunder and flashing strobe lights. “Cool.”

  “That wasn’t so bad.” I clutched his hand tighter.

  In the misty darkness, Lenny charged ahead with Bryan and me flanking his back. A fog machine hissed on my right, smoke puffing up from the floor. Suddenly Lenny jerked out of the way.

  Tendrils of slimy goop rained from the sky. A scream tore from my throat, so shrill it pierced my skull and reverberated down the hall. I flailed my hands in the fog shooting up from the floor, squishing my fingers into dime-sized balls.

  “Gross.” Strings of peeled grapes swayed from the ceiling like a disgusting beaded curtain.

  Bryan parted the grapes enough so I could wriggle past. “That was a good one, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, right.”

  “And we have a winner.” A door busted open, splashing light into the dark corridor. Will sauntered out of his room as Kevin victory-lapped around him, both applauding, of course. “Best scream of the night, by far. That’ll go in the hall of fame.”

  His hypnotic eyes synced on me like a morsel to devour. I halted right there, fog swirling around my sequins, as if my heels were glued to the floor.

  Kevin held up a tiny recorder and played back my horrifying scream. “Nice one, don’t you think?”

  “Give it here, you creep.” Shanda lunged for his hand, but he chucked the digital recorder to Will.

  “Don’t worry, we’re just gonna add it to our sound effects for the haunted house. You know, give the kids a treat.” He tossed the recorder back to Kevin, who dunked it in his pocket. “What’re you doing with them, anyway? You’re not supposed to consort with Guardians.”

  “Excuse me?” Shanda stuck her hands on her hips. “Like I can’t have friends?”

  “Shanda, you didn’t …” I trailed off, staring at my new best friend. She really could keep secrets, like that fact that she’d joined Nexis.

  She just shrugged at me. “What can I say? When Dad found out, he forbade me to join. I just couldn’t resist pissing him off after he dumped me in this God-forsaken place.”

  “I think Nexis is the most God-forsaken place here,” I mumbled under my breath.

  She gave me the barest of nods, so imperceptible to anyone else, it’d just seem like a twitch. “I’ve been hanging out with these guys since the beginning of the semester. Didn’t hear anyone complaining then.”

  Will gritted his teeth. “He wasn’t on probation like you are. But you may be stuck there for a while.”

  “Yeah right.” She rolled her eyes at him, then reached for the recorder. “I can still have friends, especially if they aren’t on anyone’s side.”

  “I’m glad that’s still true, for now.” Will yanked his arm away from Shanda, but his eyes lingered on me like a cobra, holding me still.

  “You have your fun at Lucy’s expense while you can.” Shanda stuck her hands on her hips. “But you better watch your back, ‘cause I will find that recording and destroy it.”

  “Thanks, girl.” I forced my hand in the air and she high-fived it with a hard smack. The slap broke the trance enough that I stepped back from Will. “Do you really think a stunt like that will win me over?”

  “No, but I’m hoping my charming personality will do the trick.” He grabbed my hand, twirling me around in some kind of dance move. “You’re looking lovely tonight, Lucy.”

  “How can you say that after what you just did?” I glared into his eyes—big mistake. Those gray orbs circled over me, as if one stare could sizzle me straight through.

  Bryan’s shoulders stiffened. In an instant, he blocked Will’s sightline, standing toe to toe with the golden punk.

  He thrust his jacket at me. “Here, take this.”

  Will threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Relax, Guardian de facto, she’s safe for tonight. But I’ve got big plans for that little girl. She’s mine.”

  “Excuse me? I am nobody’s property, least of all yours.” I churned my fists into mallets as I wrapped the familiar bomber jacket around me.

  “You better back off, Stanton. She’s not ever gonna join you sick Nexis freaks.” His white biceps bulged from his dark t-shirt as he put up his dukes.

  “Wanna bet?” Will mirrored his stance.

  Will’s chin jutted out at Bryan, like an olive-toned dagger with sandy stubble—aimed straight at Bryan’s smooth marble cheek.

  “C’mon. Let’s just go. It’s not worth it.” I tugged on Bryan’s shirt, but he didn’t back down.

  Kevin stepped between them, clamping a giant paw on each of their shoulders. “Chill out, guys. This isn’t the time or the place for this.”

  “It will be soon.” Bryan dropped his fists and slid one arm around my waist, herding me away from the golden cobra. Waves of sweet relief splashed over me with each step.

  “I’ve got your number, Cooper. I’m coming for you.” Will’s threat boomed down the hall, echoing with a tinge of disdain.

  “I’ll be ready,” Bryan growled so only I could hear. In the stairwell he turned to me, his face softening. “I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I marched him down the stairs to the lobby, his shoulders slumped, head down. “Besides, I look better in your jacket, anyway.”

  “You look cute in anything.” He held the door open for me. I glimpsed a hint of a smile as he moved his arm across my shoulders.

  We stayed that way, huddled against each other, all the way back to my dorm.

  “You’ve come this far. Why don’t you come up and see our hall?” I dragged him up the stairs to the second floor, as if a bunch of high school Halloween decorations could really distract him from all our problems. “What do you think?”

  “This is awesome. You’ll definitely win.” He forced his lips to curve, but they just twitched and drooped back down. “Way cooler than that messed-up haunted house. They’ll never win.
Their hall is covered in trash bags.”

  I pumped my fist in the air. “I knew we had it in the bag. Wait till you see the rest.”

  Heat seared up the back of my neck as I guided him down the red carpet, past the theater, and around Hollywood Hill. After our kiss, and now this almost-fight with Will, I didn’t know how to act around him.

  I stopped in front of my door. “This is me, but you should check out the Hollywood Bowl at the end of the hall.”

  “I’ll be right back.” He took off down the corridor.

  I tried to open my door, but something pushed back. I bent down, picking up a silver tray with a paper triangle on top. The note read, Prize for the Best Scream Award. How did that get around so fast? More importantly, who could’ve put the tray in my room? I thought we’d locked it.

  When I lifted the paper, a pair of eyeballs rolled back at me.

  In a split-second, my dorm room disappeared.

  The rest of the real word faded away, too.

  As if I stepped through a portal to another world, suddenly I found myself in the archway of a Gothic cathedral. With a blonde girl dressed in white staring at me like she needed something. She held up her own silver tray—except the eyeballs were real this time. Lolling back and forth like they were still alive.

  When she looked straight at me, I knew who she was.

  Her eyes weren’t eyes any more. They sparkled like diamonds.

  She was St. Lucia. She had to be, just like the “priest” showed us at the church.

  She stretched out her finger, not at me exactly, but over my shoulder. I swiveled around like a marionette.

  Something was shrouded in the darkness.

  Then the onslaught came.

  Shadows laced with sparks and lightning rushed at me. Wraith-like claws lunged for us, shrieking and seething in a burst of fireballs that exploded like fireworks—aimed in my direction.

  I screamed.

  A flash of light snapped me back into the real world.

  Girly jitters erupted down the hall.

  I dropped the tray with a crash of metal on hardwood. A peeled grape squished under my heels.

  What had just happened?

  I blinked, dazed and confused, but relieved to be back in my dorm room.

  I bolted out of my room just in time to see snatches of brass and honey-blonde hair, along with a swatch of red dress zipping to the end of the hall. The door slammed as the evil blondes disappeared into Monica’s room.

  Bryan jogged up to me. “What happened?”

  I retreated to my room, plopping with a thud into Shanda’s butterfly chair. “I don’t know. I had the strangest vision. I think Monica and Colleen got a picture of it.”

  “What? You’re joking, right?” His jaw dangled.

  I shook my limp head at him.

  “That’s perfect. She’s had it out for me ever since we broke up. It’ll be all over Instagram, Snapchat, everywhere, in five minutes.” He scooped the tray off the floor, one grape skittering into the corner. He chucked the metal tray across the room, hard. It clanged against the cement brick. “Were there two of these?”

  The expression on his face said it all. The fear in his eyes mixed with anger. I couldn’t make a sound. I just nodded again.

  “Worse than I thought.” His phone buzzed in his pocket, showing the awful picture on his screen. Me, with my eyes half rolled back in my head, a horrified expression on my face. “Much worse.”

  “Why would they do something like this?” I rubbed my fingers into my temples, closing my eyes. The vision of St. Lucia flooded back to me, her sunken eyes sparkling like colored diamonds of crystal, amber, and black. Those jeweled eyes seared through me as if they could see into my eternal soul. I blinked fast, forcing my eyes to stay open. Then the realization hit me. This was much more than a Nexis prank. What if this, and the church fire, were part of the consequences for experimenting with the dark powers?

  Bryan twiddled his thumbs over his phone’s keypad. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this is taken down as soon as possible. But it may be too late.”

  Laughter wafted in from the doorway. So it began.

  Shanda strolled through the open door, followed by Laura, Brooke, and Lenny. “Screaming Psycho? What is this, Lucy, some kind of joke?” She foisted her cell at me.

  “Yeah, thanks for rubbing it in my face.” I swiped it away like a cat. “Monica and Colleen’s revenge, I guess.”

  Her laughter died a silent death.

  “They sent it out to everyone we know, the whole school. It’s gone viral. That’s cyber-bullying.” Laura’s pale cheeks whitened a few shades. “I’m not surprised Colleen’s behind this, but Monica, too? Are you sure it was Monica with her, and not Julia or someone else trying to get back at you?”

  I shook my head. “Not unless Julia suddenly dyed her hair blonde and stole Monica’s red dress.”

  She gasped. “How could she do something like this? I thought she was so nice.”

  Shanda slipped out of her heels, pitching them in her closet. “That’s exactly what she wants you to think. I’m going down there to give those dumb blondes a piece of my mind.”

  She met my gaze, and I pursed my lips at her, nodding my thanks. A sliver of hope swelled up in my heart with that determined look in her eyes.

  Bryan nodded. “Take Lenny with you. Maybe he can work his hacker magic and erase it from her phone or computer, or both.”

  “So devious.” Shanda narrowed her gaze at him. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  His jaw stiffened back to marble as he matched her glare. “Only when necessary.”

  “I’m on it. Let’s do this.” Lenny shot us two thumbs up. “You distract them with a cat fight and I’ll sneak in. Got it?”

  “C’mon, Laura. You can play the peacekeeper and turn the sweetness right back on her.” Shanda stomped down the hall, claws bared, the twins on her heels. Her shouts drifted down the hall, mixed with muffled voices.

  What if Bryan’s brilliant plan didn’t work? I crumpled into a ball in the chair, head in my hands. “How did tonight get so twisted? I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

  Brooke scooted a chair up next to me, shooting Bryan a sidelong glare. “Okay if I tell her?”

  He barely glanced up from his phone. “Be my guest.”

  “This wasn’t just some practical joke or even cyber-bullying.” Her clammy hands clutched mine, forcing me to look at her. “Since Monica’s a Nexis member, she’s trying to send a message. If anyone else with the right knowledge saw this picture, you could be in danger.”

  Slowly, my head bobbed up, then down like a robot. “It does kind of look like I’m having a vision. That could be bad.”

  Bryan’s fingers stilled. “It’s more than that. This was a threat. Straight from Nexis.”

  “I don’t understand.” I glanced from Bryan back to Brooke, who dipped her head at him.

  He punched some keys and set the phone in my hand. “They’re comparing you to St. Lucia. Remember what the priest said? She was the Seer of her time.”

  My eyes caught a glimpse of the photo on the screen and I did a double take. “Yep, that’s what she looks like all right. First in the Nexis book, then the priest’s. Now my vision.”

  Brooke’s jaw dropped. “You saw a vision of her? How scary.”

  “Now you see why I hate this so-called gift.” Her little hand patted mine. Small comfort.

  Bryan crouched down next to me. “Wait. If St. Lucia is in the Nexis book, then there has to be a reason. I doubt they’d put her in there just to pat themselves on the back. No, they’re definitely planning something. And it’s time we go on the offensive again.”

  Brooke rubbed her palms together with a fiery gleam that stoked her pupils. “I’ve been waiting for this. We can’t let that stupid church incident keep us from playing the game.”

  “It’s not a game.” I snapped my head toward her. Had Bryan’s younger sister really just relished something dan
gerous? Sounded more like something Shanda would say, not Brooke. “What did you mean ‘planning something?’ What’re they going to do, gouge out my eyes?”

  Bryan gripped my hand and held on tight. “No way, not if I can help it.”

  Questions hammered my tongue, about Nexis, about us, but my voice box was frozen. Silent.

  Footsteps pattered down the hall as Lenny raced in, hoisting up a thumb drive like a victory flag. “Got it. There shouldn’t be any more copies of it online either. Shanda zapped them with her mad hacker skills.”

  “Way to go.” Laura high-fived her brother. “Score one for the good guys.”

  “What did I miss?” He stole a bottle of water from the fridge and chugged it. After five gulps, he crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash can next to me.

  “We’re going to find a way to get the upper hand.” Bryan stood up fast, leaving a wake of cold. “This time I want to get one step ahead of them. Once we figure out their plan, we can beat them at their own game.”

  “Just what we need, a little diabolical thinking.” Lenny fist-bumped him. “Does that mean we’re going on a stake out?”

  “Not quite.” Bryan lowered his tone, hunkering down over my chair. The others crowded around me in a Guardian huddle. “No, I’m talking about beating them at their own game.”

  He crouched down next to me as a foreign expression washed over his face. Those eyes drilled into me with a focus I recognized, but not from him, from Will. The specimen-under-a-magnifying-glass stare. “Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Got it?”

  All heads bobbed, all except mine. “I couldn’t tell anyone if I wanted to.” Because I didn’t know what was going on, but I bit those words back.

  “That’s the spirit.” Laura pumped her tiny fist into the air. Sometimes she had so much of her brother in her.

  “Wait, not even Shanda?”

  He shook his head, gaze set on me. “Not even Shanda.”

  I narrowed my eyes at that smug stare, as if he could control me so easily. How could he be so tender one minute, so cold the next? This push-pull tug of war was starting to wear me thin.