“No.” I held up my phone. “I called him probably a hundred times and got nothing.”
She turned back to the front and squinted down. “Soldiers are searching through the crowd.”
I leaned past the poster paper and into the aisle to see what looked like ten men and women in thick, black uniforms surrounding the dais. Several soldiers stood stationed around each stadium exit, and as many walked up the aisles. Three were climbing up our aisle, looking between faces.
I was still holding my phone up, locked in place when Zack pulled it from my fingers. I opened my mouth to argue, but he shook his head. He pressed the power button and leaned down, reaching under the bleacher we sat on. The butcher paper hid his movement from the front, but a group of soldiers climbed up the bleacher aisle.
Zack sat up straight just as a soldier grew level with us. She looked down the aisle, her gaze scanning over us quickly, face by face. An aisle up from mine, another soldier stopped.
“You. Please pull down your hood,” the guard called in a deep voice.
I followed her gaze to where Mitch sat. He’d thrown on a hoodie that concealed the top part of his face.
“This is Agent Commander Miller; I think we’ve found him,” the guard beside me said into a handheld radio. She looked like she could be a model for bodybuilding magazines; even her neck had thick, corded muscles. Her dark hair was pulled back, tight against her scalp. The guard looked perhaps mid-thirties, with a diamond-shaped face, an aquiline nose, and sharp brown eyes.
When Mitch didn’t move, the woman raised a small black rectangle in her hand, and the end of it crackled with electricity. The cloying scent of burning hair filled the air.
Mitch reached up and tugged his hood down even further, pulling it so low that his eyes and nose were mostly in shadow. If I hadn’t seen Mitch sit behind me and hadn’t been studiously ignoring him for fifteen minutes, I might have thought he was Justin, too. The shape of his jaw and lips were a dead ringer for Justin’s, but the smirk on his face was all Mitch.
Beside Mitch, Rockstar Mark flicked his hair back, whistled, and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I hope you’re not too attached to your job, honey. That’s Mitch Holter that you’re threatening.”
The woman’s gaze cut over to Mark on the word “honey,” and her jaw tightened. If I were her, I’d be tempted to turn the taser on both of the smug guys. She didn’t. Instead, she gritted her teeth at them before commanding, “Take down your hood, Mr. Holter. No one here is above the HG laws.” Her voice was hard, but there was a slight quiver at the end, making me think she wasn’t so confident that no one was above their laws. Her voice got stronger as she insisted, “Remove your hood.”
The wattage of Mitch’s smirk only increased, and the rest of the Elites cackled. The whole scene felt at the cusp of violence, and I had a feeling that everyone in the vicinity was in as much danger as Mitch. What was the point? Just Mitch proving how he was too good to listen to anyone.
The soldier raised her taser, and electricity sparked from the end. “I’m counting down from ten. Ten, nine …”
“Hey! That’s not Justin,” I called out. “That’s Mitch Holter. Everyone here knows that. He’s just screwing with you.”
“Seven, six …”
“Crap.” I moved slowly, going to my knees on the bleacher. Trying to avoid making sudden movements, I reached forward and pushed back Mitch’s hood.
He turned his glower on me. “Trying to save me, Dirtbag?”
“Dude, if she tases you, you’re going to fall into our row. This is self-preservation.”
The guard flicked a button, and the electricity died on her taser. “This is Agent Miller,” she said into her radio, “That was a false alarm. The suspect has not been apprehended, I repeat …” The woman’s gaze skipped over to me, and she did a double-take. “January Moore? We need you to come to headquarters to answer a few questions.”
“No, you don’t,” Mitch growled. He leaned his elbows on his knees. “My brother, your boss, gave me explicit orders. We’re about to nominate January for Senior Huntress.” He twirled a finger through the air, pointing to the Elites and legacy students around him. “As we’re also the people who will very likely soon be your bosses, maybe you should scurry off.”
Damn it. Even when Mitch was helping me, I wanted to declare that I had no association with him.
The woman was having none of it, though. She widened her stance so that both Mitch and I were fully in her view. The taser lit again in her hand as she glared from face to face in our group. “Well, my orders are to take in January Moore and several other students for immediate questioning at headquarters. It seems like most of you are sitting right here, including you, Mitch Holter, also, Zack and Lucas Baldwin, Susie Williams, Mia Acosta, Braiden Conway, Richard Forester, and Patrick Alby.”
“Why us?” Braiden called over from where he held the other end of Mia’s poster.
The guard ignored Braiden’s question and nodded down. “Make your way into the aisle, please.”
“Fuck,” Mitch groaned the word as he shifted to pull his phone out of his pocket. He pressed his screen and held his phone up to his ear. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said after a few seconds. “No fucking clue, but one of your HG soldiers is about to tase me for looking like him.” He paused. “I wouldn’t expect you to care. Anyway, they want to take January and me to headquarters before I can nominate her. You good with that?” His dark brows bobbed. “Didn’t think so.” He held his phone out toward the soldier.
She took it like the phone was coated in poison, but she had no choice. Holding the receiver a couple of inches from her ear, she said, “Agent Miller, here.” Her jaw stiffened, and she mumbled, “Yes, sir.” Hanging up the phone, she turned back to a smug-looking Mitch. “We’ll wait until the assembly is through, and then you seven are coming with us—as per your brother’s orders. But we’ll take your phones now.” She handed Mitch’s phone over to a guard who placed it in a plastic bag. My heart raced as I passed the other phones through.
“Yours.” Agent Miller held out a hand to me and wiggled her fingers.
“Mr. Roberts had his butler throw mine in a pool,” I said.
“We will confirm that from Mr. Roberts.” She said the CEO’s name with a healthy load of contempt. Her hand waved through the air, and soldiers took up formation on both sides of our aisle. She called over to the nearest guard, “Go tell the principal to get this assembly going, please.”
The man ran down the steps and headed to the dais.
Immediately, Principal Chambers approached the microphone once more. She leaned in, giving the crowd what seemed like a stiff smile, even though it was hard to tell from this distance. “Welcome new and returning students to Blackburn Academy. We survived our first week of school.” She waited for applause that didn’t come. Her hands came up and patted her dark hair before she leaned into the microphone once more. “Many of you today heard rumors of a scion attack. We’d like to put those rumors to rest immediately. There was a false claim, and the guards secured the grounds for a time to investigate it. Rest assured that vampires and their scions have never breached Blackburn Academy.”
All down my row, people glanced over. From Patrick’s sneer, I could guess that he was concluding that I lied when I said that a scion attacked me.
“Their pants are on fire,” Zack grumbled. “But what else is new?” There was a hard edge to Zack’s voice that I’d never heard coming from the teasing, sharp-tongued guy before.
On impulse, I reached back and squeezed his hand where it draped over my shoulder. An impending doom feeling had fallen over me. There had to be some kind of foul play at work here. Justin discovered something disturbing about Sebastian Holter, and then a few hours later, all of the soldiers in the Hawthorn Group were out to arrest him.
I tried to listen to the principal as she listed off the school rules, but I only caught intermittent words. She said something about the boundaries. She said no one outs
ide of students, staff, and teachers would be permitted on campus save for on certain days. She talked about the items we couldn’t bring to school, all of which I didn’t catch. And then she announced that we were doing the Senior Hunt nominations.
The lackluster applause at this announcement was only a fraction of what it had been before the soldiers arrived.
Principal Chambers stepped back and gave a short applause before she approached the microphone again. “Anyone hoping to nominate or support a candidate, please head up onto the stage.”
Almost everyone in the senior section stood up, and I kept close to Zack and Susie as we headed down the bleacher stairs. Susie, Mia, and Braiden kept shooting meaningful glances my way. Lucas and Richard met us at the bottom of the steps, both looking windswept.
“Thought you were going to miss your own party,” Zack called over to the pair as they rushed to join us in the line that headed up to the stage.
“Halfway down here, several Hawthorn Group guards stopped us and tried to stuff us into a van,” Richard said. “Something about Justin. They only let us go ten minutes ago when they said we could participate in the assembly but had to leave straight after.”
A tense silence fell over our group as we approached the dais, and everyone was shooting furtive looks at everyone else.
“Well, I’m not sticking my neck out for him, and he better not have implicated me in any bullshit,” Patrick said finally. “Just to warn you guys, if I know anything, I’m going to tell them. I don’t want you to call me a snitch if you find out later.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of a snitch,” I muttered darkly. I don’t think he heard me, though, as the whole group fell into an uncomfortable silence. We headed up the ramp as groups of students approached the microphone. First, Mark strolled up to the front, beaming and waving at the crowd. A boy I didn’t recognize nominated him and ten guys and girls whom I was pretty sure weren’t part of Mark’s friend group held up their hands. Mark flexed his muscles and grinned out at the audience before he paced to the back of the stage. Another cluster of students elected a giant guy with muscles for days who simply stomped his way to the microphone and stomped away. Amber stepped up third, and to my utter shock, Char bounced up to the microphone and called out, “I nominate Amber Davenport.”
Char had only been at the Academy for one year. I had a hard time believing that she would be prepared to go into the hunt and know the point where she should immobilize the vampire, but I felt so distant from the situation, I couldn’t even care at the moment.
When it came time for people to step up and vote for Amber though, only seven girls were standing there to support her. Amber looked down to the line, a little way behind where we stood, and gritted her teeth. She waved at the Elites and legacy students, who had all gathered around Mitch.
They seemed to be avoiding her gaze, rubbing their necks and concentrating on the bright-green turf beneath them. She held out her hands in a clear, what the hell gesture.
Mitch held up a hand and pointed down, straight at me. “Didn’t you get my note, Amber? We’re nominating her.”
Amber’s eyes landed on mine, and if looks could kill, there would be a crater of ash where I was standing.
“I don’t want it,” I called out, but Amber wasn’t listening. She stepped up to the microphone and pointed into the crowd to where a group of five girls huddled together, all of them laughing at something on their phone screen. The girls were probably legacy students, but they didn’t have that distinctive polish that Amber and her crowd had. “You three,” Amber called, and when they didn’t look up, she demanded, “Hey, you.”
“Um…” Char rushed up to the mic, grimaced, and then leaned in and said, “Cynthia, Margie, and Sarah Black?”
The girls all glanced up. They looked like the proverbial deer in headlights as they all stared at the front. Laughter erupted from behind me. Mitch and the group around him were howling and hooting. When Amber shot a murderous expression in Mitch’s direction, a realization slammed into me. This was Mitch paying Amber back for the snide comments she shot at him and the hand she wrapped around his throat in class yesterday. Obviously, when violence wasn’t an option, Mitch Holter resorted to public humiliation. No wonder the entire school was terrified of him.
I’d almost feel sorry for Amber if she wasn’t shooting death glares at me. She clearly held both Mitch and me responsible for this. But honestly, with the terror running through me from everything else, I just had no fucks left to give. I felt almost sick with fear for Justin, and I was torn between wanting to go with the Hawthorn Group just so I could find out what was going on and not wanting to go anywhere with them.
“Come up here,” Amber demanded to the girls in the crowd.
They glanced at each other, whispering amongst themselves. They looked like they were deciding which of them would go outside and see if the killer was gone in a horror movie. Tears even ran down one of the girl’s faces, and three of her friends nodded somberly, stood, and hurried up toward the front with their heads down.
Amber stormed to the back of the stage with Char trailing behind her just as Mia’s group headed up, holding her banner and chanting her name. Susie shot a few glances over her shoulder, clearly feeling guilty for not being able to be part of Lucas’ group, but Lucas gave her thumbs up and grinned broadly.
Susie stopped before the microphone, smiled nervously, and called out, “I nominate Mia Acosta.”
The whole stadium cheered so loud; it was immediately clear that while Amber might be the most feared girl in school, Mia was by far the most liked one.
“Okay, let’s see if we can swing this,” Zack said as our group moved forward. There were only ten of us, including me, standing behind Lucas. No one cheered or clapped from the audience, and as we stepped up, Zack’s nostrils flared. “Believe it or not, most of the people here used to be our friends not so long ago. Now, look at them.”
Lucas’ smile didn’t dim at his lackluster reception, and when Richard grabbed the microphone and announced that he was nominating Lucas, the ten of us hooted and cheered.
Before I could make it to the other side of the stage, Mitch walked up to the mic. “I nominate January Moore.”
Principal Chambers peered between us, her brow furrowing. “But she just used her vote on Lucas Baldwin.”
“Yep.” I shrugged. “I cleared it with Professor … Sharp,” I lied.
The purple haired professor spun and lifted her brows at me, but she didn’t contradict me.
My heart jumped for a minute as I realized that maybe they would simply disqualify me. Why was I even going through the motions here? Without Justin’s exit strategy, I might actually have to go through with the vampire hunt.
Without Justin.
The words gutted me.
There had to be some mistake. Before I could really decide what the best course of action was, Principal Chambers was nodding.
“Well, as long as you have the tenth vote, I don’t see a problem.”
Mitch motioned to a guy who was still sitting in the audience and nodded to the wood planks we stood on. The guy shot straight and ran for the stage.
Mitch and I lined up with the others, and the sun blasted into my face. I closed my eyes. Everything felt so wrong.
“I am going to destroy you,” Amber whispered into my ear from my left.
“You really don’t want to be fucking with me, Amber,” my voice came out deadly cold.
She didn’t respond, but I felt her move away.
All too soon, Principal Chambers was dismissing us over the speaker system, and Mitch was growling into my ear, “Say nothing about Justin.”
I shoved away from him. “Don’t touch me.”
As much as I didn’t want Mitch to touch me, the reason that I pushed him away was that several guards were watching us as we descended the stage. Better they think Mitch was harassing me than that we were conspiring. When we were all on the turf, and the cro
wd was dispersing around us, the guards surrounded us on all sides. One held Patrick by his shoulder, and another two flanked Braiden.
A completely irrational thought flashed through my head. I should run. I should turn around and run as fast as my legs could take me. It was probably the most ridiculous idea I’d ever had. I couldn’t outrun an Academy freshman, let alone a couple of dozen alumni soldiers.
Pick your battles. It was the last piece of advice that Justin gave me today before all of this. I ran the three words through my head on repeat as I climbed into the back of a white passenger van beside Zack and Susie and we headed off toward the Hawthorn Group headquarters.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The first floor of the Hawthorn Group headquarters was nothing like Sebastian’s penthouse above. It reminded me of a meld between an office building and a high-tech gymnasium. There were areas with people busily working at computer terminals, followed directly by rooms where soldiers were tossing each other over mats or were hooked up to machines. Large, tinted windows illuminated every inch of the first floor with natural light. It felt like an open, cheery space, but a chill had crept into my chest.
As we reached the reception desk, Agent Miller pointed two fingers toward a large elevator bank. “Mitch Holter, you’re heading up to the top floor. January Moore, you’re going to the fourth floor, and the rest of you are coming with me through here.” She gestured out to a side hallway. “You’re not in any trouble.”
The last part was added in an all-business tone, and when I glanced at my companions, it was obvious that they didn’t believe her either. Probably unconsciously, Mia, Richard, Lucas, and Zack, had all surrounded Susie. Patrick stayed close as well, but he wasn’t taking up the same protective position around Susie. To my surprise, Mitch had taken up a protective stance to my side, and as we left to cross to the elevator bank, he crowded me much too close for comfort. Several guards surrounded Mitch and me, all with grim expressions on their faces. Mitch’s jawline was rigid and gaze determined. He looked like he was heading to the executioner rather than his brother's penthouse.
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