Bleeding Misery (Threatening Souls Book 2)

by N. M. Lambert

  Next to the table was a white sewing machine, and the table also held zippers and snaps. Just like what Jeffery said.

  Picking up some scissors, Jamie decided to begin by cutting some dark, red, and silky fabric. Ultimately deciding that she was going to make a dress, she cut enough of the fabric in order to create her vision. As she worked, she blocked the noise of the stadium out of her head.

  The entire hour went by faster than she anticipated, and when it was finally up, she had successfully sewn together the fabric in order to create the dress. Then, each participant was ushered out of the stadium and into each of their own private rooms in order to change into their creations.

  When Jamie stepped into her changing room, she couldn’t help but realize that exact room was used in the trivia portion of the ICW—and the equipment that had been used was still in there and hooked up.

  For that day, Jamie already wore a pair of tan wedges that she deemed would fit the dress perfectly. After taking off her outfit for that day, she slipped the dress over her head before exiting the room, leaving her previous outfit behind.

  When she returned to the stadium, Jeffery was already herding the other participants into a straight line. Upon seeing her, he motioned her forward and placed her in between Oksana and Wanda. At least I’m not next to Mallory.

  Then, Jason began to call each of the participants up by name, of which the participants would give a little bit of a twirl before being given their rating. Mallory was the fourth name to be called, which gave Jamie an opportunity to study what she had created.

  She had chosen to create a dress as well—one that was a button-down and featured the colors of white and pink. Compared to her dress, Jamie thought Mallory’s wasn’t that great—and after Mallory had given her twirl, Jason gave it a seven.

  Jamie was the second-to-last person to be called up. When her name was finally called, she twirled for the audience as if she were a ballerina.

  Jason gave her an eight.

  She had scored one point higher than Mallory.

  At this, Jamie was overjoyed, and she barely paid attention to the last score and the conclusion of the fashion designing portion. Happily, she left the stadium after the clique participants were dismissed, ignoring the dirty and shocked looks Mallory gave her. She knew Mallory would probably accuse her of somehow cheating on this portion as well, but she didn’t care.

  With only two more portions remaining, Jamie was sure her clique would win against Julie’s clique in this winter’s ICW.

  And to her, that was something to be proud of.

  ~~~

  Rebekah: Munich, Germany

  Rebekah couldn’t help but notice how much quieter the Eternal Division room was without Jamie present to make her comments about the current competition. The clique as a whole was still watching it, but no one bothered to say anything during the duration of the fashion designing portion.

  She didn’t particularly want to watch it, for watching teenage girls attempt to design clothes didn’t interest her. She knew that Andre was currently in her bedroom with Holly, talking about the Royal Guard. Just for that one portion, Rebekah knew Andre had specifically asked Jason if she could not attend because she had something important to take care of. It was for that reason why Rebekah didn’t particularly want to disturb them, but she also didn’t want to watch the competition.

  “Mandy,” Rebekah called over her shoulder, “I’m going to the bedroom.”

  “Aren’t Holly and Andre having a talk in there, though?” questioned Mandy.

  “Yeah,” said Rebekah. “It’s fine, Mandy.”

  Surprisingly, Mandy didn’t make a move to follow her. As she entered the room, she found Andre trying to soothe Holly, who was crying.

  “Did I…?” Rebekah started to say, but her words faded away when Holly went over to hug her.

  “Rebekah, it’s awful!” Holly sobbed. “She’s either going to make me stay in the same coven as Arizona by myself or become a nomad!”

  Rebekah knew exactly what Holly was referring to.

  “I don’t think she means harm, Holly,” said Rebekah, still not fully understanding the concept of the magic user covens.

  “I keep telling her that she will be fine, that if someone tries to mess with her, they’d have to answer to me,” Andre explained. “But I told her once before this is what I wanted. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

  Holly broke away from Rebekah. “To be honest, I thought joining the Royal Guard was just a fantasy of yours. I didn’t think it would actually happen!”

  “Holly, she won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Rebekah said.

  “I know, but still—”

  “One of your friends is a nomad, Holly,” Andre pointed out. “Cleo Makris.”

  At this point, Holly had stopped crying, though tears still streaked her cheeks. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m going to leave the Solar Coven, like you.”

  Andre gave a curt nod of acknowledgement.

  In that moment, Mandy barged into the room. “The competition is over.”

  “And?” Rebekah prompted.

  “You know how Jamie is always hounding us to beat the French participant?” Mandy inquired.

  Holly and Rebekah both nodded.

  “Well, I’m afraid she won’t be lightening that up,” continued Mandy. “She scored an eight for this portion. The French participant—Mallory Bertrand—only scored a seven.”

  Rebekah wasn’t particularly surprised by this. “What makes you think Jamie would have gone easy on us if she scored less than Mallory? If anything, she would have pushed us even more.”

  “True.” Mandy sighed. “I guess it was just something for me to think about.”

  As quickly as that conversation came into being, it died down. Andre picked up Bleeding Misery, admitting to the fact she hadn’t had that much time to read it and intended to do so now. As the others left the room, she spent most of that day reading it.

  It wasn’t until well into the night when Rebekah finally returned to her bedroom after hanging around Holly, Mandy, and occasionally Jeffery. As she headed back, she couldn’t help but feel thankful for their company and how they were able to make her temporarily forget about the Massacre and the Bewitched. Right before curfew was supposed to kick in, Rebekah returned to the bedroom with Holly and Mandy trailing behind her—and Andre was still reading through the book.

  Andre barely glanced in their direction when they entered the bedroom. Instead, all she said was, “I find it interesting how you neglected to include the magic users in here. Instead, this novel is purely about…the Bewitched.”

  Mandy shrugged. “The magic users weren’t in my dream. Only the clawed vampires were.”

  “I know,” said Andre, smiling. “I just find it amusing. That’s all.”

  “How well does that novel follow the events that have been happening here?” questioned Rebekah. Even though she had read that book a little over a year ago on her journey to Roseway, she didn’t remember how the events in the book synced up to the attacks at the ICW.

  “It’s very loosely based off what’s happening here,” Andre replied. “I think I’ve just reached where we are now, and…” Her voice suddenly stopped in mid-sentence as she glanced at them with the novel still open in front of her.

  “What is it?” Holly questioned.

  As soon as she said that, a piercing scream sounded throughout the hallways, followed by the sound of hissing.

  “Someone’s going to die,” Andre said shortly afterwards as she slammed the book shut and left the bed.

  Rebekah, Mandy, and Holly trailed after Andre, who joined Courtney in the hallway. Then, they made their way towards the scream.

  By that time, the hissing was no longer prominent.

  “I thought there wouldn’t be any more attacks,” Holly said. “I mean, there haven’t been any for a while now—”

  “I remember this part in my novel,” said Mandy. “I rememb
er there being a period where there weren’t any attacks for a while, causing people to let their guard down, and then…” Her voice broke out into a sob.

  Just like us, Rebekah quickly realized as they continued to race down conjoining hallways.

  As soon as they found themselves down the hallway that Rebekah guessed was where the Estonian clique’s room was located, her eyes came across the body of the victim. As soon as she saw it, there was no doubt one of the Bewitched had caused her death.

  Surrounding the body were the remaining members of the Estonian clique. Yet, Rebekah took note of how they didn’t seem to be as shocked or as sad as they should have been.

  As the American and Estonian chaperones began to examine the body, Rebekah marched up to the clique participants with the intent of questioning them.

  “You guys don’t seem particularly sad that she’s gone,” Rebekah noted, catching their attention.

  The one she remembered being introduced at the introduction ceremony as Katri took a step forward. “She was a bitch,” she said, shrugging, with the slightest hint of an Estonian accent. “I mean, she pretty much forced us to take her here. None of us liked her.”

  “But she died,” Rebekah said as if it wasn’t obvious. “Are you telling me you feel no ounce of shock or sadness?”

  “Let me tell you something,” Katri started to explain. “That girl who died, Dagmar Vitsut, isn’t even a part of our clique. She was the leader of a rival group at our school who also applied to represent Estonia at this year’s ICW. Obviously, my clique got in, and hers didn’t. Since we needed another member because there were only six of us at the time, Dagmar practically forced us to take her with us. I’m the leader of this group, but while she was here, she was trying to be the leader and tell us what to do. So, yeah, we’re glad she’s gone.”

  To Rebekah, that still didn’t seem like a logical excuse to feel nothing towards someone’s death. After all, if Jamie somehow fell victim to one of the Bewitched, Rebekah knew she would feel at least something.

  “I mean, we even told her tonight not to leave our room after curfew.” Katri paused. “She used to watch the ICW at home, and she never understood why Jason had set a curfew and provided us with chaperones when the ICW used to have none of that. Tonight, she wanted to leave our room temporarily in order to get some fresh air, and despite our protests, she did just that. Now, she’s dead.”

  “Umm…okay,” Rebekah said, still a little peeved that they would feel that way about someone’s death. Not wishing to get into an argument, she turned her back on them and went to rejoin Holly and Mandy, who were still watching the chaperones examine the body.

  “What’s going on?” Rebekah questioned. “I don’t remember the chaperones examining the bodies of any of the victims, let alone this one, for such a long period of time.”

  “They think they’ve found something,” Holly explained. “Something that was lodged in the girl’s broken rib cage, and they’re trying to free it.”

  Rebekah turned to watch the chaperones as well. “Did they mention what they think it is?”

  Holly shook her head. “Whatever it is, it must be important. I mean, things don’t just get randomly lodged into rib cages, and the Bewitched act purely on instinct, meaning they wouldn’t think to lodge anything into the rib cages of their victims.”

  “Are you saying someone else must have put it there?” questioned Rebekah.

  Holly nodded.

  “The thing is,” Mandy began, “I don’t remember any of the victims in my novel having anything lodged in their rib cages.”

  Neither Rebekah nor Holly responded to that. Within a few minutes, the chaperones successfully freed whatever was trapped in the rib cage.

  “It’s a piece of paper,” she heard one of the Estonian chaperones say.

  Courtney, who was holding it at the time, unfolded it as she began to read aloud:

  In minus quam mensis—caede futura.

  “Henri,” Andre said. “He’s officially revealed the Massacre to us.”

  Rebekah felt sick at the mention of the immortal warlock. Mandy and Holly looked confused, and Courtney and Andre shot a knowing look at each other.

  In that moment, the Estonian chaperones ushered their participants inside their room, and Rebekah, Holly, and Mandy followed Courtney and Andre back to their own room. No one said anything to each other during the walk back, and when they reached their room, Rebekah was glad to be able to duck into her shared bedroom.

  Yet when she entered the bedroom, she found there was someone there waiting for her.

  Ava Johnson had chosen that night to visit them.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  Rebekah: Munich, Germany

  “W

  hat are you doing here?” Rebekah demanded. “I didn’t think you would visit us so soon after our last encounter.”

  “I couldn’t wait,” Ava responded. “Not with the Massacre being only three weeks away. I think the better question is why you weren’t here when I arrived.”

  “There was—” Rebekah began, but before more words could be exchanged, Holly chose that moment to open the door to the bedroom with Mandy trailing behind her. Since she was preoccupied with Mandy, it took Holly a while to notice Ava—and she froze in place with the door to the bedroom open.

  “Holly, what is it?” Mandy questioned.

  “Umm…nothing,” Holly said. “Let’s just go to bed, Mandy.”

  “That’s the Foreseer, right?” Ava questioned mainly for clarification. “I recognize her.”

  Rebekah gave one nod but said nothing, knowing Mandy was unable to see or hear Ava.

  “Holly,” Ava said suddenly, “let her know I’m here.”

  Holly twitched. “Why should I?” she asked suddenly, earning her a confused stare from Mandy.

  “Holly, you’re acting strange again,” Mandy noted.

  Holly ignored Mandy. “She won’t be able to communicate with you,” she said to Ava.

  “Through the written word, she can,” Ava said. “Please, since she’s a part of this as well, I’d rather just tell you all at the same time.”

  Without responding, Holly summoned a piece of paper and pen in her hands and set them down on the bed next to Mandy.

  While Holly was doing so, Ava turned to Rebekah and said, “Where’s Andre?”

  “In the other room,” Rebekah replied as she turned to leave the bedroom. “I’ll get her.”

  Rebekah had only been gone a few minutes as she went to retrieve Andre from the other room. All it took was her to mention that Ava was here, and Andre instantly followed her.

  When she returned, Mandy had focused her confused stare on Rebekah instead of Holly. “Rebekah, what’s going on?” she questioned.

  Instead of answering Mandy, Rebekah gave a nod to Ava, telling her to go ahead and try writing on that piece of paper. Then, she closed the bedroom door behind her.

  With a certain amount of concentration, Ava was able to pick up the pen and begin to write her note. “Just so you know, I’m probably going to write as I speak,” she declared to those who could see and hear her. Then, she began to write, and Rebekah took note of how Mandy’s complexion paled.

  When Ava had finished writing, she turned the note towards Mandy, who stared at it as if it were some sort of harmful object. Then, she scooted the note closer to herself and began to read it.

  Rebekah moved closer to Mandy as well in order to get a better look at what Ava had written. From the letters Ava had written to her in Roseway, Rebekah remembered the spirit’s sloppy, cursive, barely legible handwriting.

  Mandy, my name is Ava Johnson, and I have been working with Rebekah and Holly for over a year now in regards to Roseway. I am familiar with what you are and therefore have chosen to reach out to you through the written word, since you are unable to see and communicate with me verbally.

  “Who is that?” Mandy demanded after she was done reading the note. Glancing between Holly, Reb
ekah, and Andre, she added, “Who is Ava Johnson?”

  Deeming the answer should have been obvious, Rebekah decided to answer Mandy anyway: “She’s a spirit. She’s here with us right now.”

  And that was when Mandy understood. “She’s one of the spirits from Roseway, isn’t she?” she questioned, her voice trembling.

  Rebekah slowly nodded. “But she didn’t partake in any of their activities. She’s the sister of my supposed true soul.”

  “Why are you here?” asked Holly. “Are you even aware of the risk of you being here?”

  “I figured now would be better before Kat returns,” Ava said as she wrote her words verbatim on the piece of paper. To Andre, she said, “Kat is at the Greenwich castle.”

  “She won’t be returning here, though. Jason knows about her,” Andre replied. “He won’t let her return.”

  Ava pondered this for a brief moment. “Where were you when I arrived?”

  “There was another attack, and we found this,” Andre said, taking a step forward and presenting Ava with the message in Latin.

  Ava looked at it and then back at Andre. “What is it?” she questioned.

  “Henri has confirmed the Massacre.”

  Ava stared confusingly at it. “Why would Henri warn you ahead of time about the Massacre?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps this is his way of officially declaring war on us,” said Andre. “We found this lodged in the rib cage of one of the victims of the Bewitched.”

  “The Bewitched?” Ava questioned. “Someone else was killed tonight?” It took her a while to realize that for the past minute, she had forgotten to write anything down. Correcting her mistake, she began to write her last question.

  Andre nodded. “Someone from Estonia.”

  “Why is Kat in Greenwich?” asked Rebekah.