Then, Jason began to name off the cliques and their point totals, starting with the lowest score. The German clique was the first to be called up with a total of twenty-four points, followed by Italy with a total of thirty-eight points. Next, both the Estonian and Japanese cliques were called up and received identical prizes, since they both tied at forty-one points. The Spanish clique took fourth place with a total of forty-three points, and the Russian clique took third place with a total of forty-six points.
As Rebekah watched Tatiana claim her group’s prize, she couldn’t help but notice that only two groups remained without a prize: her group and the French group. Glancing at Jamie, she couldn’t help but notice how smug Jamie looked. She’s so sure of herself and her ability to beat Julie, Rebekah realized.
Then, Jason called up the second-place winner with a total of sixty-one points, and Rebekah felt herself relax when it was announced that it was her group. Eternal Division had scored second place.
“Damn,” Teri commented as Jamie went to receive their cup.
When Jamie returned, she was less than thrilled. “How could you let this happen?” she demanded as quietly as she could, reaching inside the cup and yanking out a piece of paper. It took Rebekah a while to realize that it was a check for fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand? she thought to herself, flabbergasted.
“We earn money from this thing?” questioned Holly.
“Only the first, second, and third-place winners,” Jamie said, obviously annoyed, “and the first-place prize was a check for one hundred thousand dollars, though obviously since Julie won that, the check is in euros.”
Sure enough, Jason called out the winner—Julie’s clique with sixty-three points. The entire room cheered except for the ones that sat at her table. When the cheering ceased, the cliques were dismissed, and Jamie pulled Rebekah to the side.
“You’re coming with me,” Jamie said before pulling Rebekah out of the room.
They were the last ones to leave the dining room.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Rebekah: Munich, Germany
I
n silence, the two of them walked side-by-side in the connecting hallways. Jamie was leading Rebekah somewhere, but she didn’t dare question where. She knew Jamie was currently consumed with anger, and she guessed that whatever Jamie planned to do wasn’t good.
And then, she remembered that Jamie has slowly been deteriorating for months now. She remembered when she found out that Jamie smoked marijuana and promised to not say anything to Jason for the fear of being kicked out of the facility. Yet, now that the competition was over, she would have no problem telling Jason about that. After all, she grew to hate Jamie during the course of this competition, and if Jamie did one more wrong thing in front of her, she wouldn’t hesitate to report the situation to Jason. And she would tell Jason through Andre.
Jamie suddenly stopped in front of the room of the French clique. From inside, Rebekah could hear the sound of laughter, and she became tense.
“Jamie, why are we here?” she questioned.
“You kept the secret about me smoking marijuana,” Jamie said. “Therefore, I knew you were the only one I could trust with this task. We’re going to steal Julie’s prize, since no one deserves it more than us.”
“Jamie, are you insane?!” Rebekah demanded. “Smoking marijuana is one thing, but stealing—especially that much money—is worse!”
“You’re going to cooperate with me, Rebekah,” Jamie said. “Or else I will make your life hell when we get back.”
I’ve already lived through hell, Rebekah wanted to say but decided to comply with Jamie. While allowing Jamie to lead her into the room, Rebekah took out her phone and located Andre’s number, which she had saved into her phone on her way to the ceremony. Then, she sent out a text, hoping that Andre would receive it and tell Jason: Come to the French clique’s assigned room. Jamie is here to do something illegal. Then, she sent it as she watched Jamie search the living room for the prize. From where the laughter was coming from, it was evident the French participants were in one of the bedrooms, unaware of her and Jamie’s presence.
Andre’s response came rather quickly. Jason wants to know what she’s doing.
She’s going to steal Julie’s group’s prize money, Rebekah texted.
Thirty seconds passed as Jamie continued to rummage around in the living room. “Please tell me it’s not in one of the bedrooms,” she whispered to herself. “Rebekah, come help me.”
Rebekah looked at her phone once again before pretending to search the opposite corner from where Jamie was.
On our way, was Andre’s response.
Smiling, Rebekah snuck out of the room without Jamie knowing and waited in the hallway for Jason and Andre. She didn’t have to wait very long before they teleported to her. “Jamie’s still in there, searching for it,” she explained, and Jason immediately entered the room and made himself known to her.
Andre stepped towards her but said nothing. A verbal fight was heard before Jason emerged from the room with Jamie, whom he restrained.
“I’m letting the higherups know about what she tried to do,” he explained. “She’s going to be sent home today.”
“Let go of me!” Jamie spat as she struggled against Jason’s grasp. Her eyes narrowed at Rebekah. “You traitor! I thought I could trust you!”
But Rebekah said nothing to Jamie. Instead, she said to Jason, “I also caught Jamie smoking marijuana a while ago but didn’t say anything for the fear of being sent home.” Emphasizing the last part, she hoped Jason gathered the hidden meaning, that he would have had no choice but to send all of them home, and doing so would have made protecting her harder for him.
“Did she?” Jason questioned, seeming to understand what Rebekah meant—and he wasn’t angry at her for it. “See if you can find it while I turn her over to the authorities.” Then, he escorted Jamie away from the room.
And the French participants emerged from one of their bedrooms, obviously in shock. Rebekah didn’t have time to talk to them and explain what happened, for she immediately was whisked away to her own room with Andre.
“You know, you still should’ve let us know about her,” Andre said. “Jason would have found a way to keep you, Holly, and Mandy here.”
“I didn’t want him to go through all that trouble,” Rebekah explained. “Doing so would have involved more memory spells, and he already had a lot to worry about at the time. What with Henri, Mandy, Kat, and Jeffery, his own son, I didn’t want him to worry about more than he had to.”
“I still don’t understand how Jamie managed to smuggle such a drug into the facility,” said Andre as they returned to the bedroom. “Don’t the personnel at the human airports perform extensive searches?”
“Unless she somehow got it here,” Rebekah said. “I really don’t know. I do know she may have some of it on her personal self, though.”
She and Andre entered the bedroom that Jamie and Teri shared, and Rebekah immediately spotted what was Jamie’s luggage.
“If Teri was rooming with Jamie, I’m surprised she didn’t suspect the possibility of Jamie’s marijuana use,” Rebekah noted as she began to dig through the luggage.
With the door closed behind her, Andre remained in front of the bedroom. “How are you feeling?”
Rebekah guessed that Andre wasn’t referring to Jamie. “What do you mean?”
“Holly and I are immediately leaving for Ivanestible when you are due to leave for Marywood,” Andre explained, “and we’re staying there for a couple of weeks.”
Rebekah paused her movements. “Why?”
“Jason brought up the possibility of there being a funeral on the eighth of February to us after the ceremony,” said Andre. “Holly and I are going to be attending that, and then, we’ll leave for Marywood immediately afterwards.”
Rebekah sighed. “I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?” The events of last night still haunted her, and she star
ted to feel safer when she was around mortal magic users than when she wasn’t.
“You do have my number,” reminded Andre, “so don’t hesitate to use it in case something happens.”
“Okay,” Rebekah agreed when she stumbled upon five packs of joints that had been buried deep inside Jamie’s suitcase. “I found them.”
Summoning a plastic bag into her hand, Andre handed it to Rebekah, who started packing the joints into the bag. Then, she followed Andre out of the room, and within that same hour, she presented the evidence to Jason as well as whatever packs were in Jamie’s pockets. Immediately, Jamie was sent home before anyone else, where she would be escorted to a juvenile detention center. Such news delighted Rebekah, that she was able to get revenge on Jamie in the worst way possible.
The last remaining days passed by slowly as the participants who remained in Munich readied themselves to go to their home countries on Friday. Rebekah spent most of Thursday packing and walking down the ICW hallways for the last time with Holly and Mandy. Even though she was glad to be going back to Marywood, a part of Rebekah was sad to see this place go. It was like a camp to her for the last two months, and she didn’t want to see it go.
“Now you know how I feel every summer when I have to leave Witchcraft Academy,” Holly joked when Rebekah revealed what she was feeling.
“But you return there every single year,” Rebekah said. “I will never see this place again.”
“You’re strange,” commented Holly, turning to Mandy. "Isn’t she, Mandy?”
Mandy nodded in agreement. “Especially when one considers everything bad that happened here.”
Rebekah laughed. “Good things happened here, too.”
“Like?”
Rebekah thought about it for a while. “Jamie’s arrest and Jeffery’s detainment,” she concluded.
“That didn’t happen until the very end,” said Mandy.
“It still happened.”
Later on in the evening, Rebekah made sure everything was packed, since she had to leave the facility early tomorrow in order to make the flight on time. After going through a mental checklist, she realized she forgot one important belonging that she had: her knife. After the Massacre, Mandy had placed the knife back underneath her bed, and she forgot it was there until right that second. So she wouldn’t forget it again, she retrieved the knife from underneath her bed and slipped it deep into her suitcase, hoping that William’s magic would protect it from setting the airport’s metal detector off.
That night, she didn’t get a wink of sleep as she kept thinking about home. Soon, Friday morning came, the twenty-eighth of January, and Rebekah wasted no time getting ready.
Within an hour, she joined Mandy and Holly at the entrance to the facility with her suitcase, waiting for the two chaperones to escort them by vehicle to the airport. Once again, they found themselves escorted by Andre in a car ride that was relatively silent.
By that time, Rebekah figured Holly knew where Andre was taking her, but she said nothing. Soon, Andre parked the car and led them into the airport, stopping in front of security.
“You two know where to go from here, right?” asked Andre as she produced their two tickets.
Rebekah and Mandy nodded when they received their tickets.
“We’ll see you in two weeks, right?” Rebekah said. “Both of you?”
“You’ll see us in two weeks,” Holly reiterated before hugging Rebekah and Mandy one last time. “Now, go before you miss your flight!”
Mandy pulled Rebekah through security, waving at them one last time before they were no longer in sight. Then, they joined the remaining Eternal Division members at the correct terminal, and within forty-five minutes, they began to board the plane.
Rebekah sat next to Mandy and waited for the plane to take off, trying to relax. Yet for some odd reason, she couldn’t relax. Then, the plane took off, and she forced herself to close her eyes and fall asleep in order to get the sleep she didn’t get the night before.
And for the first time ever, she dreamt of Melissa Young.
EPILOGUE
Melissa: Barcelona, Spain
M
elissa Ivory Young paced the halls of Cody’s prison in both anger and sadness, the lingering effects of emerald still in her system. She didn’t know what to do or where to go from there, since the start of the rebellion failed. Henri was still alive, and Andre was still out there.
And Kat hadn’t returned. No matter how much Melissa tried to contact Kat, she never got through. Victoria, Rhiannon, and Rosalie were there, but not Kat, as if she didn’t want to be found just yet. Melissa knew Kat was closer to Henri than any of them, and she could understand Kat wanting to hide for a while after what happened, but the fact that Kat wasn’t there was still worrisome.
“Fuck!” Melissa bellowed as she slammed her fists into a nearby wall. As if anything else could go wrong, she knew Cody was getting impatient. She had promised him Andre in exchange for his technology, and she had failed to deliver on her promise. Andre wasn’t here, and that was a huge problem.
As if on cue, Cody Robinson stepped out from the shadows of a nearby room. Melissa nearly jumped, for she hadn’t seen him standing there. The amused glint he showed told her he had witnessed her outburst, and he extended a hand towards her. “Come.”
Melissa hesitated, staring at his outstretched hand. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Do you think I should kill you?” Cody replied. “I just want to talk.”
Slowly, Melissa approached the Spy and took his hand, and he led her into the bare room. Melissa soon felt uneasy, for the rest of her coven were in other parts of the prison, and she wondered if they would come if she started screaming.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cody said as if reading Melissa’s mind. He quickly let go of her hand. “Not when I still have use for you.”
Melissa just stared at him, baffled. “But I failed. I failed you.”
At this, Cody laughed. “You have not failed me, Melissa. I didn’t think bringing Andre here would be easy.”
Melissa’s bafflement soon turned to confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Let me tell you a story,” Cody said. “Once upon a time, there was a girl with fire in her veins. One day, her mother mysteriously died, and she went to live with her father, whom she knew nothing about.”
Melissa tensed. Cody’s story was about Andre.
“Her father hated her, for she was an abomination. And so, he kept trying to take her down a peg in the hopes she would repent and turn to him for guidance. And it worked, for a while.” Cody paused. “Her father soon grew restless with her lack-of progress, and so, he came clean and then locked her in her chambers, where he plotted to kill her. But the girl was resourceful. She escaped her prison and fought back. And then, she left her poor father unconscious on the ground, who only wanted to change her for the better. And she was never seen again. Oh, how the father tried to hunt her down, but he was never able to find her.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Melissa inquired.
“I’m telling you this because you made the same mistake I made, the same one I keep making,” Cody explained. “You keep underestimating her.”
Melissa soon grew cold. “We nearly had her. She was right in our grasp!”
“But then, she escaped,” Cody mused. “She made you look like fools.”
Melissa clenched her fists, but she knew Cody was right. That night, the odds were stacked against Andre, and yet, she still managed to escape.
“I hate her,” Melissa said before she fully realized what she was saying. Yet in that moment, she knew those words were true. Andre made all of them look like fools, and now, she heard the half-immortal witch was now a part of the Royal Guard. And her association with Aaron Hansen only made Melissa hate her more, for she also hated Aaron. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Are you familiar with Andre’s cousin, Holly?” Cody questioned.
“Yes,” Meli
ssa said, and her eyes narrowed. “How do you know about her?”
“I make it my job to know things about the magic users,” Cody remarked. “I found out about Holly a couple years after Andre left me, when I was still actively pursuing her.”
Melissa shook her head. “What does Holly have to do with any of this?”
“Holly will be an easier target. She doesn’t have the same drive that Andre has,” Cody explained as he grew thoughtful. “And thus, I have a proposal for you.”
Melissa shook her head, baffled. “So now, you want to kill Holly instead?”
“No,” Cody said. “Though if Holly dies, that would be an added bonus.”
And then, realization soon dawned on Melissa. “You want us to kidnap Holly to lure Andre here.”
“Precisely,” said Cody. And then, he took a step towards her. “From what I understand, Andre is very protective of Holly.”
Melissa nodded as hope soon blossomed in her veins. Perhaps it wasn’t over yet. Perhaps they still had a chance for success.
“Will you do it?” Cody then asked her.
And Melissa, with a smile stretched across her lips, said, “Absolutely.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this sequel proved to be as difficult, if not more so, than crafting it’s predecessor. As such, there are so many people I’d like to thank for making this possible and giving me a platform in order to continue what I do.
First and foremost, thank you to my immediate family. I know I don’t make it easy on you guys, especially considering all that has happened in the world thus far, but you’ve stood by me, and I cannot be more grateful.
Thank you to my friends, both new and old. I honestly do not know what I would do without you. Each of you has a special place in my heart, and I hope we can see each other again soon.
Bleeding Misery (Threatening Souls Book 2) Page 43