“And Vincent Bloomberg is out of the picture,” I added.
Zehra couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across her face. “By Allah, I can’t wait for that day.”
Ayaz reached for his sister again. “I can’t protect her out there. She could be walking straight into Vincent’s arms. You know she’s not going to sit around and wait for us.”
Zehra darted away, sticking her tongue out at him. I wanted to laugh, but the crippled look on Ayaz’s face stripped away all mirth. Saying goodbye to Zehra again was tearing him apart. Now that he had her, he couldn’t bear to let her go.
This will be me when it comes time to go with the god. I have to be strong, or I could ruin everything.
“I’ll be fine,” Zehra stared down her brother with those dark, expressive eyes. “But you’re right about one thing. I’m not going to hide away like a frightened kitten while you fight. Give me a job to do.”
Ayaz shook her head. “You’re staying away from this.”
“Nope. I’ve fought too hard and too long to get your freedom to step aside now.” She turned to me. “You must need someone on the outside, someone who moves in different circles to this Deborah person.”
I thought for a moment. “When the Miskatonic Prep students leave the school, they can’t walk back into their old lives. It’ll be too suspicious – people will ask too many questions. They need new identities. Yesterday I made contact with someone I know in Philly who will organize passports, but I’ll need other paperwork. I assume you used criminal connections to hide for so many years, so—”
“I know people.” Zehra grinned. “I’m even owed a few favors I can call in. I’ll get you anything you need.”
Ayaz looked aghast. “You shouldn’t be mixing with the types of people who sell illegal identities. Either of you.”
It spoke to our kindred nature that both Zehra and I ignored him. I longed to hear more about Zehra’s exploits over the last decade, but not while her annoyingly, adorably protective older-younger brother was around.
“I can do more,” Zehra added. “What if the Eldritch Club decides it’s too risky to come back to the school? Maybe they figure they have enough power already. You said they spoke in their cabin about finding another source of funds so they could afford to sacrifice Gloria. What if I made it so they didn’t have a choice but to come?”
“How?” I was intrigued. This had occurred to me, too. Someone suggested it at the meeting Deborah overheard. Vincent kicked them out for it, but for all we knew he’d lost control over the Eldritch Club. We needed them here, and they could always choose not to come. It was the biggest weakness in our plan.
“I’ve been gathering information about them for years, including their insider trading, shady business deals and political bribes, their fraud and their human rights violations.” Zehra tapped the side of her head. “I have enough secrets to write a book up here, and evidence to support them tucked away in safe places across the country. All it will take is a few well-written emails to empathetic journalists and I can sink the fortunes of the entire Eldritch Club like they’re the Titanic and I’m a fucking iceberg of doom.”
“Hell yes. Do it.”
Zehra hitched the backpack up and stood on tiptoes to kiss her brother’s cheek. Adoration beamed from her dark eyes. For a brief moment she appeared younger, and I was transported to her year at Miskatonic Prep – to innocence shattered, to a wild night rowing a boat on a violent ocean, to outsmarting assassins and uncovering hints of the truth. This school had taken everything from her; except for her resilient spirit. She was itching for her own revenge.
“Smell you later.” Zehra flashed a brilliant smile and stalked away into the trees. Ayaz flung himself after her, but Trey pulled him back, placing him in a chokehold until he stopped struggling.
“She’s leaving.” Ayaz slumped in Trey’s arms.
I knelt down beside him and kissed his forehead. “Of course she is. She’s spent her whole adult life trying to get you out. Now that we’ve found a way to make that happen, you’re seriously going to keep her out of it because you want to be the caveman protector?” Ayaz frowned. “I didn’t think so. We’ve all got a role. Hers is to ensure the Eldritch Club makes it to the school. Yours is to be a King. And that means honoring your royal subjects with your presence in the biggest party of your decades-long high school career.”
“The last thing I want to do is party,” he muttered.
I grabbed his hand, yanking him back toward the school. “Tough. I need you. The whole school needs you to do what you do best – give in to your base urges and get absolutely, completely, monstrously freaky tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
By the time we clambered down the steps to the pleasure garden, the party was in full swing. The air swam with the alluring scent of wild drugs and sexual tension. Students passed around pipes and openly tossed pills down their throats, washing them down with bottles of expensive Scotch and champagne from their private stash. What seemed like every student who could play a musical instrument jammed together on a makeshift stage while others stamped their feet and danced in giddy circles. The maintenance staff circled around, dressed not in their grey uniforms but in bright clothing borrowed from the students. Tables groaned under the weight of platters of food and even more booze., Ayaz told me that the Edimmu didn’t need to eat – that placing food in their mouths only elicited the ghost of its true flavor. But I knew that some of us took great comfort in our ghosts.
As I stood at the edge of the grotto, surveying the scene, Courtney ran past wearing nothing but a silver thong and a pair of nipple pasties. She’d painted her entire body like a tabby cat, complete with stripes and whiskers across her cheeks. I noted with glee that she’d teased her hair up into cat ‘ears,’ which looked completely ridiculous, but wouldn’t result in her having to cut out clumps of hair after I had glued them to her head previously. She yelped in faux protest as Derek and John took turns slapping her bare ass cheeks.
I glanced at my phone. “It’s only 6PM.”
“Right on time.” Quinn grabbed me and Ayaz and dragged us toward the dance floor. “Let’s make Ataturk forget about his sister.”
“That’s not possible,” Ayaz growled, but then we were surrounded by gyrating students and Quinn was twerking against Ayaz and laughter bubbled up inside me as I gave myself over to the music. Ayaz turned to me, and the moonlight glinted off the fathomless depths of his eyes and I knew that, right now, he was one hundred percent in the moment with me.
Trey’s hands skimmed my thighs, drawing lines of heat across my skin. Quinn’s lips grazed my bare shoulders, sending delicious flickers of fire all down my spine. We’d all left a change of clothes in the tree where we left Zehra, and I now wore the black dress with the white lace collar Greg had found in the costume department. He’d chopped up and re-sewn the neckline and now it was a halter-neck with an open back, which in the hands of my Kings was fucking dangerous.
“You look amazing, Hazy.” Ayaz placed two fingers beneath my chin, tipping my head up so he could claim my lips in a searing kiss. As his tongue stroked mine, rising the flame higher inside me, he spoke with his body what he couldn’t say with words – that as much as he was here to fight for Zehra, he was also fighting for me. That he trusted me. That he might not remember how we fell for each other the first time, but he was falling again.
I poured my own feelings into that kiss, knitting my fingers through his hair and pulling him closer, longing to fall into him and lose myself. In my mind, I saw those pictures he’d drawn of me – the way he’d conveyed me on a page with strokes of ink, not an exact image of me but of how he saw me in his mind. A warrior with fury and soul behind her eyes, a foil for his introspection and the fuel for his passion. My artist who’d never had the chance to truly express himself. I will give you a future. And it will be so wonderful that one day you will forget me. And you won’t be sad. And that knowledge will carry me across the stars with jo
y in my heart.
While Ayaz kissed me, Trey’s lips trailed across the top of my shoulders, the nape of my neck. Not to be outdone, Quinn’s fingers brushed over my breasts, and I hung between them, suspended, while Trey’s erection dug into my thigh and the fire inside me raged into an inferno—
“Fuck!” I shook the corner of my dress, putting out the flame that had sprung up. Dancers shuffled away from me, eyes wide and frightened. Ayaz pulled me out of the fray.
“What happened?” Quinn touched the scorched corner of my dress.
“I got… um, excited.”
Quinn’s smile could have lit up the sky. “You know, you’d be less of a fire risk if you took your clothes off.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” An ache followed the trail of fire through my body. My skin still burned from their touch. All I wanted was to have them pressed up against me again.
But it wasn’t time for that. Not yet.
Trey swallowed and stepped away. The tension crackled between us, and I knew he used every ounce of willpower not to throw himself at me. “You should give your speech now, before everyone is so off-their-face they don’t remember it.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Quinn stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. A couple of people turned their heads, but the party went on without incident.
“Time to pull out the big guns.” Quinn flexed his muscles. He sucked in a deep breath, opened his mouth, and…
Feeling emboldened, I flipped my palm up and let a pillar of flame cascade toward the heavens.
That got a reaction. Heads whirled around. Students screamed and clutched each other. Amber teetered on her six-inch spiked heels and fell on her ass. A glass bowl shattered as Nancy dropped it on the rocks. Instruments squealed as the band ground to a sudden halt.
Hundreds of eyes bore into me, wide and terrified, as they once again grappled with my command over their greatest fear. I cut off the flame and folded my arms, meeting their gaze with firm confidence. Tonight, I had to make the whole school listen to me, believe me, accept me – the gutter whore. I couldn’t let them see weakness or feel the nervous flutter of my heart in my chest.
“Now that we have your attention, gather round, everyone.” Quinn waved his arms. “We can return to the drinking and shagging forthwith. But first, our fearless leader wants to say a few things.”
“I don’t see nipples!” Derek yelled, beating his naked chest. His bloodshot eyes and slurred speech suggested he was already well gone. “I’m not listening to her unless she shows us her tits!”
A shudder ran through my body as I flashed back to that night in my bedroom, where Courtney had Derek and John and some other guys break in, where they were going to…
No. I shook it off. I had to believe that if I gave them back their lives, what these kids had been through was enough to scare them straight. Derek had tried to rape me – he was a monster, born of a monster, groomed to give in to his darkest urges. When he was free of the Miskatonic Prep, would he retain his monstrosity? Would he rape someone?
I didn’t like to think about that question. Forcing the students to confront what they’d lost at the performance should have been enough to show them that they needed their humanity. But Derek didn’t seem to have learned a thing.
I longed to shrink away from him, to step behind Trey and let him take care of Derek. I could tell from Trey’s balled fists and tight jaw he longed to do exactly that. But I couldn’t show weakness now. “We’re going to have a friendly chat about your future, Derek – if you’re willing to stop being gross and listen. I’ve found a way to free you from the school and restore your lives.”
“What is it?” John Hyde-Jones demanded, his eyes the same bloodied color as Derek’s, although hard and dangerous as flint.
His voice made bile rise in my throat. Of all the guys in the room that night, John was the instigator, the one in command. I’d never forget the words he spat out while his friends held me down. Spread her legs. Ayaz squeezed my hand, steadying me. Quinn moved in closer, his arms folded, his usually-jovial face immovable as a cosmic obelisk.
Trey’s voice rang hard and clear. “Hazel isn’t going to address her would-be rapist, so shut the fuck up. But for the rest of you, Ms. West has informed us that our parents have been invited to attend the graduation dance. The faculty believe they have enough leverage to entice the Eldritch Club to grant any one of us who wishes it the ability to leave the school grounds.”
Excited whispers rose from the students. Trey swiped a hand through his dark hair. Already, he looked at home being in charge, with every eye at the party focused on him. “Don’t get excited. It’s not a real solution. We’d still be immortal, the children of the god. Our parents will never allow us back into their lives – there would be too many questions. You might be able to scratch around in Arkham, go to Walmart or whatever inane activities they deemed appropriate, but as for a future, a life? It’s not possible. We’d still be prisoners – they’d just be extending the prison yard. Ms. West and the faculty want this deal because they want to keep their immortality – but I believe we can do better.”
“Why would our parents agree to that?” Courtney demanded, suspicion creeping into her voice.
I turned to Courtney. “Because they’re holding your mother hostage.”
She gasped. “That… that’s ridiculous. My mother is at Paris Hilton’s birthday party right now.”
“Do you know that for a fact? Because I’ve just come from the gym, where they’re keeping her trussed up on an old weight machine. You don’t believe me?” I dug my phone from my pocket and showed her the picture I’d taken. “The Haynes fortune is propping up many of the efforts of the Eldritch Club, including political campaigns and failing companies. Right now, even Vincent’s aerospace company is losing market share to Elon Musk. As the members lose their influence and their looks, Haynes money is practically all they have left. Evil as she is, Ms. West may be right to assume they can’t live without your mother, and I have agents on the outside making sure that is true. So they’ve put her up for ransom. The price? The Eldritch Club must come to the dance, and they must use their occult prowess to deactivate the boundary sigils.”
“What do you think, Hazel?” Tillie asked, her voice pleading. She actually cared about my opinion. The other students leaned forward, waiting for my response.
“I think, fuck them and the occult magician they rode in on. We can do better,” I declared. “I also don’t want Ms. West running around in the real world after what she’s done to all of you. But I don’t see any reason to pass up a perfectly good dance.”
“Why would we go to that dance?” Courtney demanded.
“Your parents are going to be toasting the twentieth anniversary of killing you and trapping you here.” I grinned. “We’re crashing the party.”
It took a long time, and lots of stopping and starting, but I explained to them what the god really was and where he came from, what had been done to them by Ms. West, the lies they’d been told, and how we planned to give them a new future. The only thing I left out was my bargain with the god. “You each have a choice to make. This is your life or un-life at stake, and I’m not forcing any of you to do something you’re not into. That’s your territory. But I need to know right now, are you willing to give this curse to your parents? Are you willing to make them the children of the god, knowing that you will then be sending them into space, far away where they can do no more harm to anyone on earth?”
I’d barely got the words out when Courtney stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
“You realize this means you’re sending your mother—”
“I fucking heard you the first time, gutter whore,” she snapped. “Personally, I’d rather see you roast them all alive, but blasting them into space should do the trick.”
“What will happen to the teachers?” Tillie asked.
“And the maintenance staff?” Greg called from the back. Beside hi
m, Andre’s hand fitted into Sadie’s. I’d never seen him look frightened before, but now his face was shadowed with fear.
“Both the faculty and the maintenance staff will have their immortality removed, just like you.” A few students grumbled. “Trust me, it’ll be punishment enough for Ms. West. Because they’re not children of the god, they don’t have the same energy inside them. The truth is, we don’t know exactly what would happen. But they should just become ordinary humans – a boon for Sadie and the other ex-scholarship students, penance for the faculty.”
“Vote now.” Trey’s glare touched every student. “If you’re in, raise your hand. If you’re out, walk away from this party now. We’re not doing this unless everyone agrees.”
Trey raised his hand. Quinn pumped his fist in the air like he was at a rock concert. Ayaz leaned over to kiss my cheek as he too raised his hand.
In front of us, hands shot in the air, waving like blades of grass in the breeze. In moments, every single student and member of the maintenance staff had their hands raised.
“Very well, we will continue with the plan. In the coming weeks, I’ll need some of you to help us with certain things, but not tonight – tonight is for you, for all of us. If everything goes according to plan, another pillar is going to appear soon. You don’t have to be afraid of it – it can’t hurt you. I just wouldn’t go into the grotto. Next week, we’re going to pass around some lists – we need to organize your passports and other paperwork. You need to create a new identity. But don’t worry about that now. Tonight, we party.”
Trey nodded to the band, and they struck up a Radiohead song. Immediately, students surrounded me, jostling me between them as they boasted in loud voices about what they would do when they were free. They hemmed me in on all sides, blocking my escape. In the moonlight their faces contorted, and I no longer saw jubilant teens celebrating their potential freedom, but the faces of Courtney and the guys as they surrounded me in my room.
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Page 16