So it is true. She just admitted it. She altered his mind.
Ayaz grabbed her fingers, twisting her wrist around. She yelped in surprise as he forced her arm into a hold, her back bent awkwardly over his knee, her head pointing to the floor. “Move an inch and I’ll snap your arm. It won’t heal the way mine does. But don’t worry, I’ll do far worse unless you give me back what you took.”
“Boy, I took nothing from you but your virginity, and you didn’t seem to mind that too much.”
“You took my sister! You kept her locked away from me, and you tortured her for your own amusement.” Ayaz seemed to grow an extra foot as he tightened his grip on Ms. West. His dark eyes blazed with hatred born of hurt. “You took my life and locked me away in this place and made me hurt people. And then, you took my memories – the one beautiful thing to ever come out of this hellhole, and you stripped it away.”
Ms. West gasped as he wrenched her arm tighter, but it was a gasp of triumph. “Those cannot… be restored. The erasure is permanent.”
With a howl, Ayaz shoved her hard. She skidded across the room, her heels sliding on the slick marble. She slammed into the wall and crumpled to the floor in a tangle of black fabric. A candle sconce clattered to the floor beside her, the glass bulb smashing to pieces.
The Deadmistress tilted her chin, glaring at Ayaz with defiant eyes.
“Keep them,” Ayaz whispered, his voice edged with steel. “You’ll need something to heat up your cold, dead heart in the nights to come. I’ve made new memories with Hazel and with my brothers, and you won’t take those or anything from me ever again.”
At his words, Ms. West’s eyes flooded with cold realization. She no longer had control of us, and she had an inkling that we might not be entirely going along with her plan. “You’re playing with fire, Ayaz Demir, and you and the rest of your friends will burn up in her inferno if you’re not careful. I’ve waited too long and worked too hard for things to fall apart now. We have one shot at freedom, and I won’t have you messing it up for all of us with some ridiculous scheme.”
“No schemes here.” My lips formed what I hoped was an innocent smile. “We’re so looking forward to being able to walk around outside the school and hold hands like normal teenagers, until I grow old and die and these three can build a shrine to me.”
Her eyes darted between us, but the Kings weren’t giving anything away. Ayaz’s shoulders heaved – it took all his resolve not to throttle her with his bare hands.
“If I find out that you’re playing me, I’ll be most upset.” Her voice remained calm, but the threat lurked behind it with cold precision. We all knew what she was capable of. “It won’t be you four who pay for messing this up. I’ll let the Eldritch Club destroy every student, and you can watch them all die before I force you all to impregnate Hazel to produce the next generation of the god’s children. If you truly are the Kings of Miskatonic, you will protect your subjects from the real enemy. Or else all hope is lost.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“My nails are ruined,” Courtney whined, throwing down the chisel to suck on the tip of her finger.
“Suck it up.” I couldn’t help the pleasure that crept into my voice. “You’re learning an important lesson about how the rest of the world works for their money.”
It was a week after the party, and we were back in the forest with a small group of students we trusted. Courtney Haynes would not have been top of my list, but Trey and Ayaz fought for her inclusion. Of course, she’d then immediately gone and spilled the beans to John and Derek, so they were here too, which I was not happy about. I’d rather fuck a cactus than trust those two.
We were about to embark on the most ambitious part of our plan. Zehra had made contact on her new phone. She’d found her people who could get us the documents we needed, but they expected to be paid.
A lot of money.
245 Miskatonic Prep students and 76 members of the maintenance staff needed new lives. Even without helping the teachers – we decided they could fend for themselves – we would need some serious cash to get the basics sorted. And that was before we considered how everyone would live and eat and buy plane tickets while they got as far from the smoldering remains of the school as they could get.
As I turned over the challenge of how to get our hands on mad scrilla, my thoughts had drifted back to Trey’s black card and the enormous balance it carried after twenty years of non-use. I wondered how many other Miskatonic students had money sitting in accounts and on cards they might still be able to access if only they could leave the grounds.
All it took was a whisper of a promise to Tillie, and she had a list of the most likely suspects. We’d slipped a note under each’s dorm room door. Come to the cabins after midnight on Friday night if you want a taste of freedom. Be prepared to get dirty. Don’t tell anyone else.
Of course, when Courtney heard the word dirty, she imagined something very different, which was probably why she’d told John. She showed up wearing a sparkly halter top, booty shorts, and heavy makeup, and looked completely confused when I handed her a mallet and chisel and told her to remove one of the border sigils carved into an ancient cairn.
Courtney hit the chisel a few more times, then dropped the tools at her feet and stuck out her lip in a petulant pout. “I don’t see why I’m doing all the work. I thought you said we were supposed to be a collective – equal work in, equal out.”
I rolled my eyes and pointed to another cairn a little way down the ridge. A large hole marred one smooth side. My foot rested on a stone wrapped in cloth at my feet. “Because I’ve already finished chiseling that one out of the rocks. But if you really can’t do it, you can go back to the school and forget about crossing the boundary—”
“Fine.” Courtney gave the chisel a few half-hearted taps. A few minutes later she yelped again. “Ow. It hurts!”
Not-quite-undead-children-of-the-cosmic-god sure do know how to complain.
“Out of my way.” I grabbed the chisel and shoved her aside. “I liked it better when we were enemies.”
I slammed the chisel into the small split Courtney had made and bashed it with the hammer. A chunk of stone flew out and skittered across the ground.
“Wow. You’re good at this,” Courtney remarked.
“It’s easy. I just imagine I’m hammering your perfect nose.”
Courtney snorted with laughter. After a few more hits, I felt the chisel slide through to meet the first cut. I bashed out the last of the loose stone and lifted out the sigil, my tired arms struggling with the weight. I dropped it into Courtney’s lap. “There you go. Are you ready for a walk?”
“Hell yes.” Courtney strained to push the sigil into her backpack. Once she’d drawn the string around it, she threaded her arms through the holes and tried to stand, only to slide back down again.
“I’m never going to be able to carry this.”
I smirked. “Not even for the chance to go to a real nail salon?”
Courtney bit her lip and struggled to her feet. She wasn’t used to being ordered to do things that made her uncomfortable. There was always some boy ready to help her. But not tonight.
Once Courtney looked steady and like she wasn’t going to try to palm off her sigil to me, we hiked along the ridge to meet the others. Trey had gathered the group in a semicircle. There were about forty of us, including me and the Kings. Eleven bulging backpacks were stacked in the center. Courtney’s and mine made thirteen sigils in total. We’d left the sigils carved into the cliffs that bordered the raging sea. In front of us were all the stones from across the peninsula – boundary stones that sealed the Edimmu within the school.
I stepped into the circle, meeting the eyes of every person there. When I got to John Hyde-Jones, he turned away and scowled. Great. Why’s he here again? “We’re splitting into groups. One sigil per group. Taking your sigil with you extends the boundary of the school to where you are. You won’t be able to move in front of it, but you can
carry it as far away as you want. You have to stick together in your group or you risk being hurt as the sigils move. The most important thing is to come back with cash – as much as you can carry, but I’m giving you free rein to do whatever you please while you’re outside the boundary, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else and you don’t get caught. You have until the sun comes up to be back at Miskatonic Prep – drop the money into our dungeon room in the basement, and get back to your dorms before you’re caught. And don’t think about skipping out or reporting to your parents. I’ve got spies watching you.”
I clapped my hands. Through cracks in the rocks, shadows sprang up, circling the sigils with hissing cries. Amber shrieked and clutched Tillie’s shoulder. Other students shuffled away from my servants.
I clapped again, and the servants rose into the clouds, scattering across the sky, waiting and watching. “We chose you because we believed we could trust you. Don’t disappoint us. As far as the teachers and your parents are concerned, tonight never happened. Are we clear?”
John grabbed one of the sigils and raced off, Courtney hot on his heels. The others whooped and yelled as they leaped over the invisible line that had divided them from the real world for two decades. In their glee, they made those heavy stones look as light as feathers.
I watched them disappear with a sense of trepidation. Tonight was about more than just a means to get our hands on much-needed funds – it was a test, although they didn’t know it. Could I count on them to leave Miskatonic Prep without becoming a scourge on the world? Would I live to regret my part in making them free?
The shadows swooped after them, promising that my dreams would soon be filled with reports of the students’ activities.
“Why are they going back that way?” I demanded as I watched Courtney, John, Derek, and some others doubling back toward school. Great. I’m already regretting my decision.
“Probably to get Courtney’s car.” Trey picked up his satchel and followed them.
“Courtney has a car?”
“Of course. Lots of us do. Our parents left them behind after the fire. What’s an abandoned luxury vehicle to them? There’s an old stable building near the entrance to the school, but you wouldn’t see it unless you knew to look for it. Courtney’s Lambo and Quinn’s truck and my Porsche are all inside. In the early days of being Edimmu we’d drag race down the driveway, but that got old. It’s tough to get excited about driving fast when you can’t go anywhere. But Paul’s a bit of a hobby mechanic, so he’s been keeping them in working order.”
I glared at him. “Why the fuck were you trying to shove me into a boat when you could’ve just given me some keys and let me drive away?”
“Are you kidding?” Quinn laughed. “That car is Trey’s baby. He wouldn’t trust anyone else behind the wheel.”
“True.” Trey smiled. “But that wasn’t the reason. Like all the mobile phones, Ms. West keeps all the keys locked up somewhere. Ayaz tried to find them on at least two occasions, but no luck. We didn’t have the resources we do now.”
“You mean, like a scrappy thief from Philly?” I dug Ms. West’s keychain from my pocket. A couple of keys on there looked suspiciously like they belonged to cars.
Trey’s lips found mine, and his kiss seared with danger. I could feel the excitement rolling off him at the thought of getting behind the wheel again. “C’mon, our little thief. It’s time you discovered how Kings like to play.”
Trey was right – I never would have noticed the stable hidden in a thicket of trees. A round arena out front had grown over with thistles that reached nearly to the roofline, completely obscuring the entrance. By the time we arrived, Courtney’s group had already flung open the door and flattened a path out toward the drive. Even so, Trey got several thorns in his arms hacking his way inside. Judging by the grin on his face at the thought of seeing his beloved car again, he didn’t feel a one.
I cared. My arm stung like fuck from tugging out thorns. And I was concerned about all the evidence of our escape – the flattened weeds, the tire tracks, the sound of engines. “Walking would be much less conspicuous.”
“True, but the teachers never come out here.” Trey pointed. “We got sick of them breaking up our parties, so we had Ayaz put up some kind of sigil that makes anyone who’s not invited feel a crippling sickness if they get near. Come on, you won’t believe what we’ve got in here.”
I followed Trey inside. The stable was a long wooden building with a mezzanine floor where a stablehand might once have slept. Every spare inch of space on the ground floor had been crowded with cars. And not just any cars – the place looked like the impound lot of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Tacky.’
Trey flicked through Ms. West’s keys and tossed one to Quinn. “Move your piece-of-shit truck so I can get the Porsche out.”
“Why are we taking your car?” Quinn shot back. “Mine’s right in the front, and it’s bigger so it can fit more. It’s also got these kickass off-road tires and a snorkel. Does yours have a snorkel?”
“I don’t need a snorkel, because I have self-respect and a beautiful Cayenne—”
“If you two don’t stop arguing, I’ll be the one driving,” Ayaz shot back, grabbing for the keyring in Trey’s hand.
“Argh, no! Fine.” Quinn stuck out his bottom lip. “We’ll take the Porsche. But I get to drive a bit after Trey. Only me.” He shot Ayaz a worried look.
“Why don’t they want you to drive?” I asked Ayaz.
“Ataturk is a speed demon.” Quinn slid into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. “He won all the drag races.”
“And he lays on the horn,” Trey added.
Ayaz shrugged. “In Turkey, there are forty-three things you can say with your horn.”
“In America, there are only two things you say with a horn,” Quinn shot back. “One. I’m about to fuck up, and two, I’m a twatwaffle who can’t drive for shit and blame the rest of the world.”
I turned to Trey. “You don’t think the teachers will notice all this noise?”
He grinned. “Not since I had Dr. Morgan add some of her wonder drug into their dinner.”
“Trey! We shouldn’t do that again – not with Ms. West already suspicious. We don’t know if we can trust Dr. Morgan—”
He laughed. The randomness of it caught me off-guard. The last time I’d seen Trey this… relaxed, it was when we’d first visited Deborah, when we were sleeping on an air mattress and walking the dogs and eating take-out. “Relax, Hazy. Tonight belongs to us and us alone.”
Quinn hopped into an enormous truck painted bright yellow (because of course it was) and pulled around to the side of the stable. Trey slid a sleek red Porsche out into the moonlight. Even though the car had been shut up for years, the engine purred like a kitten. Paul must be a miracle worker. Now I knew where Trey’s good mood had come from – it must be amazing to drive a car like that.
Grinning, I slid into the passenger seat. Even though Trey had wiped off the seats when he got in with a chamois, the interior still had a slightly musty smell. Trey flipped through the CDs in the glove compartment (CDs! How quaint) and stuck on one from Ayaz’s favorite band, Blood Lust. Sweeping metal guitars and furious drums blasted from the stereo. Is that a cello? Sick. Quinn and Ayaz hopped in back and Trey gunned the engine.
The car roared to life and tore down the gravel road. Trey whooped as he yanked the wheel hard and the back end of the car slid around the first corner. I gasped as the front wheels gripped the road for dear life.
They weren’t the only thing gripping for dear life. My knuckles were white against the dashboard as Trey took every corner like a rally driver. If this was what rich kids did for a thrill I’d go back to jacking cars and hard drugs, thanks very much.
Trees whizzed past in a blur as we careened into Arkham. Trey slowed down as we slid along the main street, a wild grin warming his icy features. “What do you think?”
“Ayaz was supposed to be the speed demon!” I yelled.
“What the fuck do you call that?”
Trey’s smile turned giddy. Seeing him like this, like a normal guy who didn’t button himself up or hold himself back, made a new fire ignite inside me. “That is what you get when your rich daddy owns a Formula 1 team. I learned to drive on a race track.”
“You could have killed us.” I fought to control my beating heart. Heat danced across my chest.
“I’d never put you in danger. If Ayaz was driving, it’d be another story.”
We shot through Arkham without looking back and hit the freeway. Trey couldn’t keep the smile off his face. For being out of practice, he slid into the traffic without a single mistake, merging seamlessly and waving thanks to a driver who let us in. I bet he never used to do that.
In the backseat, Quinn and Ayaz headbanged. Ayaz strummed an air guitar while Quinn screamed unfathomable growly vocals into an upside-down Scotch bottle he was using as a microphone. A hollow ache formed in my stomach – they were so carefree, so normal. It reminded me of hanging out with Dante, which reminded me of things I didn’t want to think about right now.
“Bloomberg, I had a boo boo… the bottle wasn’t empty.” Quinn perched his chin on the back of my seat, his breath warming my neck.
“You’d better not have spilled Scotch over the leather,” Trey growled.
“It’s fine. No biggie. I’ll make Ataturk lick it up.”
“Lick up your own whisky.” Ayaz let out a howl as the song reached a crescendo.
The longer we drove, the less I thought about Dante. Tonight wasn’t about the past. We drove along the shoreline, where waves crashed against the breakwater, sending up pillars of froth and foam. I rolled down the window and breathed in the frigid air. The taste of freedom.
My fears slipped away as I embraced the present moment – each second precious because we lived it fully, the way teenagers were supposed to. Driving at top speed with the wind in my hair, I felt like a real teenager for the first time in… maybe the first time ever.
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Page 19