Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4)

by Steffanie Holmes

  This is what it’s like to be normal.

  Right, normal. With three boyfriends who are children of a cosmic god, cruising down the freeway to steal a hundred k. Totally normal.

  Fuck.

  In the back of the car, we found blankets. They smelled musty, but who cared? Trey pulled up in a parking lot overlooking the ocean. The only other vehicle was an abandoned food truck covered in graffiti. Quinn and Ayaz folded down the seats and all four of us crowded in back with our sigil (and it was a squash – even Trey’s four-seater Porsche had precious little room), wrapped in the blankets while Metallica’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’ pounded through the speakers.

  I watched Ayaz light up a joint. “Ms. West could be a problem.”

  Smoke swirled around Ayaz’s head as he took a long drag before he passed it to Trey. “Agreed. She’s not going to be happy when she finds out we took away her immortality. How do you know the god won’t tell her our plan? You said he didn’t know how to lie.”

  “He doesn’t. I told him to go silent. He isn’t speaking a word to her at all.” I breathed the weed deep into my lungs, letting a wave of calm wash over me. “I think that’s what’s got her in such a state. She’s not used to the silence. It’s making her nervous. She can’t do anything now, not when it could risk her plan falling through. But if she discovers the missing sigils or decides to jump in at the last second and ruin things, I don’t have a plan to deal with it. I guess we just wait and see.”

  “Can you ask the shadows to deal with her?”

  I shook my head. “They’re part of the god. They’ll be in the spaceship with him.”

  “What about your little army of plague-carriers?” Quinn piped up.

  “The rats? I’m not sure I can command them to do anything. But I can ask.”

  My phone beeped. It was Zehra. Ayaz read over my shoulder, but Zehra hadn’t written anything, only dropped a link to a newspaper article.

  “Some family in upstate New York had their assets seized by the IRS,” I read aloud. “Apparently, they haven’t paid taxes in fifteen years, and now they’re going to lose everything.”

  “The Montagues? That’s Nancy’s family,” Trey looked at Ayaz with an astonished expression on his face. “Your sister did this?”

  “She’s something else.” Ayaz’s eyes beamed with pride as he grabbed the phone and read through the article. “I just hope she stays safe out there. The Eldritch Club won’t let this stand.”

  We talked and smoked and kissed until the sun rose over the water – the first sunrise my Kings had seen outside the school in twenty years. The clock on the dashboard counted down the minutes until the nearest bank opened.

  Beside me, Trey snored. Grinning, Quinn dug his fingers into Trey’s pocket and fished out the keys. Trey woke just as Quinn gunned the engine.

  “You fucker.” Trey kicked the back of the seat. “Get out of my car.”

  “No can do.” Quinn whooped as he tore off, ramming the car into the nearest speed bump. Trey winced as something on the underbelly of the car scraped over concrete. Quinn bumped and ground his way along the freeway to the next small town. He didn’t have nearly as much skill behind the wheel as Trey – I guess that was why he had a truck, so he could flatten any obstacle in his path.

  “Stop,” Trey ordered as Quinn ground the gears and we turned onto the main street.

  I glanced across the road at the tiny provincial bank. “Here?”

  “It’s as good a place as any.”

  Quinn narrowly avoided scraping the Porsche along another car as he parallel parked. He and Ayaz waited in the car while Trey and I pulled on the wigs and hats and long coats we’d dug out of the costume department. My eyes flicked to the security cameras over the bank entrance. Please don’t let Vincent be watching.

  Trey stepped into the teller and slid his black card across the counter. “I require a cash advance,” he said.

  “Certainly sir. For how much money?”

  “All of it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I secretly hoped the teller would give us the money in sacks with dollar signs written on them, like in all the old cartoons Dante and I loved to watch. But she just handed Trey two thick envelopes containing stacks of hundred dollar bills.

  Seventy-eight thousand dollars.

  They couldn’t give us all the money – they didn’t have enough stored in the safe. According to the teller, you’re supposed to call in advance if you want to take out loads of cash. But it didn’t matter. I’d never seen so much money in my life. Hell, I’d never even contemplated the idea of that kind of cash falling across my path.

  It occurred to me as I slid the money into the satchel with the sigil that I could walk away with it. I could sneak out at night and be halfway across the country before the Kings even thought of following me. Seventy-eight grand would help me and Greg and Andre and Loretta start new lives.

  Trey knew that, and he’d given me the money anyway. Either because he trusted me, or because he wanted to give me the chance to make my escape, the same way he’d tried to save me so many times before – by putting me on a boat and floating me out to sea.

  Tough luck, Trey Bloomberg. You’re stranded with me for a bit longer.

  We sped back toward the school. The presence of the cash sobered us – even though Trey had the radio on, no one sang along or made jokes or said much of anything at all. Trey sped through Arkham without slowing and turned the corner onto the gravel road. A figure stepped in front of the car.

  “Fuck.” Trey slammed on the brakes. I screamed as the car lurched to a stop. My seatbelt bit into my shoulder.

  Luckily, the Porsche was such a fucking great car and the tires gripped so well that the front grill had stopped barely an inch from the girl who slammed her fists on the hood, not caring that she’d nearly been flattened. Who is that and why is she screaming—

  “Courtney?”

  I recognized the halter top and booty shorts, but that was where the similarities to the haughty Queen who’d left school last night ended. Her eyes bugged out of her face, and her hair was all matted, with leaves and branches sticking out. Blood trickled from a cut in her temple.

  “Fucking John!” she yelled, punching the hood again to emphasize her point. “I’m going to wring his fucking neck!”

  “Watch the bodywork.” Trey was already out of the car, slamming the door behind him as he dragged Courtney out of the road. She clung to him, yelling a stream of incoherent words.

  “Courts, get it together. You’re not making sense. What happened? Where’s your car?”

  “He took off with it, is what happened,” Courtney shrieked. “Two groups of us decided to stick together. We had a bit of a party on the beach, then went to a bank in Innsmouth to get John’s money. We managed to get fifty g’s, but as soon as we threw it in my car, John sped away and that’s… that’s not even the worst part!”

  She broke down into gasping sobs. Trey shook her roughly. “Tell us.”

  Courtney paled. “Paul was John’s partner, and he’d gone across the street to get some drinks while we were in the bank. He must’ve… he must’ve been standing in the wrong spot, outside the sigils when John took off, because…”

  “What? Spit it out.” The vein above Trey’s eye was ready to explode from the tension. My fingers gripped the edge of my seat so hard the knuckles glowed white.

  “Because he collapsed on the street, and his body turned to dust,” Courtney sobbed. “He’s dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dead.

  No.

  Paul can’t be dead.

  Trey’s words mirrored my own thoughts. “That’s impossible. How can he be dead? We’re immortal.”

  Courtney swiped at her eyes and pointed toward the gap in the trees where she’d emerged. “See for yourself.”

  My legs trembled as I stepped out of the car. I noticed rustling in the trees. An animal? A horrible practical joke? For a moment I was trans
ported back to the first quarter, when I was the victim of vicious bullying at Courtney’s behest. I bet Courtney’s tears are fake – she lures us into the forest and then John and his buddies jump out and—

  I didn’t like to think of anything past the and. But Quinn and Ayaz stalked into the woods after Trey. They clearly didn’t think Courtney was faking it. I touched my fingers to the burn on my wrist, sucked in a breath, and plunged in after them.

  Only a few yards into the trees, we found them. Tillie and Derek held two ends of a makeshift stretcher they’d made of uniform blazers tied between two sticks. Tillie dropped her end on the ground and rushed to embrace Trey, her face stricken.

  On the stretcher lay Paul’s body.

  At least, I assumed it was Paul’s body. He was impossible to recognize – he wore his school uniform, so only his head was visible, but he no longer looked like the same fun guy who’d welcomed me into the monarchs’ circle after the Kings adopted me. Paul’s skin had practically disappeared from his bones, save for patches that clung to his cheeks. Instead, the surface of his bones appeared covered in fine dust. Where his hands should have been were only empty cuffs.

  As I watched in horror, the body slid down the tilted stretcher. Paul’s foot hit a tree root and disintegrated into a pile of dust. The breeze fanned it across the forest floor, leaving the hollow hem of his slacks flapping free and a single ash-filled sock lying in the dead leaves.

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  As I struggled against the rising bile, Nancy threw herself over her boyfriend’s body, clutching his jacket and laying kisses on his forehead. Every time she touched him, more of his body fell away. When she removed her lips, she left a hole in the top of his skull that rapidly filled with dust as the bones crumbled around it.

  Rage bubbled inside me. John did this.

  My ears rang. John’s words from that night in my room burned over in my head. Spread her legs.

  I tried to help him, even after what he wanted to do to me. I ignored the warning in my heart and tried to give him his freedom and convince myself he’d change, or that justice would eventually catch up with him. Now my worst fear had been realized. I’d let a child of the god out into the world and he’d acted exactly like a spoiled rich rapist bastard, and now Paul was dead.

  I’ll kill him. He may be running around out there as an immortal, but I swear I’ll kill him.

  “We thought…” Courtney struggled for words. “Miskatonic Prep is the closest thing Paul has to a home. We couldn’t just leave him on the side of the road.”

  “You did the right thing.” Ayaz laid a hand on her shoulder. Courtney’s body stiffened at his touch, and I knew that what had been between them was over for good. She took nothing from his comfort. Courtney needed to be with the person she loved most… herself.

  “We’ll carry him.” Trey moved around the stretcher, his presence calming, authoritative.

  “Where are we taking him?” Derek gripped the other end.

  “To the Porsche.”

  “He won’t fit in the trunk.”

  “He will by the time we get there,” Trey’s voice was grim.

  Trey, Ayaz, and Derek lifted the stretcher. With every movement, more of Paul blew away. By the time they maneuvered him into the trunk of the Porsche, all that was left was a pile of clothes and a torso of dust. Derek climbed in the passenger seat next to Trey and us four girls squeezed in back with Quinn and Ayaz. The car was barely meant for four people, let alone eight. I had elbows in places elbows should never be, and I had to hold on tight to stop myself banging around. Courtney sat on Ayaz’s knees, tears streaming down her pretty cheeks.

  Trey drove carefully to disturb Paul as little as possible, so our climb up the peninsula was slower than our descent. Even so, my head banged on the roof with every corner. After a stop to hide our sigils back at their original locations, Trey backed the Porsche into the stable. We all toppled out and he lifted the trunk. I peered inside, wishing I had the good sense to look away. A ring of dust had settled around Paul’s clothing. When the boys lifted the stretcher, more dust cascaded from the sleeves. There was practically nothing left.

  “What do we do with him?” Trey asked Courtney. He sensed that she needed something from Paul’s return.

  For the first time since I’d come to this school, I saw my own pain and horror reflected back at me in Courtney Haynes’ eyes. “We bury him.”

  Paul already had a grave, as they all did – down in the first row, closest to the edge of the cliff, where the trees bent their spindly limbs down toward the churning ocean below. The guys took off toward the forest. Courtney followed, clutching Nancy who still wailed hysterically, while Tillie, Ayaz, and Derek ran up to the school with the bags of cash to gather Paul’s closest friends.

  Down we went to the pleasure garden, which still bore the signs of last week’s party – the trash on the ground, the dirt and sand churned up from dancing, a broken table lying on its side. The black pillar jutted from the grotto – reflecting its surface into the pool of water surrounding it, creating the illusion that I was back in the primordial place. A trail of blue flame shimmered on the surface of the pillar’s sigil.

  The wind picked up as we neared the shore and I tried not to think of bits of Paul blowing through the air around me. We found Paul’s grave just as Tillie and Derek ran up with a handful of other students and, weirdly, some of the maintenance staff. I glanced at Sadie across the crowd, and she shrugged. She didn’t know why she was there, either. Tillie carried a shovel, which she handed to Trey.

  Of course, Trey would be the one expected to dig the grave for the only classmate to ever truly die at Miskatonic Prep. That was the duty of the King of Kings – and he bore it as he bore all things, noble and remote and determined to be the best. Trey set his jaw against the horror of his task and dug the spade into the soft earth. In no time at all, he’d hollowed out a shallow grave and lowered what remained of Paul inside.

  That done, he stepped back into the semicircle we’d formed around the grave. I glanced around the stricken faces. Each one looked at me expectantly, but I’d barely known Paul. It didn’t seem right that I be the one to eulogize him. Nancy was still crying, so I nudged Courtney forward.

  Now she had an audience, Courtney pulled herself together, wiping over her stricken features with a mask of subdued sadness. She really was an exceptional actress. In a clear voice that rang across the cemetery, piercing through the howling wind, Courtney spoke. “Paul was a loyal friend, a fun guy to hang with, a sweet boyfriend but a mediocre kisser. Most importantly… he was family.”

  From behind her, Tillie let out a loud sob, but Courtney’s features remained hard and focused. Paul’s death had shifted something inside her – she stared out at the gathered students with eyes wide open, as though she was seeing the reality of her world for the first time. “Like the rest of us, Paul’s family abandoned him years ago, even before he entered Miskatonic Prep. His parents wanted a son because it looked good for the tabloids, but they spent more time jetsetting off to Milan or Paris with their reality TV show buddies than they did looking after him. Paul practically raised his younger brother, who he was hoping to see again soon.”

  “Despite everything we’ve been through, Paul always tried to stay positive. He didn’t always succeed, but he was better than the rest of us. You all know I dated him for a couple of years before Nancy—” I hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise me. I guessed everyone dated around when you had the same classmates for two decades. “—and they were some of the best years in this hellhole. That was before Paul got sick of my shit and moved on to someone much more deserving.” Courtney smiled at Nancy, who leaned into Barclay’s shoulder and sobbed.

  I’m not sure about that. I remembered seeing Nancy in the grotto making out with Barclay. But I’d just slept with three guys at once, so who was I to judge? For all I knew Paul and Nancy were both dating Barclay. The guy sure looked cut up about Paul’s death.


  “And yet, after everything we’ve been through, Paul didn’t die because of our parents’ evil plotting,” Courtney continued. Her eyes met mine, and I saw my own resolve reflected back at me. “He was killed because John Hyde-Jones wanted to escape Miskatonic Prep and screw the rest of us. After everything we’ve been through together, that fuckface put his own desires over the needs of his classmates, and that’s something I know none of us will stand for.”

  Students and maintenance staff greeted this news with hard, stony faces. John’s betrayal had hurt more than what their parents had done.

  “We’ve had our souls cut up and tampered with, but some pieces of our humanity must still survive,” Courtney slid a backpack off her shoulders and opened it. I expected it to be empty, since we’d dropped the sigils back out in the forest. Instead, wads of cash toppled out. “This isn’t about our stupid pride. It’s about so much more than that.”

  Silence. I leaned forward, my fingers tightening around Ayaz’s wrist. What’s she doing?

  “This is some of the money I took from my untouched trust fund last night. I only gave half of it to Hazel, because I was going to keep the rest for myself. I didn’t want to share.” Courtney held up wads of bills, letting a few notes flutter on the breeze before being torn off the edge of the cliff by the relentless ocean. “I earned this money by being Courtney fucking Haynes. It’s mine. Why should any of you have it?”

  Courtney stepped up to Sadie and shoved the cash into her hands.

  “I remember you, Sadie Lancaster.” Courtney struggled to form words now. Tears streaked her cheeks, sticking strands of her perfect hair against her skin. “You have the most beautiful hair. I didn’t like you for stupid reasons that don’t matter, and I’m sorry for what we did to you. This money doesn’t make up for it, but I hope you’ll accept it along with my apology.”

  Sadie glanced down at the cash. For a moment, I thought she’d throw it back in Courtney’s face. Instead, she tucked it into the pocket of her grey shift. She beamed at Courtney, and that smile held equal parts contempt and respect.