Chapter One
“You saw the stones,” Ayaz said. “You know that Quinn, Trey, and I are dead. We’re all dead.”
In my hand, the lantern flared. Flames licked the edge of my hand. Heat stabbed my skin like a knife, sending me back to another time and another fire that tore my world apart.
I screamed and dropped the lantern. It rolled against the headstone, and the fire flickered out. Darkness consumed me, making the looming trees and the three guys standing around me all the more menacing.
“Hazy, are you okay?” Quinn’s boots crunched over dead leaves. His hand reached through the gloom and brushed my arm. A hand that was very much alive, very much skin and bone and vein and sinew. The same hand that had touched my face so tenderly in the grotto, that had pulled me closer as he’d kissed me like a fire starved of oxygen…
I should be terrified. I should be running as fast as I can away from these psychopaths.
Instead, I was angry asfuck.
I leapt to my feet and planted my hands on Quinn’s chest. He reached for my wrists, probably thinking I was clinging to him in some terrified stupor. Instead, I shoved him. Hard. Quinn grunted as he stumbled over his own gravestone and landed on his ass in a pile of leaves.
“What thehellare you guys playing at?” I screamed. “You have been nothing but cruel to me since I arrived at this school. Now you drag me out here in the middle of the night, try to drown me in the ocean, and then you tell me this fucking bullshit story that the teachers are trying to hurt me and that you’re all dead? I’m done with this. It ends tonight.”
“Keep your voice down,” Trey hissed. My eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and I could just make out the outline of his head. An owl hooted in the trees. Trey spun toward it, his shoulders rigid.He’s scared.
But why? I’m the one who should be afraid.
“I’m done taking commands from you, Trey fucking Bloomberg.” I shuffled backward, shifting my weight on my back leg, preparing to run. “The shit you’ve orchestrated goes beyond bullying… it’s fuckingassault. I don’t care who your parents are or what you say about me being in danger. I’m in danger fromyou. I’m going back to Derleth, and I’m reporting all of you. And if Headmistress West doesn’t do anything about it, I’m calling the police.”
“Hazy,please.” Quinn’s voice ached with emotion. He didn’t move from his pile of leaves. “We can explain everything. But you have to be quiet. They’re probably out looking for you by now. If they catch you here, you’re dead, too.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to trust you.” Another step back. Moonlight pooled through gaps in the trees. I could make out the lumps of stone on the ground, the rough slope of the hill above. Ayaz shuffled out to the side, trying to close around me. But if I went the other way, I had a clear run toward the gate.
“She’s right,” Ayaz’s voice cracked. “Of course she can’t trust us. This whole thing was fuckingpointless.”
“What whole thing? You mean the whole, ‘oh, we’re so sorry, Hazel. We’ll make you think we’re remorseful, that maybe there was some fucked-up reason we put you through all of this. And then we’ll drag you outside in the middle of the night to humiliate you in front of the entire school because really, we’re a bunch of dick-weasels.’”
“I mean the whole thing where we tried to protect you. We tried to save you from ending up like us.” Ayaz’s voice sliced the darkness like a razor. “Now it’s too late. It’s always too late—”
I sprung into action, flinging my body along a row of graves. So many graves. This cemetery was a lot larger than I expected. My chest burned as I wove between the stones, my feet catching on loose sticks and branches. I stumbled, came down hard on my knee, pulled myself up, kept on running.
Let’s see you catch me, bully boys.I’d outran gangs, drunk fondlers, and creepy dudes outside Mom’s club. Dante and I once ran twelve blocks without stopping to lose a meth-head with a knife.You live in the Badlands, you get fucking good at running—
Trey stepped in front of me, his broad chest blocking my exit.Damn lacrosse players. I guess he’s good at running, too.Although he wasn’t breathing heavy, like me. “We’ll explain everything,” he said.
“Get out of my way,” I growled, lunging forward.
To my surprise, Trey stepped back, raising his hands in surrender. I shoved past him, sprinting toward the iron fence. A bitter breeze blew up from the ocean below, tossing dead leaves against my legs. Shoes crunched in brittle foliage as the guys followed me.
“Why’d you let her go?” Quinn wailed, but I didn’t stick around to find out the answer. I flung open the gate and jogged out of the trees.
Pale moonlight cast an eerie glow over the pleasure garden – the trees bent in the wind, their shadows dancing over the ancient statues, making their features dance and twist. I looked out to my right, toward the top of the cliffs where the edge of the school grounds met the ocean. Flashlight beams swung through the trees. Teachers out looking for someone. For me.
We’re dead, Hazel.Ayaz’s words repeated in my head.
We’re all dead.
I tried to push aside the memories of the horrible things those guys did to me and focus on the weird things I’d seen during my first quarter at Derleth Academy – things I couldn’t explain but that hadn’t held my attention like the immediate threat from the monarchs. The teachers checking the students wereoutof their dorms so they could sneak down to the gymnasium in black robes. The total lockdown against any kind of internet connection or transmitting device. Loretta’s disappearance and return. The article I found about the old school – Miskatonic Prep. The shadows that attacked me in the gym. The rats in the walls. All the things Trey, Ayaz, and Quinn spoke when they thought I couldn’t hear, about not being able to protect me anymore, and about someone called Zehra.
I knew that even if I couldn’t trust them, I couldn’t trust Ms. West and the faculty, either. But I needed answers, and I wasn’t going to get them from my three bullies. I shoved down all the conflicting feelings I had for them – the warmth of Quinn’s arms when he saved me from the gym, the ferocity of Trey’s convictions and the hunger in his kiss, the searching darkness behind Ayaz’s eyes, and the giddy feeling in my stomach when I was near them.
I squared my shoulders and set off up the path at a jog, scrambling around the edge of the grotto where Quinn had convinced me to swim with him in my underwear, where his kiss had melted something frozen inside me…
Don’t think about it now. You need all your wits about you if you’re going to survive this night.
