“Good. Because I’ve been wanting to touch you like this for so fucking long.” Trey turned my head toward him and crushed my mouth with his. He kissed me long and deep and slow, as if he possessed me, as if I was his.
This is such a bad idea, but I can’t say no… not when they…
Fingers plunged between my legs, pushing aside my panties, resting softly on my mound. My breath hitched.I can’t believe we’re doing this in here, where everyone can see.
But no one was watching. Quinn had the blanket pulled up high, and no one cared, anyway. Everyone was distracted with their own blanket fumblings. This event was a wholesome veneer for a teenage Bacchanalian.
I gasped as a finger teased my entrance before slipping inside me. A second finger joined the first, pumping in and out with slow, measured strokes. Another finger pressed against my clit, rubbing me in my own juices in a languid circle, as if we had all the time in the world.
Heat rose through my body, starting in my core and radiating out, touching the tips of my fingers and toes. I was fraying at the edges, my whole body slowly falling apart under their touch.
A faint whimper escaped my throat. In front of me, Ayaz turned around, his eyes blazing as they flicked to my face, to Quinn and Trey kissing me, to their hands under the blanket…
He scowled and turned away. My heart thudded, but then the finger on my clit circled faster, and I forgot all about Ayaz.
I don’t know how they coordinated, but it was as if they had a natural rhythm together. As they moved, they took turns kissing me. Quinn’s tongue darted into my mouth while Trey trailed sparks along my collarbone.
The fire inside me built into a ball of heat, hotter and hotter until it pressed against my skin, demanding freedom. I bent my head back against Quinn’s shoulder, my muscles tensing. Another gasp escaped my throat.
Trey moved closer, his eyes half-lidded as he came at me. He pressed his hand lightly over my mouth. “Bite me,” he whispered, holding a finger across my lips. “Make mebleed.”
I bit down on his finger, my body jerking forward as a wave of heat coursed through my veins. The fire burst out of me, engulfing me in a heat so intense that red welts danced in front of my vision.
I flailed in the heart of the fire, losing myself in its wild hunger. When I found myself again, I’d collapsed against Quinn’s shoulder. Trey trailed his fingers down my bare arm, raising the hairs on my skin. Both of them grinned like Cheshire cats.
“See, Hazy?” Quinn murmured. “I told you we’d make you purr.”
* * *
No one but me noticed the small things. In homeroom the next morning, Courtney had plastered on her makeup much thicker than usual. The next day, both she and Tillie were back to wearing their hats. Amber didn’t show up for class at all.
To the rest of the world, these things meant little. But to me, they wereeverything.
They meant my revenge plan was working. Which was nice, but I wasn’t satisfied. I needed to do something bigger, something that tipped the balance of power in this school.
The only problem was, it was hard to think of ways to hurt the undead, to give them a taste of their own medicine. Especially without breaking my vow and revealing their secret to Greg and Andre. Unlike the scholarship students they tormented, the rich kids of Miskatonic Prep had nothing left to lose.
But maybe I could find the chink in their armor.
Two days later, I’d had to run back to my room for my history book, and I was late for class. I bounded back up the stairs just as the second bell rang. The last straggling students cleared out of the corridor, leaving me alone in the fancy dormitory. I took my time, scanning the notice-boards along the walls, searching for ghosts.
It didn’t take me long to find them. Beside Amber’s door was pinned a photograph of her with her arms around two identical smiling little girls, all three of them with perfect blonde pigtails.Sisters. On his notice-board, Derek stood beside an old man with a bushy grey beard, holding up an enormous fish. Creepy would-be rapist John Hyde-Jones had a picture of him and an older man wearing dirty overalls and sitting in the chassis of a car. Every board I stopped to look at held at least one image or note from the world outside, from a life before Derleth Academy.
How had I never noticed these before?
Because I’d been looking only at the guys. Trey never pinned anything on his notice-board. Occasionally, a girl would pin a love note there, begging for a date, but they never stayed there long. Ayaz had a rotation of drawings – mostly funny cartoons about the teachers and stuff that went on around the school, but sometimes dark things – visions I recognized from the dreams of the Great Old God. I’d never actually been inside Quinn’s room, so I hadn’t looked at his.
I paused in front of Quinn’s door, running my fingers over the single image he’d hung there. It was his mother. She sat on one of those white Cape Cod porch swings with the ocean crashing behind her, a book open across her knee. She smiled a beautiful smile, but her amber eyes – Quinn’s eyes – pooled with a sadness that reached out from the paper and punched me in the gut.
Voices echoed down the corridor. I wrenched myself away, turning toward the classroom wing, when I realized the voices were coming from Courtney’s room.
I crept across the corridor on the balls of my feet and flattened my body against the wall. Courtney’s door was open a crack. If I leaned out a little, I could see a sliver of the interior.
“It won’t stop falling out,” Courtney sobbed, lying across her bed with her head in her hands. Beside her, Tillie picked up a brush and pulled clumps of hair from the teeth.
Feeling bold, I leaned forward and gave the door a tiny push. It swung open another couple of inches, giving me more of a picture. Courtney rolled over, her face twisted in misery as she raked her fingers through her hair. She let out a strangled scream as her hand came away holding a clump of hair.
“Maybe we’re sick,” Tillie said, scratching at her cheek, where a large patch of hard, scaly skin had taken up residence on her face. She looked like she was transforming into a lizard person.
