“But do you think we should tell Courtney?” Quinn’s voice wavered. I had to remind myself that until recently Courtney had been his girlfriend. Even though she was a stone-cold bitch, Quinn cared about her on some level.
“And risk her warning them? Not going to happen. Remember, Courtney doesn’t know what we know about what her parents did.”
“Not yet,” Trey added.
I leaned back against Quinn’s shoulder in a way I hoped was comforting, but I didn’t know anymore. Comfort wasn’t exactly my strong point. “Stop worrying. The god’s on our side. We’ve got this.”
Trey refused to let me go, so I slept curled against his shoulder while he snored gently. Quinn tossed and turned for ages before he too fell asleep. I couldn’t close my eyes until I heard his gentle breathing interspersed with Trey’s snores. My two fallen Kings – we were one step closer to giving them freedom.
I now had a god on my side… sort of. And a rat army at my disposal. That was… interesting. But why help me? Why not the other scholarship students?
How did they understand me?
Why did they write those names on the walls?
Were the names theirs?
Most importantly, what did everything have to do with me? And Loretta? Ms. West seemed to believe Loretta was important, and she knew everything in those articles. It was impossible to think Loretta with her wide, frightened eyes could kill someone, and yet… her last words to me repeated over and over in my head. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to talk to her again. Our last conversation had given more questions than answers.
These questions swirled around in my head until sleep dragged me under. I had no time to enjoy the bliss of oblivion before the god called me back to the cavern. This time, the teachers encircled the scaffold, chanting in their haunting tongue. The sound resonated through the high dome, so the very air itself reverberated with its power.
Ms. West appeared at the tunnel entrance, dragging Loretta’s prone body. “Oh, god of the infinite abyss, we come tonight to celebrate your benevolence and to bask in your glory. Tonight, after your long months of starvation, you will be able to feed.”
She stepped through her fellow worshippers and threw open the trapdoor. Even though I braced myself, I couldn’t stop the bile rising to my throat as the god’s essence was revealed once more and its cold hatred stroked my skin.
“We offer up this sacrifice for your enjoyment. Her mind has been broken so that she might please you.” Ms. West snapped her fingers. Two of the robed figures moved forward and strapped Loretta into the scaffold, tying the ropes tight around her skinny arms and legs. Her head rolled over. She was awake, although probably drugged. She made no move to fight.
“Begin!” Ms. West commanded. One of the robed figures turned a handle, and the chains clanked, lowering Loretta into the mouth of the god’s prison. The chanting rose with pitch and fervor as Loretta was lowered into the hole. The god’s hunger rose up from beneath, like a wet tongue licking her body in anticipation of the feast. I surged forward, but the sheer vileness of the god’s hunger sent me reeling.
Loretta disappeared into the black void. The chanting rose to a crescendo, reverberating off the polished stone walls until the whole room hummed and constricted like an enormous stomach digesting us all. Green veins flickered on the edges of my vision, completing the horror.
The chanting broke off abruptly as the room pitched. Teachers dropped to their knees, covering their heads as rock and dust rained down on them. The room continued to pulse and shake. It balanced on the edge of tension, ready to tear apart at any time. Teachers staggered across the pitching ground, cowering beneath the alcove where I too hid. I figured they couldn’t see me the way I could see them.
The god howled with pain. In the haze of darkness, Ifeltrather than saw its power retracting, the sticky spiderweb of bonds that stretched from the god out into the world snapping and unraveling. Dust and stone rained from the roof, obscuring my view of the room. From deeper in the cave, a greatBOOMsounded as another cave-in shook the ancient structure.
“What’s happening?” Dr. Atwood tore off his hood and glanced at Ms. West.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Ms. West cried, steadying herself against the wall as the world jerked violently. “There was nothing different about her. She was even more broken than the others.”
With a groan, the scaffold bent double. The ropes stretched taut, then pinged back, sending a lump flying from within the prison and skidding across the ground. Loretta’s face – pale and frozen – stared with glassy eyes.
Ms. West bent down and dragged Loretta up by the hair. “What is the meaning of this? What have you done to our god?”
Loretta’s eyes rolled back. She made no move to respond.
Ms. West shook her, her voice rising as panic settled in. “What did you do?”
With a final spurt of agony and thesnap snap snapof oily strands breaking, the god slumped back into its prison. A foul wind roared through the cave. I pressed my back against the wall as it fought to tear me away. The teachers clung to each other, their robes whipping around their bodies. With aBANG, the trapdoor slammed shut, and the room fell silent and still.
“What do we do now?” Atwood demanded. “The god is even weaker than before, and they already blame us. Now it will not eat. When Bloomberg gets here, he’ll have our heads for this.”
Ms. West nudged Loretta’s prone body with her spiked heel. “The Eldritch Club already know about Ms. Waite’s effect on the god. We tell them that tonight was a result of Hazel’s presence. They don’t need to know another scholarship student also has this effect.”
“They’ll know we haven’t sacrificed a student,” Dr. Halsey pointed out.
“Will they?” Ms. West brushed rock dust off her sleeves. “Of course it will be clear in a few years when this girl starts to age, but for now our deception will be invisible. She doesn’t know what happened to her, and she has no friends to confide in, so how will she reveal the truth?”
“We’re not cutting out her tongue like the others?”
