Ms. West shook her head. “Courtney Haynes has specially requested she remains in the student body as part of Hazel Waite’s torture.”
“If Courtney wants it, we must obey,” Dr. Atwood whispered to another robed figure, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“That’s exactly true, Derek. And you’d do best not to forget it.” Ms. West dropped Loretta’s head. Her skull made a loud thump as it hit the concrete. The headmistress stepped over Loretta and made her way toward the tunnel connecting the cavern with the gymnasium. The rest of the faculty followed. At the doorway, Atwood looked back on Loretta, his face twisting.
“You think you’ve escaped death,” he snarled. “You knownothing.”
Atwood ducked his head, disappearing into the tunnel. Goosebumps rocketed up my arms. I longed to rush to Loretta’s side, but when I tried to move my feet, they were glued to the ground. The god didn’t want me interfering with this dream – he wanted me toseeit.
After what seemed like forever holding my breath, Loretta stirred. She curled her knees into her chest, gripping her temples. A strangled groan escaped her throat.
Loretta lay still a while longer before slowly, achingly slowly, pulling herself to her feet. She spun in a slow circle, eyes wide as she took in every detail of the cavern with its dressed stone, creepy veins, and torches flickering from sconces carved in the walls, of the dust and debris coating the ground, of the scaffold and trapdoor. Loretta brushed dust off her Derleth skirt and frowned at her now-soiled cuffs.
“Well,” she said to the empty room, to the crawling chaos that lurked beneath. “Fuck you.”
* * *
I bolted up in bed, my heart pounding. Trey threw his arm around me, dragging me against his chest.
“Another visit from everyone’s favorite cosmic deity?” He murmured against my ear.
I nodded. Trey gripped me tighter. He didn’t ask about the dream, but waited until I was ready to speak.Who’s this attentive guy, and what’s he done with Trey the bully?
“The god showed me something else from the past. It was the night Loretta was sacrificed. Or rather,wasn’tsacrificed.”
“I thought you didn’t believe her.”
“I didn’t. But the god just showed me that it’s true. The teachers strung her up on the scaffold, lowered her into the god’s prison, and he spat her back out again. Ms. West decided to put Loretta back into the school. She told the faculty to blame the god’s waning power on me so the Eldritch Club wouldn’t figure it out.”
“That’s… interesting.” Trey wiped strands of hair from my face, his touch warming me through the fog of my horror. “I wonder why the god wanted you to see it.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I think he’s trying to help me figure out what’s different about Loretta and I. I think that’s the key to figuring out how we can free the rest of you.”
“Any idea what it could be?”
Because we’re the murderers.Loretta’s words danced on the tip of my tongue. I knew now that was the one similarity that united us – we fascinated the god because we had taken life, as he had.
I itched to tell Trey what Loretta had said. If I did, I also knew what his next question would be.Are you a murderer, Hazel?
And I didn’t know how to answer that. Icouldn’t.
Instead, I held the secret to my chest and curled back into Trey’s arms. In the bed across from us, Quinn snored. I watched the sun rising through the tiny high window. I hated myself until my loathing burned through my skin and I went numb all over.
I have to talk to Loretta. Alone.
* * *
The next morning, while Quinn and Trey argued over whose turn it was to use the shower first and therefore get the one single dribble of hot water, I snuck across the hall into Andre’s room and let myself in. “Hey, I hope I didn’t wake you. I—”
Andre sat up in bed, his face swallowed by guilt. Behind him, wrapped in the sheets, Sadie glared at me.
“Sorry. You did give me a key.” I held it up in my hand. “Can I borrow your pad?”
Andre grabbed it from the nightstand and handed it to me. Sadie burrowed under the covers. I scribbled a message for Loretta, telling her that if she wanted to save Greg she had to meet me in the cemetery this afternoon. I tore off the page, folded it, and handed it and the pad back to Andre.
“Can you give this to Loretta? Don’t let any teacher or student see it.”
Andre nodded. Sadie pointed at the door. I backed away, hands in the air. I knew when I wasn’t wanted.
