No.I shook it off. I had to believe that if I gave them back their lives, what these kids had been through was enough to scare them straight. Derek had tried to rape me – he was a monster, born of a monster, groomed to give in to his darkest urges. When he was free of the Miskatonic Prep, would he retain his monstrosity? Would he rape someone?
I didn’t like to think about that question. Forcing the students to confront what they’d lost at the performance should have been enough to show them that they needed their humanity. But Derek didn’t seem to have learned a thing.
I longed to shrink away from him, to step behind Trey and let him take care of Derek. I could tell from Trey’s balled fists and tight jaw he longed to do exactly that. But I couldn’t show weakness now. “We’re going to have a friendly chat about your future,Derek– if you’re willing to stop being gross andlisten. I’ve found a way to free you from the schoolandrestore your lives.”
“What is it?” John Hyde-Jones demanded, his eyes the same bloodied color as Derek’s, although hard and dangerous as flint.
His voice made bile rise in my throat. Of all the guys in the room that night, John was the instigator, the one in command. I’d never forget the words he spat out while his friends held me down.Spread her legs.Ayaz squeezed my hand, steadying me. Quinn moved in closer, his arms folded, his usually-jovial face immovable as a cosmic obelisk.
Trey’s voice rang hard and clear. “Hazel isn’t going to address her would-be rapist, so shut the fuck up. But for the rest of you, Ms. West has informed us that our parents have been invited to attend the graduation dance. The faculty believe they have enough leverage to entice the Eldritch Club to grant any one of us who wishes it the ability to leave the school grounds.”
Excited whispers rose from the students. Trey swiped a hand through his dark hair. Already, he looked at home being in charge, with every eye at the party focused on him. “Don’t get excited. It’s not a real solution. We’d still be immortal, the children of the god. Our parents will never allow us back into their lives – there would be too many questions. You might be able to scratch around in Arkham, go to Walmart or whatever inane activities they deemed appropriate, but as for a future, a life? It’s not possible. We’d still be prisoners – they’d just be extending the prison yard. Ms. West and the faculty want this deal because they want to keep their immortality – but I believe we can do better.”
“Why would our parents agree to that?” Courtney demanded, suspicion creeping into her voice.
I turned to Courtney. “Because they’re holding your mother hostage.”
She gasped. “That… that’s ridiculous. My mother is at Paris Hilton’s birthday party right now.”
“Do you know that for a fact? Because I’ve just come from the gym, where they’re keeping her trussed up on an old weight machine. You don’t believe me?” I dug my phone from my pocket and showed her the picture I’d taken. “The Haynes fortune is propping up many of the efforts of the Eldritch Club, including political campaigns and failing companies. Right now, even Vincent’s aerospace company is losing market share to Elon Musk. As the members lose their influence and their looks, Haynes money is practically all they have left. Evil as she is, Ms. West may be right to assume they can’t live without your mother, and I have agents on the outside making sure that is true. So they’ve put her up for ransom. The price? The Eldritch Club must come to the dance, and they must use their occult prowess to deactivate the boundary sigils.”
“What do you think, Hazel?” Tillie asked, her voice pleading. She actually cared about my opinion. The other students leaned forward, waiting for my response.
“I think, fuck them and the occult magician they rode in on. We can do better,” I declared. “I also don’t want Ms. West running around in the real world after what she’s done to all of you. But I don’t see any reason to pass up a perfectly good dance.”
“Why would we go tothatdance?” Courtney demanded.
“Your parents are going to be toasting the twentieth anniversary of killing you and trapping you here.” I grinned. “We’re crashing the party.”
It took a long time, and lots of stopping and starting, but I explained to them what the god really was and where he came from, what had been done to them by Ms. West, the lies they’d been told, and how we planned to give them a new future. The only thing I left out was my bargain with the god. “You each have a choice to make. This is your life or un-life at stake, and I’m not forcing any of you to do something you’re not into. That’s your territory. But I need to know right now, are you willing to give this curse to your parents? Are you willing to make them the children of the god, knowing that you will then be sending them into space, far away where they can do no more harm to anyone on earth?”
I’d barely got the words out when Courtney stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
“You realize this means you’re sending your mother—”
“I fucking heard you the first time, gutter whore,” she snapped. “Personally, I’d rather see you roast them all alive, but blasting them into space should do the trick.”
“What will happen to the teachers?” Tillie asked.
“And the maintenance staff?” Greg called from the back. Beside him, Andre’s hand fitted into Sadie’s. I’d never seen him look frightened before, but now his face was shadowed with fear.
“Both the faculty and the maintenance staff will have their immortality removed, just like you.” A few students grumbled. “Trust me, it’ll be punishment enough for Ms. West. Because they’re not children of the god, they don’t have the same energy inside them. The truth is, we don’t know exactly what would happen. But they should just become ordinary humans – a boon for Sadie and the other ex-scholarship students, penance for the faculty.”
“Vote now.” Trey’s glare touched every student. “If you’re in, raise your hand. If you’re out, walk away from this party now. We’re not doing this unless everyone agrees.”
Trey raised his hand. Quinn pumped his fist in the air like he was at a rock concert. Ayaz leaned over to kiss my cheek as he too raised his hand.
In front of us, hands shot in the air, waving like blades of grass in the breeze. In moments, every single student and member of the maintenance staff had their hands raised.
“Very well, we will continue with the plan. In the coming weeks, I’ll need some of you to help us with certain things, but not tonight – tonight is for you, for all of us. If everything goes according to plan, another pillar is going to appear soon. You don’t have to be afraid of it – it can’t hurt you. I just wouldn’t go into the grotto. Next week, we’re going to pass around some lists – we need to organize your passports and other paperwork. You need to create a new identity. But don’t worry about that now. Tonight, we party.”
Trey nodded to the band, and they struck up a Radiohead song. Immediately, students surrounded me, jostling me between them as they boasted in loud voices about what they would do when they were free. They hemmed me in on all sides, blocking my escape. In the moonlight their faces contorted, and I no longer saw jubilant teens celebrating their potential freedom, but the faces of Courtney and the guys as they surrounded me in my room.
The god’s voice whispered at the edges of my mind, drawing me back to that dark place that had haunted my dreams.
John Hyde-Jones clapped me on the shoulder and yelled something. My resolve snapped. I was back in that room, to the boys kicking me and holding me down. His words echoed in my mind.Spread her legs. I spun around and slammed my fist into his face.
My knuckles smushed his nose with an angryCRACK.The pain arcing through my hand brought me back to the present.
