Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (61 page)

“Do what?” I was so confused.

“I wish I knew a way...”

“You have to tell me what’s going on here, Carter. Scales and Fangs worships the same snake god as my aunts. Or close, anyway. Something really close. And my aunts have always warned me about you. They say you’re a danger to me. Are you? What is going on?”

“Always warned you?”

“I dreamed about you,” I whispered. “Before I ever saw you, I—”

“How is that possible?” He let go of me.

“I’m so confused. I’m afraid.”

“If you knew that I might hurt you, then why did you ever let me touch you?”

“Are you going to hurt me?”

His expression was anguished. “
Yes
.”

I took a step back. I hadn’t expected that.

“Believe me, if I thought there was another way, I wouldn’t do it. But I took vows, and I swore sacred oaths, and the society is so powerful. You have no idea how powerful it is.”

“Are you talking about Scales and Fangs?”

He nodded.

“What are they going to do to me?”

He kissed me again. Hard. He was urgent. “You’re so soft. Holding you like this, I can’t help but want to change it. I want to save you.”

I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

“There’s no time,” he said. “They’ll be here any second. They’ll make you leave me, anyway. You need to go.”

“But—”

“Run,” he said. “Baby, run and don’t stop. Leave Thornfield. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

My aunts had said our house was safe from the Evil Ones. Was this what they were talking about?

He was serious, though. I could see it in his eyes. He was frightened, and he was anguished, and he didn’t know how to help me. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t. “Carter, I—”

“Go,” he said. “Get away from me, please.”

I hesitated for only a minute.

And then I heard the chanting coming from outside. I looked out the window to see several people walking out of the woods in hooded robes. Their voices slithered up into the air to my ears. I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

But I felt something reach inside my chest, grab hold of my insides, and squeeze.

I screamed.

“You have to get out, Teagan,” he said. “Leave. They’re putting wards on you.”

Wards? What the hell did that mean? It hurt. I could hardly move.

He shoved me, and I went sprawling, several feet away from him.

The further I was from him, the less it hurt.

I staggered to my feet. “This isn’t fair,” I whispered. “I love—”

“Don’t,” he said. “Just get out. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

I heard the sound of a door opening downstairs, and the chanting grew louder. They were inside.

The pain increased, and I cried out again.

He gritted his teeth. “For fuck’s sake, Teagan, just go.”

I stumbled to the doorframe, holding onto it to keep me upright.

“This will happen to you every time you come near me,” he said. “She promised you that you couldn’t come here, didn’t she?”

I took a few steps into the hallway, putting distance between us, and getting a little bit of relief.

“Run,” he said again. “Run
away
.”

It hurt too much to run. I barely made it to the steps. I slid down them, leaning on the railing.

When I got to the bottom, the robed people opened the door for me, gesturing for me to go.

I went through the door. The minute I was outside, the pain stopped.

As I walked away, I looked up at his window.

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t watching me go.

I was alone.

* * *

There was a faint chill in the night air, the first I’d felt since arriving at Thornfield. I raced through the streets, away from Carter’s house. I wasn’t going back to my dorm. He’d told me to run, and that seemed like the best idea.

I didn’t have much with me. I’d shoved my wallet in my jeans, but I’d left my phone and my purse back in my room. The little bit of money I had would have to be enough. I needed to get out of here.

I knew that there was a payphone at the edge of campus, down one more block. It was also an emergency phone. If you dialed campus security, it was free.

I doubted campus security could help me in this situation.

Things were too weird. There should have been more serious repercussions for what had happened between Carter and me. But there hadn’t been. Adelaide and Professor Bancroft had wanted to keep that quiet. Didn’t make any sense.

But it had something to do with Scales and Fangs. And those people in robes that had come into Carter’s house were obviously part of the society.

What had they done to me? Why had it hurt so bad?

I saw the payphone up ahead. My destination. I slowed to a walk. I’d been running a lot lately, hadn’t I?

Well, whatever Scales and Fangs was up to, it didn’t matter. Because I was getting out of here. Now.

I fumbled in my pocket for change. I had a few quarters. Would it be enough?

I hadn’t used a payphone... well, ever. But I’d seen people do it on movies, so it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

There was a phone book inside the payphone, and I paged through it until I found what I was looking for. Then I inserted my quarters and dialed.

“Big Yellow Taxi Service. How may I help you today?”

“I need a taxi,” I said.

“Is this for the future or currently?”

My hand was sweaty. The phone was sliding out of my grip. “Um, right now.”

“Okay, and what location should I send that to?” I looked up at the street signs. “Corner of Queen and Duke.”

“It’ll be about fifteen minutes, ma’am.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I hung up the phone. I needed to call my aunts too. But I didn’t have enough quarters left.

It would have to be okay. I’d see them when I got home. I was pretty sure I’d have enough money to pay the taxi to take me to the bus station. Surely the buses would be cheaper than a taxi ride all the way.

I gulped. I really had no idea.

I had nothing to do but wait.

I wrapped my arms around myself, peering out into the night. I was leaving this place. My dream to get out, to get away from my aunts, to be an actress—it wasn’t going to come true after all. When I’d gotten this scholarship, I should have known it was too good to be true. I should have realized that things like that didn’t happen to me. I was destined to hide out with my crazy aunts, and my crazy mother, going crazier than all of them.

And I had to leave Carter, too.

Well. He wasn’t even trying to help me, was he?

He cared. I could tell that he did. It was in the way he’d kissed me. But caring about me wasn’t enough. He was afraid of Scales and Fangs. And he’d admitted he was going to hurt me. He’d admitted that he wasn’t going to save me.

I remembered his words.
I want to change it. I want to save you.

But he wasn’t going to.

My aunts had been right all along.

By the time the taxi showed up, I was sobbing. I’d lost everything that mattered to me. I was going home, defeated.

“You okay?” said the taxi driver.

I nodded, pulling myself together. “I’m fine.” I got inside the cab.

“Where to?”

“The bus station,” I said.

The car took off. “You failing out and heading home? You’d be surprised how many other people do the same thing. You’re not alone.”

I gazed out the window at the archaic buildings of Thornfield college, their oppressive forms cut dark against the night sky. “I’m not failing out.”

The car rolled past the last of the buildings. We were leaving Thornfield behind. It was one block behind us. Two. Three. I looked back to get one last look at it. At my shattered dreams.

And sharp pain lanced through my chest. I huffed, the pain robbing me of my voice.

“You all right?” said the taxi driver.

The pain intensified. I groaned, scrabbling for the door handle. “Stop the cab,” I wheezed.

“What?”

“Stop,” I gasped, “stop, please.”

He pulled the cab over to the sidewalk.

I flung the door open and tumbled out. The pain eased a little, the minute I was out of the cab. I took a few steps back towards campus. Better still.

“Hey,” said the cabbie. “You haven’t paid your fare.”

The last thing on my mind was money right then. I was in excruciating pain, and it wasn’t going to stop unless I got back on Thornfield’s campus.

They’d done something to me. It would stop me from seeing Carter and stop me from getting away from here.

I shook my head at the man, trying to find words.

The pain was throbbing through me. Every breath I took was agonizing.

A car stopped on the other side of the street. Adelaide got out of it. She walked across the street to the cab driver, her posture regal. She shoved money at the man. “This should cover it?”

“Whoa,” said the cabbie.

Adelaide turned on me. She smiled. “Teagan, would you like a ride back to your dorm?”

“What have you done to me?”

She shook her head. “You couldn’t stay away from him, could you?”

My knees buckled from the pain.

She walked over to me, yanking me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get you back where you belong.”

* * *

Carter

“Adelaide told me to call you,” said my friend Fletcher Ryan’s voice on the phone. I’d gone to college with Fletch, and we’d been close when I lived in New York. He was a fellow Scales and Fangs alum, and he knew all about the ritual and my part in it.

“Did she?” I hadn’t bothered to get out of bed even though it was sometime in the afternoon. I’d cancelled everything that I had to work on that day. Ever since Teagan had run out of my room last night, obviously in pain, I hadn’t seen much point in doing anything at all.

“You sound rough, man.”

“Do I?” I didn’t care what he thought.

Fletch laughed. “Wow. That bad, huh?”

“Look, I don’t need this right now.” I closed my eyes, burrowing farther into the pillow I was lying on. “Maybe we can catch up another day, okay?”

“Wait, are you trying to hang up on me?”

“If I was trying to hang up on you, I’d have already done it. I was trying to say goodbye. Politely.” I yanked the covers up over my head. “So, goodbye, Fletch. Thanks for calling.”

“Hold on,” he said. “This is me we’re talking about, Carter. You don’t get out of this that easily.”

I sighed. Fletch and I had been roommates my senior year. We’d shared a little apartment in town, a block down from Shakespeare’s. He’d never given me much crap about my predilection for women old enough to be my mother. He’d brought all his buddies in the art department to my senior play. Overall, he’d been a really good friend.

I guessed I’d lost touch with him since coming back to Thornfield. He had a lot going on, anyway. He had shows at several prominent galleries this year, and when he wasn’t schmoozing, he was sculpting. He worked in metal, which meant he did all of his work with welding tools. He claimed he chose that medium to convince girls that even though he was an artist, he wasn’t gay. He was usually busy getting laid, too, from what I remembered.

“Why are you calling?”

“Why did I have to find out that you’re banging your own student from Adelaide?”

“Was,” I said. “Adelaide put a stop to any... banging. Besides, it wasn’t like that.”

“Right, ‘cause she’s the Moss girl. The one for the ritual. And you got it bad for her.”

“I don’t,” I said. “Listen, this isn’t exactly my proudest moment. I wasn’t about to call you and gloat. I think you should understand why I didn’t tell anyone.”

“You dog,” he laughed. “All that time when we were in school, you were always hunting down the, um, mature chicks. And now, here you are with a freshman.”

“She’s twenty-one,” I said defensively. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s kind of bad.” He was still laughing. “You’re her
professor
, dude. That’s so weird. How did we get old, anyway?”

“I’m not old,” I said.

“Yeah, well, neither am I, actually.” His laughter faded. “Hey, you know, I hear it’s a thing that happens pretty regularly with these ritual things. That’s why Armstrong offed himself, right? Because he couldn’t handle the guilt?”

“That’s what Adelaide says,” I said. “How’d you know that? No one told me that.”

“I bet they did,” he said. “I bet you brushed it off, because you didn’t think you’d ever develop a conscience.”

He was probably right. I rolled over in bed. “Well, I feel guilty. But I’m going to do it. If Adelaide is trying to use you to feel me out to see if I’m still loyal to the society—”