The in crowd, p.10
The in Crowd, page 10
part #2 of Hellbent Academy Series
If she wouldn’t, though, Lev and I found a potion that would make her lips loose, a sort of truth serum potion. It was wicked hard to put together, though, and it needed an entire week to mature, so there was going to be no chance to test it before it had to work.
We put it together in the lab, set it aside to mature, and hoped for the best.
Then Lev insisted we spend the rest of our time figuring out what we were going to wear. Apparently, people wore one of three kinds of outfits to the Horn Party. The first outfit was just to wear normal clothes. Some people didn’t want to get dressed up, and they wore whatever they wanted.
The other sort of outfit was traditionally for men. It was a long black robe with a mask that had antlers attached to it. People made these themselves and some of them got really intricate with them. They could be very elaborate and decorated with all kinds of stuff.
But other people were not as attached to that sort of thing, and so they would just buy a standard sort of mask or make it out of cardboard or something. There was a whole range to the costumes.
Now, traditionally, women were supposed to dress seductively, but then some people decided that was sexist, and now it was sort of a free-for-all. Men or women could dress seductively and men or women could wear the black robes with the masks.
Lev decided for a juxtaposition between the two ideas. He was wearing a robe and a mask with antlers, but he was going shirtless underneath and wearing a pair of form fitting black breeches which left basically nothing to the imagination.
I wanted no one to look at me, so I told him that I was going to wear regular clothes, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said the masks could help us out if we didn’t want June to know our identities. So, I ended up in a black robe and mask, too.
My mask was silver with delicate antlers and silver leaves. It was really pretty and it reminded me of Christmas. Under the robe, I wore regular clothes, though, just a plain black t-shirt and jeans. Lev had fought me on this, because he thought it would be cool if I wore a corset, but that was way too suggestive for me.
That was mostly because of a weird breakfast one morning at the Black Circle house.
I would have wanted to be modest, anyway, because I didn’t want to have to get involved with anyone. I was strictly going to this party for information. I didn’t even want to see Phist.
I didn’t want to have to be roped into one of those confusing kisses to preserve our cover. I definitely did not want to give him a fake blow job again. Or a—gulp—real one.
No, I was avoiding Phist, and he was avoiding me, and that was good.
Anyway, so this breakfast.
I always ate breakfast. I knew a lot of people who didn’t, girls and guys alike, but I was not one of those people who could get up and have a coffee and go about my business. I needed food when I woke up. Maybe I got into the habit when I was relying on my own energy stores to power my magic. I didn’t know.
Most people at the Black Circle house did not eat breakfast.
I liked this, because it meant that I had the kitchen to myself in the mornings. I also tended to get up a lot earlier than the rest of the people in the house.
I would get up, go into the kitchen, and it would usually be a bit of a mess from whatever had been going on in the house the night before, so I would sweep all the beer cans and cigarette butts into a trash can. I would put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher and start it up. I would wipe down the counters.
And then I would make myself breakfast. Nothing crazy. I liked to have avocado toast and grapes. It was easy, and the store on campus sold these little containers of avocado vacuum sealed, so I didn’t even have to waste half the avocado. (Seriously, the problem with avocado toast is what to do with the other half of the avocado. You can put it in the fridge, but it turns brown and it doesn’t taste the same.)
I would put on some coffee and I would drink coffee and munch on my toast and eat my grapes. Sometimes, if I was feeling crazy, I would even fry up an egg on top of my avocado toast. I wasn’t what you would call skilled in the kitchen or anything, but I enjoyed making my own breakfast. It was much better than going to the dining hall.
I won’t go so far as to say that my mornings alone were like my own little sanctuary, but it was kind of close. The rest of my time, I was always under pressure to be or do something, and this was the only time I felt like I could really relax and be myself.
So, when Oliver Iblis decided to crash my breakfast one morning, I was not pleased.
Oliver was not an unattractive guy. All the guys in the Black Circle were hot, objectively speaking. Oliver had the blue-eyes-dark-hair thing going on for him. I’d noticed a lot of occultists did, and they were all very striking. It was probably because the occultist community was tight-knit and most people were descended from the same bloodlines. Anyway, he had an ethereal thing going on for him. He was tall and wiry and his hair waved a little.
I was getting my avocado container out of the refrigerator that morning, and I closed the fridge, he was right there, grinning.
I let out a little scream and dropped the container.
He smirked. “Sorry. Did I scare you?”
I picked up the container, trying to act as though he hadn’t freaked me out. “You’re up early.” Another good thing about these little vacuum-packed containers was that the avocado didn’t get bruised.
“Haven’t been to sleep, actually,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
“Me?” I said. Oliver and I were not in any way close. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I tried not to sound sarcastic.
“You going to the Horn Party?”
“Um… isn’t everyone?”
“You know that if you go to the Horn Party, it’s basically declaring yourself open season, right?”
“I don’t know that,” I said. I really wished he would leave. My toast popped up in the toaster, and I got it out, turning my back on him.
“Phist’s been acting weird about you ever since you showed up,” said Oliver. “I’m curious as to why.”
I turned around. “Look, if you’re asking me—”
“It’s not a request,” he said. “Phist has pull in the Circle, but I have pull too. You want to stay here in this house, enjoying all the perks of being part of the in crowd, you’ve got to put out a little.”
I blinked at him. “Are you seriously sexually harassing me over breakfast?”
“Oh, you feel harassed?” He stuck out his lower lip.
I glared at him.
“No one’s forcing you to be in the most exclusive society in Hellbent Academy. You could leave if it was too much for you.”
“Any interest I had in you, Oliver, has been utterly destroyed by this conversation we’re having. If the only way you can get girls to be with you is by threatening them—”
“That’s good,” said Oliver, laughing. “I like how spunky you are. Your sister, she would just blush a lot and act all terrified.”
Oh, he had to bring up Enid, didn’t he?
“You threw Tyler a bone, I hear,” he said, spreading his hands. “When’s it my turn?”
My nostrils flared.
He stepped closer to me, reaching out and running a finger over my cheek. “This is how we bind the Circle, Suther. We all have to be connected. Phist can’t keep you all to himself. It’s the Horn Party. You and me, it’s our moment.”
I shoved his hand off. “I think I’m going to be really busy at the party.”
“Yes,” he said, laughing. “You are.” He touched me again, his fingers against my jaw. A jolt of magic went into me, and it went down my body, down to the center of me, and tingled. But it didn’t feel good. It was invasive and entitled and foreign. I gasped, horrified at the violation of it.
Oliver laughed again.
Later, I told Lev about it, and he was sympathetic, but he didn’t understand why it changed anything. I was in the same situation I had been before. I’d known that I might have to do things in the Circle to keep up my cover. What was the big deal?
Besides, Lev thought it could be cool to have more than one guy. He mused—for way too long—on whether he’d want to do all the guys in the Circle all at once, or serially, one-on-one.
I couldn’t explain it. It was a visceral reaction to Oliver. There was nothing else to it. And there was no way I was wearing anything the least bit suggestive to the Horn Party.
* * *
A few days after my breakfast with Oliver, Phist was waiting for me when I got out of my last morning class, which was potions. I came out of Chillingworth Hall, and Phist was standing on the sidewalk, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. When he saw me, he raised his hand in a little wave.
I waved back, hoping that we would only exchange waves and that would be it.
But as I came down the steps, he strode over to meet me. “Hey.”
I looked up at him, thinking of him kneeling and putting his tongue between my legs. Heat washed through me. “Hey.”
“Walk with me?”
“Okay,” I said.
We walked.
We went down the sidewalk, and then we turned, and Phist led me down a little path that wound behind Prynne Hall. There was a garden out here that students had made for a semester project last year. Magical plants were growing in it.
“Oliver said something to me the other day,” Phist said. “He’s got some idea about the Horn Party and you.”
“Yeah, he said something to me, too,” I said.
Phist took a drag on his cigarette and then blew out smoke. “I’m not going to be there to run interference.”
“I thought it was, like, required that we be at the Horn Party.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “I figured it would be a good night for me to get into the potentate’s house and look for that map.”
“Oh, right. We still have to do that.”
“The potentate will come to the Horn Party,” said Phist. “The house will be empty. I’ve got intel that the map is being kept in a safe in his house. I’ll get in and crack the safe, get the map, destroy it. It needs to be done. Erik’s getting antsy. And I’ve been… distracted.”
By me? Whatever. “Okay, well, that’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Don’t go to the party,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
I stopped walking. “Sorry, that’s not an option, or I would steer clear, believe me.”
“It is an option,” he said, stopping too. “And it’s not a request. I don’t want you there. Oliver is determined, and I don’t want him touching you.”
“Well, I don’t want him touching me either,” I said, “so, I won’t let him.”
“How are you going to stop him?”
“I will stay clear of him,” I said, which was my only plan, currently.
“You can stay clear by not going.”
“No, I have something to do at the party.”
His face hardened. “What do you mean?”
I remembered how he’d reacted to hearing about the fact I was trying to find things out about my family. Maybe I shouldn’t bother to tell him at all. “None of your business.”
He tossed his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “Let me make something clear to you, Suther. I don’t care if it’s Oliver or Tyler or someone else. No one touches you except me.”
I just gaped at him. “You don’t get to say that to me.”
“Don’t I?”
“You can say you want to own me, but that doesn’t mean you do,” I snapped. I turned on my heel to leave.
He seized my shoulder, stopping me. “You’re mine.”
I shrugged out of his grasp. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re awful to me, and I hate you.” I stalked up the path, leaving him behind.
He caught up to me, fell into step beside me. His voice was raw. “Who is it? Who do you want to be with that night?”
“No one. For fuck’s sake.” I walked faster.
“No one?”
“No,” I said, turning on him fiercely. “I don’t want anyone. I definitely don’t want you, and I don’t want anyone else either.”
He got out another cigarette. “Then… why do you have to go to the party?”
I clenched my teeth and started walking again.
When he caught up, he blew out frustrated smoke. “Look, the least you can do is talk to me.”
“Really? Why do I owe you that courtesy, huh? Because I’m yours? Newsflash. I’m not.”
“Please, don’t go to the party,” he said, and now he sounded vulnerable, like back in the room when he’d begged me not to cover myself. Like he needed me in some way that had broken him down.
“I have to,” I said. “I need to get answers about my family.”
“Fuck,” he said in dismay.
“I don’t want to hear you call me stupid again, thanks. Just let it be. You’re not going to be able to talk me out of it.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not.” He spit the words out along with smoke. He was angry, but he was resigned. “I’ve never had any luck talking you out of anything you’ve made your mind up to do.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know why I bother to try.” He pushed past me on the path and walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tess and I were paired together to work on decorations for the Horn Party. The party ranged all over campus, but there were two main areas. One was in the courtyard between Merrin Hall and Regan Hall, and the other area was in the woods. It was the amphitheater where the fights took place. This was the official reason why it was out in the woods. It was also what the vendor stands out there were actually supposed to be used for.
There would be live music on the stage and there would be a lit path between the courtyard and the amphitheater. It wasn’t the same path that Lev and I had taken behind the dorm the first time I’d gone out there, but a bigger, paved one that students on the other side of campus used to get to the fights. I used it now that I lived in the Black Circle house.
Tess and I were tasked with putting up garlands of autumn leaves and twinkling lights. We set up bonfire baskets, we unfolded chairs, and we smoothed tablecloths over tables. We worked all afternoon the day of the party, and then there was barely any time to eat and get dressed before the festivities got underway.
I took a very long shower, staying in long after my fingers had gotten wrinkly. I felt like if I just stayed in the shower, then the evening couldn’t even happen.
Eventually, I had to get out, though. I wrapped up in towels and called Lev.
“Let’s not do this,” I said. “Let’s stay home and watch movies like you originally planned.”
“Is this because of Oliver?”
“I have a bad feeling about tonight. I don’t want to do this.”
“I’ll make sure he stays away from you,” said Lev.
“I…” I sighed.
“You want me to come over and help you do your makeup?” said Lev. “Come on, we have awesome costumes. We have to go. And we’ll spend the whole night shadowing June. The party tends to self-segregate based on age, so we probably won’t even see Oliver. We’ll be in a completely different area.”
“I really don’t know, Lev.”
“You want to find out what June knows, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do. Okay, come over. Help with makeup.”
“I’ll be there in a flash,” he said.
I went downstairs to meet him, because people in the Circle were weird about guests. They didn’t like non-Circle people wandering all over the house on their own.
Lev gave me a big hug when he showed up. I hugged him back. He was wearing his robe, but holding his mask, which he’d made with wire and paper mache and then painted. It had elaborate twisting horns, and it was genuinely awesome. We heard voices coming from the hallway. Someone was coming up from the basement.
We saw Ryan walk through in the hallway, and he was holding his nose.
Lev lurched forward. “Ryan?”
I went after him.
But Lev froze in the doorway when he saw Ryan there with an older man.
Ryan let out a funny laugh. “I got a nosebleed out of nowhere. I’m just heading to get a paper towel.”
Lev and I exchanged a glance.
Ryan disappeared into the kitchen.
The older man looked us both over. Then he seemed to make a decision and his face broke into a smile. “I’m Ryan’s father.”
“Oh,” I said brightly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Legion.”
Ryan came back, paper towel sopping up the blood on his nose. The swelling made it clear that there was a reason he had a nosebleed. He’d been hurt. Looked like someone had punched him.
“He ran into a door,” said Mr. Legion. “Sometimes my son’s clumsy.” He was still smiling, but his voice was cold.
“Yeah,” agreed Ryan. “That’s me, all right. A regular clutz.” He laughed, but the sound was hollow.
“Well,” said Mr. Legion, “it was good to catch up, son. We’ll meet tomorrow for brunch, all right?”
“Sure,” said Ryan, nodding at him, trying to smile.
Mr. Legion gave us all a wave, and then he walked past us. We heard the front door open and close.
Lev rushed forward, taking Ryan by the shoulders. “What the hell did he do to you?”
“No, come on, don’t say anything,” said Ryan.
“Let’s go into the kitchen and look at it,” said Lev, guiding him back into the kitchen, where the light was better.
I came after them. It was pretty clear to me that Ryan’s father had done this. It made me feel ill. No wonder Ryan was such a mess. When he said his parents punished him, he must have meant this, which wasn’t punishment. It was abuse.
But we weren’t alone in the kitchen, which was probably why Ryan hadn’t wanted Lev to say anything.
Gina and Phist were in there. Phist was leaning against one of the counters with a glass in his hand. Gina was standing awfully close to him, and I had a jolt of jealousy, which I quickly pushed aside.
