Chapter 109

KATHERINE.

Dean Bryman was there. I could hear her losing her shit in the hallway outside and it had been fun to listen to for a moment because it was clear Noah and his friends were in ‘huge’ trouble – I even heard her mention expulsion and sanctions on their packs – but I still felt awful. Theo had been gone for quite a while and even though I wanted to leave this place, I didn’t because he’d told me he was coming back.

‘...What if he lied?’ I curled into a tighter ball on the bed as that thought popped into my mind and I sucked in a breath. I knew I was only doubting him because this would be a trivial abandonment compared to what Blake did so ‘why not?’, but I couldn’t stop. When the thought began to wildly bounce around my mind with no intent of stopping anytime soon, I got to my feet and headed towards the door. The moment I opened it though, Theo was on the other side and the fact that he hadn’t lied made a small smile creep onto my face.

“Sorry I took so long,” he said and I nodded before he glanced over his shoulder. “Are you heading to your dorm?” he asked and I nodded again before he gestured for me to follow him. “Come on, I’ll walk you there.”

We headed down the hallway, out of the hospital, and towards Stavenger Hall through a shortcut in the woods. Theo walked right by my side and when I wrapped my arms around myself due to the cold, he handed me his jacket. It was warm and smelled like him, and once again I found tears welling up in my eyes, but this time it was because he cared. I let myself fall a couple of steps behind him on the trail and when I managed to compose myself, I picked up my pace to walk right next to him again, but I didn’t get to him because the next moment, the ground suddenly gave out beneath me.

I screamed before hitting the bottom of what was a deep and wide pit and as pain radiated through my body, I heard Theo call out, “Katherine!”

“Down here!” I yelled before cursing under my breath as I moved my body to see if I’d twisted or broken anything. Thankfully, I hadn’t, but why the hell was there a pit here? I groaned before Theo’s face appeared above the pit and his frown deepened. “Why’s there a pit here?”

“I– I have no…” He trailed off and suddenly wrinkled his nose as he recoiled, making me draw my brows together. I sniffed, wanting to know what had made him react like that, but I didn’t smell anything… wait, there was something. “Oh shit! Katherine, don’t freak out. I’ll get you out. I’m right here, okay? I’m just going to find something to pull you out with.”

I sniffed again before I also wrinkled my nose at the odor. It smelled like something had died here and I couldn’t help but wonder what unfortunate animal had gotten stuck in this pit. Again, why was there a pit here? There wasn’t a particular direction that the smell was coming from – it seemed to surround me – and as something suddenly ran across my hand, I jolted before pulling my phone out of my pocket to see several messages from Helena and Tiffany. I then turned on the flashlight and pointed it at my hand, only to see a person next to me. I screamed.

It was Chelsea.

“Oh my God! Chelsea?!”

“I’m coming, Katherine!” came Theo’s voice from outside while I noticed that there were nine other students in the pit with me – nine students that had gone missing, but the school had said they weren't. They were all quiet and unmoving – some of them were even lying on each other – and it took me another moment to notice that their skin was pale and lifeless, and some of them had their eyes open but they were unseeing.

It was then that I realized the smell of death that surrounded me wasn’t because of any animal, it was because of them.

****

Chelsea was dead. The ten students that had gone missing on the last day of Blackwood’s anniversary event were dead.

I scanned my student ID against the panel of my room’s door and the door unlocked before I walked in, shutting it behind me. I felt numb. Theo had called campus security after he pulled me out of the pit and I don’t think I really processed what was happening till they got there. Chelsea was dead; She wasn’t at her cousin’s place like her parents had claimed and she definitely hadn’t been the one to speak to her parents because she was still in the clothes she had been wearing when she went missing.

I had slipped away while an officer from campus security questioned Theo and as I glanced around my room now, I realized I hadn’t told him goodbye or given him his jacket back. Based on what I’d witnessed minutes ago, what I was thinking of was unimportant, but I wanted to focus on that instead because I didn’t want to think of Chelsea being dead.

‘Chelsea is dead… Chelsea is dead… Chelsea is–’ I sucked in a breath and moved backward a bit. I then leaned against the door for a moment, my eyes closed, but Chelsea’s body rose up from the darkness, and I flung my lids wide again, pushing off the door. First things first, I wanted to get rid of all the evidence of what just happened, so I quickly made my way over to the bathroom.

I stripped off my clothes and shoved them into the trash bin in the bathroom. I didn’t want to put them in my laundry basket because I didn’t want to get the dirt and the smell of death on any of my other clothes. Now that I’d noticed the smell, it was everywhere. My skin, my clothes, my nose, even my hair, and I ran the shower as hot as I could take it and forced myself to stand still under the spray, letting the heat and water cleanse away the night. The fragrant soap helped me convince myself the smell of death wasn’t ingrained on my skin, but I still scrubbed myself pink and when I was done, near raw from the shower, I changed into my softest pajamas, hoping the comfort would help, but instead, I just felt antsy.

I didn’t want to be by myself, but I wasn’t going back out there either, so I began to pace in the room. Why did the school tell us the students were okay? Who did Chelsea’s parents talk to? Who did all the other parents talk to? Who did Lydia talk to? …What happened to those students? Who did ‘that’ to them? Why did they do that to them?

A soft knock came on the door, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I paused before walking over, opening it to see Theo on the other side with a soft expression on his face. “Hey.” He walked into the room and gently shut the door behind himself. “I thought you might need someone to check up on you,” he muttered and I blinked at him before the fact that Chelsea was ‘dead’ came to mind for the nth time, making my eyes begin to water before I wrapped my arms around him. “...I’m sorry about your friend,” he added and I nodded before realizing his shirt was soaking up my tears.

“I’m always crying around you.”

“I noticed.” He gently rubbed my back and the warmth of his body anchored me, keeping me from floating away on a wave of terror about a murderer being in this school. I also realized that he was all that could soothe me right now, and I needed that more than anything.

Theo pulled away a bit to give me a small smile and as his hands slid away from my back, cold rushed in and that numb feeling began to make a reappearance. “I should let you get some.” He began to turn around after he said that and without thinking, I grabbed his arm.

“Stay.” I didn’t want to be alone tonight.

He raised his brows and his gaze bounced between me and the door. “I–”

“Please stay.”

His eyes softened at my plea and the corner of his mouth turned up a bit. At that moment, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen and before I could form a thought, I leaned forward and kissed him. Theo went rigid and my heart tightened in my chest as I internally winced, but before I could pull away to profusely apologize, Theo kissed me back.

‘Oh. My. God.’

His right hand was warm against my cheek and his other hand was a gentle, supportive pressure against my lower back while I molded myself to him, arms clasped around his neck to pull him tighter to me. I could feel my heart frantically beating in my chest as I was swept up in the kiss, and I ran my fingers through his hair which was as soft and silky as I’d imagined before his grip around my waist tightened. Our breaths meshed together with me fighting for air while trying to hold onto reality.

There was so much going on right now – the issue with my mate and Chelsea and the other missing students being dead – so I couldn’t help but feel selfish for being distracted like this. But at the same time, after everything that had happened, I thought I deserved something nice for once. I couldn’t imagine stopping now, but then the sound of people screaming outside – not panicked screams – made Theo pull away. He blinked at me twice before clearing his throat and the sound was loud in the awkward silence.

“I– I should go. I should leave you to rest.”

“Yeah. Yep,” I replied because I had absolutely no idea what to say with nervous energy dancing through my veins. “You should– Your jacket–”

“I’ll–” He cut himself off and gestured at the door before blinking at me again, and heading out of the room, leaving me with one thought in my mind.

‘What just happened?’

I knew I had other, more important things to think about, knew I needed to figure out how I was going to deal with the issue with my mate, but all my brain could focus on for hours after Theo left was that kiss. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it, let alone Theo. ‘Does he regret it? What should I say to him if I see him today? Should I text him? Is he going to pretend it didn’t happen the next time we see each other? …Should I pretend it didn’t happen?’ was one of the questions bouncing around my mind at two am as I lay in bed and I rolled over with a groan. ‘Fuck.’

****

Unlike the whirlpool of thoughts in my head, Saturday dawned bright, sunny, and clear. News of the students that had been found dead in the forest had spread like fire in the school sometime in the middle of the night, so it was all everyone was talking about, and it was also all I could think about while the kiss with Theo lingered in the back of my mind. I still couldn’t believe I had kissed him… and he had kissed me back. I absent-mindedly lifted my fingers to my lips, feeling like the energy from the kiss was still there, unspent. It was still fresh in my mind… the feeling of his warm body against mine, the strength in his arms as he held me to him…

Heat rushed to my face as these thoughts came to mind and I scolded myself for even thinking of that right now as I repeatedly cleared my throat before returning my attention to the document Professor Helton had told me to edit. Less than a minute later, the door swung open and Hunter marched in, breathing heavily, before pausing when he saw me in the office.

“Hunter,” I called as I slowly got to my feet, my brows furrowed at the pained expression on his face. It looked like he was panicking. “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s my uncle?”

“The dean called an emergency meeting, so he went to the Administrative building,” I replied before my gaze fell to the sketchbook in his hand which he was gripping tightly. It reminded me of another sketchbook – the one he’d drawn Chelsea and the other missing students in – and the hairs on the back of my neck rose before I remembered the weird conversation I’d heard him having with Professor Helton that day. I swallowed and lifted my gaze back to his face. Could he have– No, no, I already came to the conclusion that it wasn’t him… but… “...Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine, Katherine.” With that, he walked out of the office and I slowly sat back down. Now I was thinking about the conversation Hunter had with his uncle and as I remembered Professor Helton’s words – ‘It’s who we are, Hunter’ – I became unsettled.

‘What did he mean by that? Why did Hunter draw the students who went missing? Does he have something to do with what happened to them?’ My mind churned at the thought and I glanced around the office as Professor Helton’s words came to mind again. The school… Professor Helton… Hunter… they were all hiding something and since Professor Helton was connected to the school and Hunter, the thought of ‘having a look around’ slipped into my mind because where better to start if I wanted answers about what happened to Chelsea?