Chapter 126

KATHERINE.

I could barely focus on the conversation Professor Helton, Hunter, and Theo were having. The four of us were in Professor Helton’s living quarters in the boys’ dorm – Bolton Hall – and Theo had just finally managed to convince Professor Helton to help us instead of getting campus security involved. I suspected campus security was already involved though since the dean already knew that Lenore was already missing.

“I don't see things like Hunter does, Theo. I can't help you like he can.”

“He’s not getting anything, Uncle Helton…”

I drowned their voices out as I began to think about where Lenore could be, but every location I thought of ended up being canceled because Theo and Priyanka would have checked there before concluding that she was missing. I nervously fiddled with my fingers at the thought of the state she could be in right now and I pulled out my phone to text Priyanka but I realized that I was most likely the last person she wanted to talk to right now. I couldn't text Josie about it either because Theo wanted to keep this on the low.

I ground my teeth before returning my attention to the trio just as Professor Helton’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and my brows lifted. His seer-thing seemed calmer than Hunter's had been.

“Ah,” he muttered and I set my phone aside, leaning forward in my seat. “There’s a darkness in Blackwood… hovering like a cloud and it… it swallows people up.” His brows snapped together after that while I swallowed because that did ‘not’ sound good. God, I hoped Lenore hadn't been swallowed up. “And the darkness is getting bigger…” he trailed off and after several moments passed without him saying anything else, I couldn't help but think that there wasn't much to go on. We couldn't find Lenore and the other missing students with what he just said now, could we?

“Find yourself… your true… your true selves.” With that Professor Helton's eyes returned to normal and he winced, pressing his hand to the side of his head while my shoulders sagged.

‘Why do seers speak like that? Can't they give a direct answer? And what does he mean by find your true selves? Shouldn't we be finding the missing students instead?’

“Could she be in the dark forest?” Theo asked and my gaze slid to him. He had said there were worse things in the dark forest but those ‘worse things’ wouldn't stop him if his cousin/sister was in there.

Thankfully, Professor Helton said, “No…” Then he frowned. “It's a central location.”

Central location? “Like the dining hall,” I finally spoke, drawing their attention to me, and Professor Helton smiled

“It would be rather odd if the missing students were in the dining hall. But yes, a central location like the dining hall.”

“There are several central locations on campus,” Theo replied.

“...You'll know it when you find it.”

****

Moments after we stepped out of Professor Helton's living quarters, I stopped Theo while Hunter kept walking so I could talk to him in private, and he raised his brows at me.

“Have you tried to find her using… you know?”

He was with two dark magic spell books so he had to have tried to find her with them.

He glanced sideways before answering me, “Something's blocking me.”

I drew my brows together as we both resumed walking, staying close enough to each other to be able to converse in a low voice. “What do you mean?”

“I used something that belonged to her and the school's map to try to find a location but before I could get a feel of where she was, the map burned.”

What the– “Spontaneously?” I asked and he nodded. “So the person's using dark magic too?” I added and he nodded again before my stomach rolled. “Shit.”

We quickened our pace till we got to his and Hunter's room where Hunter was already laying out the school's map and brochures on his bed. “Okay, we need to be quick about this?” Hunter said, picking up a brochure to go through it when we got to his bed.

“How are we going to know it when we find it?” I asked as I picked up another brochure and they both shrugged. We spent the next several minutes taking note of the central locations mentioned in the brochure and marking it on the map. When we were done, Hunter and Theo began to talk about how those locations could be connected to where the missing students were last seen – Clearberry – and when my gaze drifted to where Blackwood’s statue was on the map, Professor Helton's words from earlier came to mind.

‘Find your true selves.’ My eyes went round. The inscription on Blackwood’s statue said ‘Knowledge is power and in the darkness, we find our true selves.’ True selves!

“Blackwood,” I said and both boys paused to glance at me. “The statue. What Professor Helton said,” I added in a rush and they blinked at me before realization dawned on their faces. “Is Bolton Hall a central location?”

“Uh, kinda,” Theo said while Hunter muttered, “Killian Bolton Blackwood.”

“The hall was named after him?”

“It was built on the land his living quarters were on before. Some of his things are still in the basement.”

At that, Theo immediately got to his feet and rushed out of the room and Hunter and I shared a look before we went after him. Unlike what I expected, the basement wasn't dark and creepy but it was clear that nobody had been down here in a while.

“Have you guys been here before?” I asked Hunter as we headed towards where we could hear Theo.

“Once. Last session,” he replied. “Someone thought it was haunted by Killian Blackwood and I thought it would be a great idea for us to spend the night here. We ended up going through his stuff.” He let out a harsh breath and shook his head sideways. “This was when things changed.”

I glanced at him just as we found Theo going through some very dusty boxes. “What do you mean?”

“Blake started acting weird after we came down here.”

I drew my brows together at that but he didn't say anything else and walked over to Theo to help him search the box he was going through.

“What are you searching for?” he asked Theo.

“I don't know.” He seemed to be getting more anxious as time passed and I didn't hesitate to join them in the search because I understood how he felt. I'd be the same way if Kit disappeared.

The moment I opened another box, I paused at the sight of the first object there. It was a translucent jar that people could just dismiss as nothing, but it wasn't just nothing. My frown deepened as I turned the jar in my hand, scrutinizing the markings all over the jar.

I'd seen a good number of them before… in the dark magic book I found in Renfield and they were under a spell about containing a person's soul. And the jar wasn't the only object in the box that had dark magic-related markings on it.

My gaze slid from the jar to where Theo was and I found him already staring at me. The expression on his face matched the thought that went through my mind – ‘Why’s this down here?’

I glanced at Hunter to see if he was also staring at the object in my hand and if he recognized it, but all I saw were his eyes changing from a completely white to its normal color. “Hunter, what'd you see?” I asked and his head jerked in my direction, an expression akin to panic on his face, before he suddenly rushed out of the basement. “Hunter!” I called out before Theo and I went after him, thinking he had gone back to their room, but when we got there, it was empty.

He had obviously come here though because his bag was missing from the chair at his desk. ‘What the hell? What happened? What did he see?’ I thought before heading over to his desk to see if he'd taken anything that could give us a clue as to where he went because he'd obviously seen something important. Probably where Lenore was. ‘Why didn't he say anything?’

His desk was a mess with just his stroke drawings scattered on it and I glanced over my shoulder to see Theo with his phone pressed to his ear as he approached me. He was probably calling Hunter to find out what the hell that was.

He came to a stop next to me and glanced down at the drawings. A moment after I looked over the drawings, I narrowed my eyes as I realized some of them had a pattern.

"Huh…" I lifted one of the drawings up and as I picked up another one, Theo spoke.

“He started drawing them after that night?”

“What night?”

“The night we went down to the basement.”

I held the two drawings close to each other and realized I was right. It was a pattern. “Help me with this,” I said as I gathered as many of the drawings as I could and moved them to the bed, and Theo moved the rest over before I began to piece them together with his help.

It was just like fitting pieces of a puzzle together and minutes later, we finished putting them together and took a step back to stare at our work.

The drawings had formed a picture; a picture of two people with their backs pressed to each other and I clearly recognized both of them. One was Blake… and the other was Killian Blackwood.

****

‘What’s going on?’ I thought as Theo kicked in Blake's door and marched into the room. A lot of things were happening and they were moving too fast for me to keep track of.

First, Lenore had gone missing. Second, Hunter was a seer, something he didn't like people finding out because of a reason I had yet to learn. Third, there were objects related to dark magic among Killian Blackwood’s things. Lastly, Blake was possessed by Blackwood?

That last one confused the hell out of me, but Theo was a hundred percent sure that was it and he had tried to explain – Blake's personality took a 180-degree turn after they went to the basement and went through Killian Blackwood’s things, and the way he acted was how history books described Blackwood's behavior; the soul holding jar was currently empty; there have been reports of people missing a lot of ‘time’ in the past; also, Hunter's puzzle drawing of both of them. I still found it hard to wrap my head around it and that was most likely because I never knew the ‘old’ Blake they talked about.

Theo sniffed the air after coming to a stop in the room and I took a step in before doing the same. Even though my sense of smell wasn't completely advanced, I picked up what he did – the scent of vanilla, jasmine, and bergamot. Lenore's favorite perfume. She was here recently.

“Ah…” I muttered before I remembered that Blake didn't recognize me a couple of days ago. What if it hadn't been an act like I thought it was? What if it had been truly Blake?

Theo tore through the room in a couple of seconds and it was clear that there was no one there because when he got back to the bedroom, rage and worry were still written all over his face. I hated seeing him like this. I wanted to help him, but I didn't know how.

“Renfield Hall is a central location…” I started and Theo turned to face me. “For ghosts. Blake told me he likes hanging out there.” I didn't know if he'd lied but it was something.

A growl rumbled in Theo’s chest and he began to head towards the door, but even though I understood how he felt right now – his friend was possessed by someone who had most definitely been possessing people for almost a century and was a mass murderer, and that mass murderer had his relative – I stopped him before he could walk past me. “He's using dark magic, Theo. If you're correct, that means he's been present for almost a century. He'll be way more advanced than you are in dark magic.” There was also the fact that he liked Lenore, but he'd taken her too. He didn't like Theo the way he liked Lenore, and that told me that he'd just kill Theo if he confronted him.

I didn't want that to happen. I didn't want to lose Theo.

“I can't just sit around doing nothing!”

“Then I'm coming with you!” I shot back. I wasn't letting him go alone.

“No way!”

“You can't stop me! I won't be okay if you get hurt and you–”

His lips slammed against mine, surprising me and making me stumble backward a bit before his arms wrapped around my waist. My shock only lasted for a little while before I kissed him back like my life depended on it. By the time we broke apart, we were both panting but we didn't let go of each other. In fact, his hold on me tightened and the look in his eyes…

I was back to square one with finding my mate and I'd said I wanted to take my time with it because I didn't want to jump to conclusions like I had with Blake. But the connection I had with Theo was undeniable. It was beyond a spark; this was something I felt in my soul.

Theo was my mate. And he knew I was his.

“That wasn't a mistake,” he muttered against my lips and I sucked in a breath.

“There's no way in hell I'm letting you go alone now.”

“You're so stubborn, Katherine.”

“We're alike in that sense, Theodore,” I replied before I kissed him again. “Let's go get Lenore from that freak now.”