Chapter 23

KATHERINE.

The orientation video had said Renfield Hall was one of the oldest buildings in Blackwood but it had failed to mention that it also looked haunted as fuck.

‘...Am I in the right place?’ I glanced over my shoulder, as though I might have missed the real hall, but according to my map and the iron gates a couple of feet behind me which declared that this was Renfield Hall, I hadn’t. ‘What the actual fuck?’

Renfield Hall was a massive building. Its four stories seemed to have burst out of the ground like an abomination, full of disorderly protrusions and jumbled ledges. More than two dozen black windows overlooked the entryway, which consisted of three broad-stone steps leading up to a wooden-arch double door. The stones of the pillars supporting the awning were all old, worn down, and speckled with green-and-gray lichen, and weeds choked the spaces between the stones of the flagstone path. Many of the building's windows were dark and had cracks or holes in them, while plants spilled beyond their boundaries in uncontrollable tangles, fighting for space, and there were nearly as many dead trees as living ones.

If I wasn’t staring at the building right now, I wouldn’t believe there was a building in Blackwood that was in such a state of disrepair. They needed to update the picture of this hall in the orientation video by the way because that was false advertising.

“What the actual fuck?” This time I said it out loud as my gaze slid to the windows which were dark and filled with shadows that played tricks on my eyes. “They didn't put the keys in you, did they?” I asked, staring at the house like I expected it to respond. Thankfully, it did not and after glancing at the cottages around the hall which were in the same state of disrepair, I decided to start my search for the keys in them.

About thirty minutes later, I heaved a sigh as I stepped out of the last cottage I’d searched with no keys in hand and returned my attention to Renfield Hall. Of course, they were in the fucking building. The club's name was Campus Mysterious Event Society and that building looked like it contained a shit ton of mysteries.

Once again, the reason I had to pass the CMES club’s test came to mind – I had to find my mate to prevent the dissolution of my pack, I had to join the CMES club in order to find my mate, I had to pass the club’s test in order to join the club… but I didn’t want to go into that building alone.

‘What are the chances another applicant has figured out the hint in Theo’s words and was nearby now?’ I thought, pacing around next to what used to be the garden of Renfield Hall. ‘What if I was wrong about the hint and was just wasting time here? What if all the keys had been found and I couldn’t join the CMES club? What if… Wait, do I actually need to be in the club to find my mate? I know my mate’s a member of the club. All I need to do is figure out who, I don’t need to be in the club to do that–’ I put a stop to that train of thought and shook my head sideways. ‘Get it together, Katherine.’

Sure, I didn’t need to be in the CMES club to find my mate since I already knew he was either a member of the club or one of the applicants that’d be joining the club, but it’d be ‘way’ better if I was.

“Damn it,” I muttered as I stopped pacing, glaring at the building before I began to march towards it.

A deep cry startled me and I stopped once more, jerking my head in the direction it had come from to see a flock of crows perched on a long-dead oak tree near the house. Its branches seemed to extend towards me like gnarled, twisted fingers, and I frowned at it as I resumed walking towards the building.

Long dead leaves crunched under my feet as I climbed the worn steps to the front door and approached the doors. One of the massive slabs of wood had been left ajar and my nerves and desire to join the CMES warred with each other for a moment as I stared into the building, but the latter won out. I sucked in a breath and bent forward, peeking my head through the opening.

The windows were too grimy to let much light in, but I could see that the foyer was vast. At least twenty doors lined its walls. At the room’s back was a magnificent staircase to the second, third and fourth floors and threadbare carpet ran up its center. Leaves and dirt had blown in through the front door and broken windows, and old, collapsing furniture lay around It took me a couple of moments more of surveying the foyer before I reluctantly walked into the building and glanced at my surroundings again. I didn’t want to spend longer than necessary here so I immediately got to work, searching places where I thought a key could be. A minute later, I realized that was the wrong approach and decided to try to think like one of the boys – Theo, Blake and Hunter – since they were the ones who hid the key.

“I don’t even know what the key looks like,” I muttered just before a scraping noise echoed through the building. It seemed to come from one of the upper floors and reverberated in a way that made me jolt. “Fuck,” I cursed, my gaze darting to the stairs as the noise continued for several moments before abruptly stopping. “Fuck.”

The urge to book it out of here was strong as I waited for something to appear at the top of the stairs, but the shadowed, cobweb-shrouded upper halls remained empty.

‘It’s probably an animal… I mean, some windows are broken…’

Hoping I wouldn’t be proved wrong, I quietly made my way to one end of the room, trying to find something that Theo, Blake, and Hunter would have hidden the keys in by thinking the way I assumed they would even though I barely knew Theo and all I knew about Blake was that he was lively and Hunter was that he was sweet. It was worth a shot though.

To my left and right, hallways stretched away until they eventually faded into shadow. Despite their age, the silver wallpaper and blue carpet looked beautiful and paintings lined the walls. The halls felt eerily quiet though, almost as though they were sleeping.

‘So help me, if I die here, I will haunt every member of the CMES club and everyone that wanted the dissolution of my pack… I’d even haunt Dean Bryman for free.’

The scraping noise echoed through the building once more and I gritted my teeth, cursing every event that led to me standing in this fucking house. As I tried to figure out my next line of action, one of the doors close to me suddenly swung open and my heart slammed against my chest before a shadowy figure stepped into the doorway.

I screamed.