Chapter 26

KATHERINE

‘Damn it… Damn it, damn it, damn it!’ I pounded my fist on the table before remembering I was at the library and I shot an apologetic look at the other students around who were currently frowning at me before returning my gaze to the computer in front of me.

I was running out of time. It was currently eight forty pm, meaning I had about twenty minutes left to find the coin my key was supposed to lead me to and turn it in to the CMES, but I hadn’t and it was starting to look like I wouldn’t. I had tried and tried to figure out what the message attached to the key meant, but every trial always ended in failure, and I couldn’t find Lenore and Priyanka. Lenore had left her phone in our room so there was no way for me to contact her, and Priyanka wasn’t answering calls.

At this point, the urge to give up was overwhelming, but I couldn’t accept the fact that a fucking sentence would be what was going to keep me out of the CMES club and away from my mate. I couldn’t. I heaved a sigh and closed the browser before grabbing the key and shoving it into my pocket.

“Is everything okay?”

I glanced over to see Chelsea, the girl I had given my phone to when I was drunk at the bonfire, walking up to me. I’d found out that she worked in the library and was also on aided learning when Josie and Zac dropped me off at the library hours ago.

“Stupid CMES test,” I muttered and she gave me a sad smile.

“You could try to ask the members for an extra hint.”

I’d already thought of asking Lenore but now that she said ‘members’, the thought of asking the other members I knew popped into my head. Blake and Hunter were nice so they would probably help me but I didn’t know where they were. Theo was in the library – the History section, to be exact – but based on all the interactions we’d had, I knew he wasn’t going to help me “I–” someone shushed us loudly, cutting me off and I snapped my mouth shut before leaning closer to Chelsea and lowering my voice even more. “I’ll go try to find Lenore.”

She nodded before I headed to the first floor and out of the library. When I was halfway to Stavenger Hall, my phone buzzed and I immediately pulled it out, hoping it was Josie and she’d helped me figure it out.

[Josie: How’s it going? I keep coming up blank. Have you figured it out yet?]

‘Damn it.’

[Me: No.]

Hunter and Blake popped into my mind once again and I typed out another message.

[Me: Do you know where Hunter is?]

[Josie: Art studio, but he’s not going to tell you anything. I already tried.]

‘Ah… He and Josie have been friends way longer than I knew him so if he refused to help her, there was no chance he was helping me.’

[Me: What about Blake?]

[Josie: I can’t find him and his phone is switched off.]

“Crap,” I muttered before telling her I was going to check if Lenore was back in our room, and hurrying over to my destination.

The moment I opened the room’s door, I saw Lenore’s jacket and purse on the bed, and relief washed over me while I pulled the key out of my pocket. I could also see her dressing room’s door was partially open so I began to head towards it and though she’d said she didn’t want to play favorites by giving us an extra hint last night, I was determined to pull one from her this time.

Then I heard it. The sound of muffled weeping. I paused right outside her door and saw her curled in a ball on the floor, her body shaking hard with the force of her sobs.

‘Oh…’ I took a step back from the door, blinking at it in surprise as I tried to figure out if I should go in or leave her alone.

We were friends and roommates so I could go in but I didn’t know why she was crying and though we were friends, we sort of weren’t that close yet, so she might not be happy with my presence. After a few moments of thinking, I headed back to the door, stepped out of the room, and quietly shut the door behind me.

‘I should leave her be… What happened though? Should I go find Priyanka or call Josie?’

I lifted my phone and dialed Priyanka’s number but again, she didn’t answer so I dialed Josie’s after. As it began to ring though, I ended it because Lenore hadn’t even known I had seen her like that. She might not like it if I called one of her friends to let them know.

‘What should I do then? I don’t want to leave her like that.’ I glanced back at the door and pressed my lips together, wondering if I should go back in.

“Oh, you found the key to the treasure,” a voice said and I looked left to see Blake walking down the hallway.

“Huh?” I muttered before the corner of his mouth turned up as he gestured at my hand and I glanced down to see the key. I had forgotten about it. “Oh,” I said before his words replayed in my mind and I jerked my gaze back to him. “Treasure? It's to a box?”

“No, captain,” he replied, walking past me, and I frowned.

“What do you mean then?”

“Bye, Katherine.”

“Hey!” I called out but he didn’t respond and turned around a corner.

‘Key to a treasure but not to a box? …Is that supposed to be helpful?’ All he did was confuse me even more and my frown deepened as I lifted the key to stare at it. ‘Wait…’

Blake said it was the key to a treasure and had oddly called me captain. The head of the key was a skull and crossbones. The message attached to the key was ‘with their hearts full of gold, with their eyes on the prize, and the sea as their guide’.

Those things pointed to pirates!

I lifted my phone in a rush, almost dropping the key in the process, and opened the werewolf browser Josie had helped me get into. It was just like a normal browser but it had answers to werewolf questions one couldn’t get on a normal browser.

I then typed out ‘Blackwood pirate’ and a second later, results popped up. I immediately began to read what I could from the first website without opening it and according to it, Killian Blackwood had loved pirates when he was alive. He loved them so much, he carved a ship by hand and the ship is exhibited in the Art Faculty.

‘The Art Faculty.’ I ran for the stairs and on my way down, I passed Blake who yelled “Good luck” to me. Deciding that I’d thank him later and ignoring my phone which began to buzz repeatedly, I kept moving and made my way to the Art Faculty as fast as I could.

By the time I found the dimly lit room where the huge wooden ship Killian Blackwood had carved was in the building, I only had less than ten minutes left until the deadline for the test and thankfully, the keyhole wasn’t hard to find. I unlocked the compartment in the ship and saw the golden coin with a ‘B’ on it resting there and without taking time to celebrate, I grabbed it.

Then I began to rush back to the door and as I did that, I saw something that made me stop for a moment. Theo.

There were people in the room so I hadn’t noticed ‘him’ when I walked in but he was there, sitting in the corner with some students and watching me, and though the room was dimly lit, the expression on his face was unmistakable.

He was smirking at me.