Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
It’s Sunday night. Lights out at eleven as usual, and I’m just about to put my novel aside when I get a text on the school messaging system.
Maddox
Need to talk. It’s about your mom
Is it wrong that my first reaction is OMG, Maddox actually messaged me? My second one, of course, is to try to analyze why that’s such a big deal. In the end, I decide it’s just because Maddox is one of those people who leaves you never knowing where you stand.
I’ve spent hours with him reading in the library or out back, talking and staring at the sky together.
You’d think that makes us friends, but I don’t have his cell number and he hasn’t asked for mine.
When we pass in the halls, I’m lucky to get a nod of acknowledgment.
So yes, having him message makes my heart flutter.
I check out the window. The bench is empty.
Me
Meet out back?
Maddox
Basement
Me
***
Maddox
Found something in the basement, Chamberlain. You wanna see it or not?
Me
Be right there
Maddox
Midnight. Staff’s still here
Me
Right. See you then
I’m sorely tempted to sneak down to the basement early and try to find what he’s talking about on my own.
Yep, that’s me—always wanting to be one step ahead.
But with Maddox, I want to let him show me what he’s found, because that too is a big deal.
I’ve mentioned my mother and her Dux journal and how badly I want to know more about her time here, to figure out why she left. And Maddox found me something.
Does that mean he went looking? He must have. He’d seen old books or something down there and returned in hopes of finding information on my mom, and that’s huge. It really is.
Maddox seems to enjoy our time together, but he’s not Theo, who has made it very clear that he wants me around.
With Maddox, there is always a worry that his pact with Cecilia means he feels obligated to be nice to me.
He hasn’t mentioned his sister, even though we’ve talked about my parents’ deaths and my grief.
He’s put up a barrier that I can’t cross, and I really want to.
Now he seems to have gone looking for answers to my questions, and that hour passes so slowly. At 11:55 p.m., I’m up—already dressed—and slipping out my door.
The staff leaves at various times during the evening, with the last ones departing around eleven.
There are still guards, of course, but they’re on outdoor duty.
Students aren’t confined to the house—as evidenced by Maddox being able to sit outside, undisturbed—but if you tried to actually leave the grounds, you’d be stopped.
Outside my door, I listen for sounds of life. There are none. Everyone is supposed to have been in their rooms an hour ago, and it seems they are.
Getting to the basement means going down a whole lotta stairs.
I pass the second floor—also bedrooms—and exit onto the first, where most of the common rooms are located.
Part of the basement is also common areas—namely, the archives and the media room.
But I’m guessing that’s not what Maddox means, and I head straight for the door into the off-limits sections.
It’s cracked open.
I push the knob, and the door creaks wide.
When I reach for the light switch, I almost expect it not to do anything.
Creepy basement. Squeaky door. Of course the lights won’t work.
They do, though, and I walk into a hallway with three closed doors.
I mostly shut the one behind me, though I leave it open a half-inch because while I really can’t see Maddox locking me in as a prank—or even playing a prank—I’m being careful.
I continue along the hall. The first door opens into a room with manacles on the wall and dried blood on the floor and…
I’m kidding, of course. It opens into the furnace room. The next door reveals additional machinery, most of it very old and probably unused. That leaves the final door, and as I approach, I realize I should have started there, because it’s open a half-inch, with light beyond.
I push the door. It does not creak, sadly, but it does open to another staircase, this one a classically creepy wooden stairs.
“Maddox?” I call down.
There’s definitely a light on, and maybe I’ve read too many scary stories, but I am not waltzing down those stairs until I’m sure he’s there. I take out my phone, open the school messaging app, and type.
Me
I’m at the top of the stairs. Where are you?
My message pulses and then a “Not Delivered” warning pops up.
I frown down at the phone. Then I see the “no signal” symbol. Okay, it makes sense that I wouldn’t get a cell signal down here, but when I tap the Wi-Fi indicator, it just spins. From somewhere in the basement comes what sounds like a voice. Maddox’s voice. It’s muffled, so I take two steps down.
“Maddox?” I say.
A reply, but I still can’t hear his words. It definitely sounds like him, though.
Damn it. I do not want to go down there until I’m sure.
Really, Chamberlain, what do you need? A formal invitation by carrier pigeon?
I take another step. Then a stair creaks behind me, and I start to turn when something hits me between the shoulder blades, hard, knocking me forward, and I’m still turning, which means my feet tangle. I catch one glimpse of a figure slamming the door and then I’m plummeting down the stairs.
My hands shoot out to grab something, anything, as I fall, my hip striking the edge of one stair, my shoulder whacking into another. I start skidding headfirst and manage to…
I don’t even know what I do. I flail and somehow that stops me before my head hits the concrete floor below.
I lie there, on my side, pain and panic slamming through me. Then, very slowly, I roll onto my stomach, looking at the floor a few steps down. I get my palms on the step and brace myself, but I don’t know how to rise from this position, and I’m afraid of tumbling the rest of the way.
I squirm and twist until—after what seems like forever—I’m crunched up sideways on the stairs and I can get my feet down. I don’t stand. I just keep pushing until I’m sitting there, leaning over my knees, my heart racing as I catch my breath.
The flashed image from above shoots back.
Jayden.
That’s who pushed me.
That’s who could have killed me.
I start to shiver, and I can’t breathe, my chest heaving as fresh panic thrums through me.
I could have died. If I hadn’t caught myself, my head would have smashed into the concrete below, and even if I survived, I could have suffered brain damage and—
Rage licks at the heels of the panic.
What the hell?
What the absolute fucking hell?
Someone just tried to kill me.
I take a moment to catch my breath. Then I rise, and I would love to say I march up the stairs, but it’s really more like hobbling, my hand on the banister, my breath coming hard as I pull myself up.
I grab the doorknob and—
The door is locked.
I let out a string of curses. Then I take a deep breath—gasping as pain shoots through me—before I lift my phone and…
And I see the “no signal” warning.
No cell signal. No Wi-Fi.
I fight the panic and struggle to focus. Jayden is in Hephaestus. Theo said his parents run a tech company. Cutting off communications would be no problem for him. Nor would hacking the school messaging system or setting up a speaker to play a voice clip of Maddox.
I look at the messages again.
I hadn’t questioned them. They sounded like Maddox—the tone, the abrupt sentences.
Yet anyone who’s had contact with him would know that’s his style.
Same as anyone at Westdale could guess I’d want information on my mother.
The thing that had made me not question it, though, was calling me by my last name.
But all Natalia or Jayden had to do was eavesdrop on one of the rare occasions when Maddox and I talk in the halls.
So I have no phone signal, I’m injured, and I’m locked in the basement.
I lift my fist to bang on the door. Then I stop. Who am I going to summon by banging? There’s no staff, and the students are at least two floors up, in rooms with soundproofing for privacy. The only person who might answer is Jayden…who could realize I’m still alive and come back to fix that.
I want to laugh at the thought. Of course he wouldn’t murder me.
But he almost did, didn’t he? It’s not as if he grabbed my shoulder, and I accidentally fell. He shoved me hard. If he just wanted to give me a scare, he could have locked the door behind me.
He tried to kill me.
Over a high-school competition.
I hear Ms. Dimitriou’s voice.
Dangerous? It’s not the Hunger Games, Cecilia.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean contestants can’t go too far.
I close my eyes and refocus. I don’t want to shout for help until I’m sure someone—who is not Jayden—will hear me.
Staff start coming in around five, which I know because the earliest we can grab coffee is six.
Even if they don’t hear me then, Jayden can’t mess with the Wi-Fi after everyone starts waking up. That means I only need to wait…
I check my phone.
Five hours? Maybe six?
I head downstairs. Then a noise comes from deeper in the basement and I stop short.
Am I sure shoving me down these stairs was the extent of Jayden’s plan? What if someone’s down here? Someone who might hurt me if the stairs didn’t do enough.
Earlier, I’d heard Maddox’s voice.
No, that was a trick. A recording or something.
Am I sure?
My insides lurch at the very thought of suspecting Maddox.
It’s not just that I’ve come to trust him.
It’s the idea of suspecting someone I know spent time in a mental hospital, as if deep down I’m still worried.
That’s not it, though. If I suspect him, it’s because I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my trust, been too eager for friendship.