Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Blood curled in a soft line from Andrew’s ear down to his jaw. Metallic and hot and furious. The vines smelled it. He knew they did.
Andrew flung himself down the hall and crashed around a corner. Someone would see, someone would help him.
Unless, a tiny malevolent voice whispered in his ear, only you can see it. It’s all in your head, Andrew. It’s all in your—
He cast a glance over his shoulder at the floor covered in vines. They tangled in each other and grew with every pulsing heartbeat. More wallpaper shredded as brambles grew up to the ceiling. Roses cut free and wept blood up the walls.
Andrew backed up, terror shredding his chest until he couldn’t breathe. He turned to run around a corner—and he slammed into a body.
He flinched away, hands fluttering uselessly to cover his face, but there were no antlers and claws and bone knives snicking toward him.
Instead a hand clapped onto his shoulder and Clemens stared down mockingly, his lips quirked, as if finding Andrew sweaty and trembling was the highlight of his day.
“Ah, the exact person I wanted to see,” Clemens said.
Andrew stared in numb shock. If Clemens turned the corner, he’d see the vines unspooling from the walls. But instead he pulled something from his pocket and gave it a jaunty shake in Andrew’s face.
“Look what I happened to find in the forest today. Lost something, did we, Mr. Perrault?”
Clemens held up Andrew’s phone. Moss and mud caked the back of it, dirt ground into the case and beads of rainwater collected on the glass. He tried to stammer that it wasn’t his, but Clemens tapped it and the screen lit up.
That was impossible. It had been lying out in the forest for weeks. Even if the weather hadn’t killed it, the battery should be dead.
But with the screen glowing in his face, the evidence hit him like a brick to the jaw.
Andrew’s lock screen was an old photo of him and Dove, their cheeks squished together to fit in the narrow frame.
Dove had her hand on his chin, dragging him into the photo, and her smile was all mischief while his was wry reluctance.
It was a rare moment of undiluted joy. No exam stress.
No piles of homework. Just them together, twins and best friends.
A thousand emotions punched through his stomach. He felt dizzy. The forest was literally eating the school and Thomas had gone to get a goddamn ax to stop the Antler King ripping out their hearts—and all Andrew wanted in that moment was for Dove to appear and talk him out of this mess.
“Considering the forest is strictly prohibited,” Clemens was saying, “I have to wonder how your phone ended up there.”
“But why were you out there?” Andrew’s chest moved raggedly, his voice too pitchy, and as soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. It only made him sound more guilty.
Clemens let out a cold laugh. “I know what you seniors get up to in the forest, as if that fence means anything. Beer cans and cigarette stubs galore out there. I thought I’d gather evidence.”
He wanted to get back at Andrew and Thomas for walking out of his class. It was a typical bully move—defy them once in front of an audience, and they’d circle back with hooked knives ready to exact revenge.
But Andrew knew the phone was all Clemens would have found. No seniors had been messing around in the forest this year. If they had, they’d be dead.
“You don’t understand.” Andrew tried to worm free. “There’s s-something in the hall. I need to get help—”
“What you need is a little trip up to the principal’s office.
” Clemens dug his fingers into Andrew’s neck and propelled him forward.
“I know boys like you. The soft, spoiled little brats who hide their manipulation under all these politically correct mental health woes to get out of studying. You want out of my class? Then you can leave this entire school.”
He frog-marched Andrew toward the stairs to the staff offices.
Andrew glanced frantically over his shoulder, but vines hadn’t started exploding from other walls.
Not yet. Outside the rain grew stronger, and it tapped on the windows loud enough to drown out everything else.
But someone would see that hallway soon.
Someone would see the Antler King prowling the halls.
Andrew tripped on the first step, and Clemens yanked him forward.
“You won’t wriggle out of this, Perrault,” he said. “But do tell me who you were with, or else I’ll name Rye anyway. I’ve seen his record.”
“Please, you don’t understand,” Andrew choked.
A scream cut through the thunder of rain.
Andrew closed his eyes, a tremor stabbing up his spine. Real. This was real and people were going to get hurt.
Clemens frowned, but kept directing Andrew up the stairs.
Another scream came, then shouts followed by pounding feet.
Anger flashed in Clemens’s eyes. All the suave young teacher charm had flattened, as if without an audience, he felt no need to wear that mask.
“Let me guess, more senior pranks. The discipline in this school isn’t just pitiful, it’s negligent.
Is your friend Rye behind this?” He gave Andrew’s shoulder a sharp shake.
“Snap out of it. Hysterics will do nothing for you, you entitled little shit.”
They reached the top of the stairs and Clemens shoved Andrew toward the principal’s office.
Every door lay shut, the storm outside rendering the halls dark and close.
A thick, wet smell spooled from the carpet, and Andrew felt fungi and damp dirt stuffing up his throat.
He reached out to steady himself against the wall.
His fingers sank into spongy moss.
No …
He shied away as Clemens looked down and swore in confusion.
“What is … are those leaves on the floor?”
The lights flickered off, on.
Off.
They stood still in the dark, the walls too close as the paper seemed to breathe in and out. Clemens peered up at the lights, annoyance knotting his brow. Only Andrew saw the vines slithering out of the wallpaper, bloated and green, poisonous leaves unfurling as they reached toward his ankles.
Andrew jerked away.
Clemens’s expression went hard. He snapped his fingers, as if Andrew were a dog meant to heel, and started to snark a new threat.
A vine snatched at Clemens’s leg and yanked.
He went down with a garbled shout, slamming onto the carpet.
Vines snapped over his legs, his wrists, and his confusion turned to panic.
He yelled. But Andrew backed up. A small terrible part of him didn’t care if the forest attacked Clemens.
He should hate himself. He should hate Thomas for leaving him when they should have stayed together.
He had to run, he had to get out, get to Thomas—
Brambles caught against Andrew’s pants, and one lashed across his forearm, pinning him to the wall.
He tore at it, but his fingers only shredded fleshy vegetation.
Maggots burst out and scattered across his sleeves.
Andrew yanked at it uselessly, frantic now, as the lights flickered on and off faster and faster.
His heartbeat pounded against his ribs, and the broken pieces of a scream lodged in his throat.
Clemens’s swearing turned vicious as he unhooked vines from his clothes and flung them away. But more grew. And more.
The stairs creaked.
As one, Andrew and Clemens turned toward a shape growing from the dark, pushing its bulk between the spasming lights and swelling vines devouring the walls.
Then every bulb blew with a shriek.
Andrew choked on a cry. He needed this to stop.
The Antler King stepped out of the shadows.
It came toward Clemens, one heavy step at a time, its skin waxy underneath the smeared grime of the forest. Spidery arms shot forward, too long for its broad shoulders.
The weight of its antler crown buckled its neck and, as Andrew stared with bile rising up his throat, this close he could see the way crown had been driven in upside down.
The tips splintered into the monster’s skull, blood running pitch-black from its eyes.
It was a nightmare and it was alive and there was nowhere to go.
The monster snatched Clemens by the throat and hauled him upright. His feet dangled midair, his scream a terrified wheeze.
Andrew tried to melt out of sight, but his back only hit the wall as more vines closed around him.
One wrapped around his middle, another slithered over his collarbone and tightened around his throat.
Tendrils crept toward his bloodied ear. Soft green leaves brushed skin and began to push—push—toward the hot pulse of his eardrum.
He shook his head madly, but the vines slithered with insidious persistence. He’d die pinned to the wall.
He wanted to scream for Thomas.
Instead, he mouthed a frenzied chant. Take Clemens as the tithe. Take him, take him, take him. Please—
The Antler King reached up slow and methodical and broke off a piece of its own horns.
It still held Clemens by the throat, its claws puncturing into skin so blood oozed from Clemens’s neck.
The monster twisted the piece of antler as if to inspect it.
Then it rested the tip between Clemens’s wide eyes.
Clemens burbled a throttled cry. He was begging. Weeping.
tithe tithe tithe
The Antler King grinned, all teeth.
Then it drove the bone shard right through Clemens’s face.
Andrew didn’t look away.
Clemens screamed. Blood exploded across the Antler King’s chest as Clemens’s body spasmed like a butterfly hooked by its wings.
His screams drowned in his throat as his head lolled.
Slowly, the Antler King dragged the shard from between Clemens’s eyes.
He licked it. Then he began carving the skin off Clemens’s face.
Andrew lost feeling in his legs. He sagged against the wall while the soft green shoot dug gleefully into his ear.
He didn’t even care anymore. He could only stare in numb horror as Clemens’s body stopped twitching while the Antler King peeled skin off his face.
It hit the floor in soft slaps like pieces of wet leather.
Then the Antler King looked up and its eyes locked on Andrew.
there you are
prince
“Stop. S-s-s-stop.” Andrew tried to jerk away, but the vines had him bound to the wall. He had to wake up from this nightmare. Wake up. This wasn’t real. Wake up.
The Antler King dropped Clemens into a bloody pile. Vines surged over his body and twisted inside his face to feast.
Andrew tried to struggle, but he had nothing left. He could only make each breath shallower than the last, pain growing in his ear as the vine dug deeper.
The Antler King reached
down
and down
and down
to caress Andrew’s tearstained face.
Its claws stretched out and the tips began puncturing Andrew’s skin, gently first, but in a second his face would match Clemens on the floor. Andrew’s cries turned to stammering, sheer nonsense and undiluted panic. He would die here. He was going to die, he was going to—
The Antler King’s arm spasmed suddenly, and its head tipped back in a roar.
The sharp edge of a hatchet sank into its shoulder.
The Antler King reared, claws scrabbling to grab the blade, but Thomas wrenched it free and swung again—this time crashing into the monster’s spine.
Its scream could curdle marrow.
Andrew ripped one hand free of the vines and fought, terrified and feral.
He might have been screaming, too, but everything was drowned out by the Antler King’s roars.
It whipped around and slammed a fist into Thomas.
His body was flung backward, limp as he slammed into the wall. But he sprang to his feet.
Thomas planted his boots among the festering vines, his chin tilted up in defiance as the monster bore down on him. Blood flecked his tee shirt, and his freckles stood out against his bone-pale skin.
He bared his teeth and swung the hatchet with two hands.
He was mad and brutal beauty in that moment. Andrew forgot how to breathe.
Thomas swung the hatchet again and again. The monster reeled, but not before slashing claws across Thomas’s shoulder. Blood sprayed. Thomas leaped for the Antler King and brought the hatchet down on its skull. It sagged to its knees, clawing at its face.
Thomas swung again, again, againagainagain—
The monster’s head caved in as it hit the floor. Its skin exploded like it had been built of nothing more than leaves and packed dirt. Thomas heaved the hatchet into the air and brought it down as if he were chopping wood. Bones splintered, but he kept going.
The Antler King had long ago stopped breathing.
“Thomas.” Andrew’s voice cracked. “THOMAS.”
Thomas hovered for a heartbeat longer, his hatchet raised and his chest moving ragged and fast. Then he let his arm fall dully to his side.
He turned, slow and hesitant, blood beading on his face, in his hair, a glossy coating on his lips. He wiped his mouth and smeared crimson in a vicious arc.
Silence settled, thick enough to step in. The vines had stopped growing—they turned brittle and gray. Bloody roses disintegrated to ash.
Andrew let out the smallest sob and sagged down the wall.
Thomas forced himself away from the ruin he’d made of the monster.
It crumbled to autumn leaves, ribs like old sticks.
Thomas crouched by Andrew and used the hatchet to cut him free.
He went slow, his fingers light on Andrew’s wrists and even more careful as he peeled the vine from Andrew’s ear.
The vine came free in a clump of blood. Thomas tossed it behind him.
Then he tilted Andrew’s chin up.
They stared into each other’s eyes. Thomas was breathing hard, his bloody shirt stuck sloppily to his chest, but he felt solid and firm.
He’d break down over this later, Andrew knew—but right now he was the glorious fairy-tale prince come to save them all, while Andrew was nothing more than a thing made of skeleton leaves needing to be cupped between safe hands before he blew away.
Deep within the school, more shouts rose. The fire alarm went off.
Andrew’s world spun slowly, sick and sticky. “Clemens…”
“He’s dead.”
“N-n-n-no, you don’t understand.” Andrew’s voice scraped over each raw word. “You’re the one covered in blood. Holding a weapon.”
Understanding bloomed in Thomas’s eyes, wretched and terrible.