Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
SUMMER
T he Order of the Shadows.
“I don’t know much about them, only that they killed lots of people,” Dani says as we walk through the well-manicured pathways that meander around old Gothic sandstone buildings that make up the fabric of Kinsmen University. A campus as old as the trees. The trees must keep all this town’s secrets, given how old they are.
I am already familiar with the Order of the Shadows, as is everyone else. However, their true identity remains a mystery. All we know is that they used to live here.
Rumors, stories, myths of monsters.
A secret society—so secret, it’s as if they don’t exist anymore.
Dani loves this kind of thing, and I’m curious about it, so I asked her about them.
“What happened to the Order? Do they still exist?” I ask as I run my gaze up to a heavy mist in the sky starting to break as the sun begins to peek through. I guess the sun doesn’t like to shine in a place like this, as if it knows evil resides here.
We head toward a break in the trees, and sit side by side on our jackets on the lush lawn and sip our coffees.
Dani continues, “They disappeared without a trace. No more pranks, no more whispers. They went from wanting everyone to know they were here to utter silence.”
I stretch my legs out in front of me while staring up at the canopy and get lost in its beauty of the fall colors I can finally see through the mist. “What kind of pranks?” Admittedly, I’ve not heard much about them.
She arches a well-manicured brow and smiles. She’s so into this lore. I’ve not seen her this interested in something for a long time. Ever since her father’s conviction, she lives on the edge.
“Well, in the seventies, they used to wreak havoc on campus—burning buildings down, lacing drinks with acid at parties. The more word spread about their movement, the more people panicked. But it remained a mystery who exactly was in charge or what their purpose was—that was always a secret. They used to spray paint the name Shadowface on the quad. That name has been in this town a long time; it was always used to scare people here, like he was a boogie man or something. But it’s the name of the god they worshipped. Then the slaughter of 1979 happened, and everything changed. They went quiet.” She means the mass, chaotic killing spree that took the lives of seven people at a campus party in the woods.
I take a sip of my latte. “Were there any suspects?”
She shakes her head. “It happened at night, and witnesses only say they saw a group of people wearing burlap masks holding torches. Really creepy shit. But it was the same mask Shadowface used to cover the girls’ faces in the photos over twenty years later. They’ve got to be connected somehow. But the 2002 killings were much more meticulous than the ones in the seventies. Four girls went missing over the course of a year. All that was left of them were the pictures of their dead bodies; their actual bodies were never found. Fear crippled this campus for months until it just…stopped. The Order was behind it, too. I don’t believe they ever left.”
Ever since her father got put away, she’s been obsessed with anything related to conspiracy theories. She would be a great candidate for a flat earth society or a cult.
“It sounds like you got a lot of your actual homework done last night,” I joke. Although, it’s not like I was any more productive, especially with this stranger messaging me, drumming up all sorts of feelings and memories.
And urges.
Thank god Dani didn’t notice the resemblance of that girl in the picture.
My insides start to turn, and I can’t stop thinking about the mask on the girl in the photo. I’m convinced my nameless monster wore one just like it.
I vividly remember waking up to the scent of scarecrow and a hint of spice, the scratch on my face while he was deep inside me and the gentle kisses he pressed along my collarbone. The threats he whispered while taking my virginity; the vile words that didn’t match his intoxicating actions.
Dani spent her evening finding out as much as she could about the Order, while I spent my night staring at the photo sent out to our class, masturbating to it, dreaming about my nameless monster and why he never came back. While Dani was obsessing, I was wholly consumed by him.
Breathe, Summer . It’s just a hallucination. We lived an hour away from here; there is absolutely no way this is connected.
I grab my phone, open the photo, and gaze at it, just like I did for hours yesterday. My nose crinkles.
“What’s wrong, Summer?” Dani asks.
This girl looks like me, but there is something else bugging me about it. “This photo wasn’t online,” I whisper. “I don’t remember seeing this picture before.”
The victims’ photos are easy enough to find in the underbellies of the internet, and we glanced at them before I couldn’t stomach it anymore.
Dani leans over to look as I hand my phone to her. Her bohemian braid tucked to the side of her head, falling over her slim shoulder. “I’m sure it was, and we just missed it. It sounds like people at this school like to instill fear. So fucking sick, if you ask me. But it’s kind of exciting.”
I give her a tight smile, cross my legs, and play with my hair. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.”
I wish I could go inside that photo and see what she was seeing. What she was experiencing while staring up at the face of her killer.
Dani continues, “Do you want to hear the freakiest thing about all of it?”
I put my phone down and face her, trying to not go there in my mind again.
“Rumors are that the killings were actually happening at this school for hundreds of years. That there were way more victims over time, and the slaughter of ‘79 and the copycat of ‘02 were just the finale. People have been dying in this town for centuries.”
I whip my head up. “What do you mean, hundreds of years?”
Leaning back on the grass, Dani holds her phone above her head, eyes glued to an article on the screen. “Well, how old is this university?”
“The giant stone bench at the entrance of campus says 1742,” I retort.
“That’s how long.”
I frown. “I don’t know, Dani… That sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory.”
She scrolls down her phone. “The data shows an abnormal number of mysterious deaths and disappearances. They went missing in the forests that surround the town, but it’s hard to say…” She turns and gives me a wicked grin. “People believe the town was cursed, Summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was haunted, too.”
Curses don’t exist, and bad things don’t just happen. People make bad things happen because humanity is insane. But hundreds of years? That just sounds absurd.
“Your father went here, didn’t he?” Dani asks, casually sipping her coffee.
Fighting down a wave of emotion, I direct my attention to a red leaf that fell on my shoe. Dani gives me a sympathetic look. She regrets mentioning my father, but they are valid questions, given my family’s connection to this town.
“Yeah, he did all his schooling here. Then he moved back to Mystic, and he only came back through a fellowship and some research he did with Dr. Garcia. My grandparents grew up here, though, but they moved to Mystic after college.”
Mystic is where I grew up, an hour away from here. I love my grandfather, who I call Papa, but I never had a chance to meet my grandmother.
She presses her lips together. “So, he went here during that time? During the Shadowface era?”
I blink at her, silently doing the math in my head. “Yeah, I guess he did.” I never really thought about it, and he never spoke about it. Although, I can understand why he wouldn’t want to talk about a serial killer with his little girl.
“And you have no other family in the region?”
I shake my head. “No. My father was an only child. I’m the only one left on that side, other than Papa.”
A shadow looms over us, and I glance up at someone standing a couple of feet away, holding a piece of paper in his hand. “Hey ladies, wanna come to a party?”
Dani shoots up and rips the invitation from his hand. “What’s this?”
He shrugs, but not before checking me out. “It’s the harvest party. You ladies up for it, or are you too chicken shit? Happens every year on the first weekend of fall. It’s a tradition.”
I grab the invite from her and stare at the image of the mask on the front as annoyance tugs at my gut.
“A Shadowface-themed party? Really?” I roll my eyes and he grins. I can’t say I’m surprised. This campus, this town, is obsessed—whispers are everywhere, and that text message was just the beginning. Calling it a harvest party is a joke when it’s obvious what it is.
Everyone speaks about Shadowface as if he’s a god. As if he’s a deity that walks among the shadows of this town, infiltrating his evil into every stone. In actuality, he killed people. Very real victims. He wasn’t a god; he was a fucking coward who hid his true identity.
“We’ll be there,” Dani muses, ignoring the guy, but excitement gleams from her face.
For whatever reason, the guy lingers for a moment, his eyes on my legs, and I wave him off. “Carry on.” I frown as I play with the invitation between my fingers and stare down at the picture representing death, chaos, and evil. I shoot Dani a look as soon as he leaves. “I’m not going to this.”
“Yeah, you are,” she responds. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”
More people walk by, and a familiar face comes into my periphery, and I drop the invite to my lap. Black hair, a pale white face, contrasting against otherwise dark cold features…thick glasses. Sexy as fuck.
Lincoln Kennedy.
Dani notices, too, and she nudges me and loudly whispers, “Professor Hottie.”
Fuck. It is him. And he’s even better looking up close.
He walks toward us, his face a cool glaze. He’s wearing a black T-shirt sculpted to his arms. Pants that should be illegal, given he is staff and his students are milling about. His face is so pale, he looks like a vampire.
Not a professor yet, I remind myself. Technically, he’s still a student.
I hate that I’m looking… I hate that he has any of my attention. I can’t help but feel a familiarity about him more than just his name.
Like maybe I’ve met him before, seen him before… But I distinctly remember not meeting Lincoln Kennedy—and how bitter I was about that.
I try to appear calm and avoid making direct eye contact with him. I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to possess the same level of intelligence as he apparently has.
Writing a textbook…
As he strolls past me, I awkwardly adjust my posture, crossing my long, bare legs, wondering if it’s possible he was my mysterious messenger last night.
He gives me nothing, no sign it was he who contacted me. He walks right by me, doesn’t even spare me a glance until the very last moment. His gaze lingers on me for half a second.
My heart nearly stops as he tilts his lips to a small smile and, for the first time, he proves there is at least some warmth behind those cold, dead eyes. He turns his head and keeps walking, and I realize I’m smiling. Like really smiling back at him.
“My god. How can a nerd be that hot?” Dani’s mouth is hanging open. “He totally checked you out.”
“He didn’t check me out,” I tell her as the heat in my face rises. But a flash of recognition hits his eyes, and the inside of my belly squirms. His eyes, the way he looked at me, even if it was for only a moment…
And he’s not alone, I realize. The people he’s with are dressed in black, too, because apparently, it’s the trendy thing to do at this campus. The two girls in his group are showing lots of skin: low cut jeans that can barely count as pants, loose, ripped T-shirts, and… Is that girl wearing a collar? I nearly choke on my tongue.
“Wasn’t the Order of the Shadows banned from campus?” I mutter.
“They were,” she says. “What do you mean?”
I glance down at my pink nails. I purse my lips and glance back at them, at Lincoln looking dark and broody. This is who my father was so fond of?
My expression flattens. “They seem satanic. And weren’t they devil worshipers? They seem to fit the bill.”
She snickers. “I suppose. But no dead bodies have been found recently. Whoever the Order was, they’ve stayed hidden.”
I want to believe that…
The girl in the collar walks past us and glares. Behind her is a silver chain, and on the other end is an attractive, very muscled guy with tribal tattoos that cover each of his arms. He walks by with the cockiest grin on his face and chews on his bottom lip. His attention lingers slightly longer on Dani than on me.
“Jesus,” Dani breathes, and I’m pretty sure she’s drooling.
This guy has at least half an inch on Lincoln and about twenty pounds, and Lincoln’s not exactly a small guy. The guy’s dark features are menacing, and he looks much scarier than Lincoln.
He gives Dani a wink, causing her to seemingly lose her ability to breathe. Although none of them directly communicated with us, a lot was said. They all continue walking, giving very few fucks about the fact that everyone is staring at them.
“I can’t imagine humiliating myself like that in public,” I say, watching as they all sit in a circle close to us, the girl with the collar sitting on her knees like an obedient pet.
Dani bites her lip. “It’s so hot. He’s so fucking hot. That is sooooo fucking hot.”
“It’s not.”
She scoffs. “Well, you’re not overly sexual, Summer.”
I jab her in the ribs. “I am sexual; I just haven’t found anyone I want to have sex with. There’s a big difference.”
She cocks a brow and finally tears her gaze away from the group. “I just don’t believe you’re a virgin.”
I’m not a virgin, but I can’t explain it, so I don’t say anything.
I watch as Lincoln grabs his backpack and starts reading his textbook, away from the others. He keeps pushing his glasses up, as if they might fall off.
I fold my arms. “It’s disgusting. Those girls are humiliating themselves for someone else’s sick pleasure.”
“Deliciously disgusting,” she echoes, but can’t keep her eyes off them, either.
The insides of my belly squirm watching them.
“So, I couldn’t help myself… I did some digging last night, and found out more about Lincoln,” Dani says.
I smirk at her. “Of course you did.”
“Here’s what I found out. Lincoln Kennedy and his posse are rich as shit. And elitists… super snobby. And he’s very smart, but he’s not just Dr. Garcia’s PhD student; he’s her adopted son.”
My eyes shoot up, watching Lincoln from this new perspective. How could I have missed this? But that would explain my father’s affinity to him, given his professional relationship with Dr. Garcia. My father never talked about him, only the work he did with him. He was a mentor to Lincoln, and apparently, was for a long time.
“Do you see the really hot one holding on to that leash?”
How could I not see him? His hulking presence is hard to ignore.
She smiles. “His name is Xander, and he’s Dr. Garcia’s grandson.”