Chapter 13
C H A P T E R1 3
Bats in the Belfry
Ella
The Present
1:13 a.m.
A n endless series of stone steps welcomed us. Cade walked ahead of me, his broad shoulders nearly spanning the length of the narrow stairwell as we ascended. It was a good thing we weren’t claustrophobic. Otherwise, the competition would end right here for us.
“Are you okay?” Cade asked, his voice echoing in the tight enclosure.
A few spiders scurried out of the brick walls. I shuddered. “Yeah, just peachy.”
I could practically hear his smile. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of giving up.”
“Not a chance, querido .”
I cursed at myself for calling him by his nickname. Even in the dark, I could see Cade’s posture straighten with contentment. Bastard. He probably thought I was this close to forgiving him.
Hah.
I could forgive a lot, but cheating was a hard no.
In my humble opinion, once a cheater, always a cheater.
The last three months, I often lay in my room replaying the moment I caught him red-handed. Dazed and confused and in his bed with the other girl. My anger would flare up, my heart would break all over again, and I’d cry myself to sleep, despite swearing to never shed another tear over my ex-boyfriend.
Cade apologized many times through texts and voicemails. Once, he even climbed up to my balcony Romeo style and tried to give me his bullshit excuses.
I shut the doors in his face.
After that, he slinked away to his own kingdom.
Though his yearning was palpable. It followed me like a shadow whenever we were in the same surroundings. Sometimes he tried to talk to me, and I ignored him. Cade was remorseful, but I didn’t care. Taking him back after what he did would have been a slap in the face to my self-respect.
After reflecting on our broken relationship for weeks, I concluded that most of my hurt stemmed from the fact that Cade, of all people, shouldn’t have betrayed me. He was supposed to be the other half of me—my ride or die. He’d always been so crazy in love with me that I didn’t understand how or why he’d cheat.
Had I not showered him with all the love and affection in my cup?
Had I not given him the world too?
Had I not…been enough?
The night of Josh’s nineteenth birthday party, when I caught Cade cheating, I thought the whole scene was a figment of my fucked-up imagination. It was so out-of-character for him to do something like that.
Cade was loyal to me.
He said there would only ever be me for him.
He called me mo chuisle . His pulse. His heartbeat. His fucking lifeline.
So how was it possible that my querido would hurt me like that? How was it possible that he’d throw away everything we had and ruin us as if we were nothing?
I would have loved for the whole thing to be a lie. But there was no denying it. The evidence was right there.
My ex-boyfriend had cheated on me.
And there was no undoing that.
“Ella?” Fingers snapped in front of my face. “Hello?”
I jerked, veered out of my musings and back to reality.
The first thing I noticed was Cade’s handsome face, twisted in concern and bathed in the moonlight.
I momentarily lost sense of where we were, but the slight pain in my foot was a stark reminder that we’d ascended a long flight of stairs. “Y-Yeah?”
“We’re here.”
I glanced around, realizing we reached the top of the bell tower.
We were inside the belfry.
And it was freezing cold, courtesy of the blustery wind whipping against our bodies.
The chamber was composed of a turret roof, brick walls pierced with arched openings, an ancient church bell hanging from the rafters, and a wooden railing protectively surrounding the hollow drop under the bell.
Nothing about this claustral closure felt sacred.
I peered over the railing and saw the rope attached to the bell fall endlessly down the tower. It looked ominous and reminded me of St. Victoria’s most infamous rumour…that the establishment sat upon one of the gates of hell. Over the years, people speculated that its location was right under the bell tower.
Cade also surveyed down the tower’s shaft. He flashed his light into the dark hole. “The rope probably ends at the bottom of the tower.”
“When do you think this bell was last rung?”
“Decades ago, perhaps,” Cade said. “Although Shaun swears hearing it once during detention last year. He said it was the ghosts of the dead nuns ringing it, trying to scare Mr. Crowley so he could give Shaun an early leave.”
I shook my head with a smile. “Classic Shaun.”
“Maybe the next dare is attached to the rope,” Cade mumbled pensively. “Can you hold my flashlight while I try to see?”
I held both our flashlights while Cade leaned over to grab the rope. The wooden railing wobbled a little. Fear zapped through my body. “Careful. It’s not stable.”
“You worried for me, princess?”
“Call me princess again and I’ll push you down the tower myself. Then you can ring the bell with the rest of the dead nuns.”
He chuckled. “You wound me, Ella.”
“You’ll live.”
Cade’s fist latched onto the rope. My next inhale was packed with relief as he moved a step away from the railing and began to pull the rope up, one tug at a time.
The motion caused the bell to sway, ringing with a noise that sounded like a harbinger of doom. Goosebumps erupted over my skin. I wished Cade would hurry along. The belfry was giving me the creeps. There was one arched opening to my left whose louvers were halfway shattered. I was certain that’s where all those students jumped to their deaths.
If I started hearing voices and seeing the deceased, we were getting out of dodge. Competition be damned.
While Cade continued to tug up the rope, I walked around the belfry, searching to see if there was any other hidden clue.
Lo and behold, I found a shovel propped against a brick wall. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the next dare was looped around the handle with a red thread. “Hey! I found the next—oh my God!”
Cade suddenly materialized behind me and my back collided into his muscular front.
“You scared me,” I hissed.
“I’m sorry.” He blinked bashfully. “I thought you were into that.”
A blush warmed my cheeks. This was so not the time to talk about my kinks. “Shut the fuck up, Cade.”
A devilish grin speared over his face. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
Oh, I missed this. Our easy-going camaraderie and banter. Fighting the smile twitching my lips, I rolled my eyes and shoved his flashlight against his chest. “Can you get your mind out of the gutter for once?”
Cade pinned my hand, still holding the flashlight, against his chest. “With you in my vicinity? Impossible.”
“You’re such a horndog.”
“Never heard you complaining about my sexual appetite when we were together.” A cocky smirk flitted across his lips and he leaned forward, crowding me against the wall. “In fact, I recall you being an eager participant in our trysts. Remember that night I made you come three times in a row like a dirty little princess?”
Holy hell did I ever. My toes curled recalling the night he fucked me on his motorcycle under the moonlight. “No, actually. I have amnesia where you’re concerned. Also, calling me princess again? That’s three strikes.”
“What are you going to do about it?” His hand shot out to cup my jaw and his minty breath fanned over my mouth.
“Well, since the threats of kneeing you in the balls and pushing you down the bell tower haven’t worked, I’ll have to resort to even more drastic measures.” I sighed mockingly. “I’m going to set your beloved Ferrari on fire.”
Cade played along, mock-gasping. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’ve got three options. Pick one. I’m being generous.”
“Not the Ferrari.” He gave me a suggestive once-over. “We have too many fond memories in it.”
Ah, yes. Like bending me over the hood of it after a night of debauchery. “I guess I’m pushing you down the bell tower. Any last words?”
“If I die tonight, I’m haunting you for the rest of your life,” Cade promised in a deliciously dark tone. “Until I can have you with me again, mo chuisle .”
It was so twisted, yet a part of me loved it. “You’re so predictable. That’s exactly the kind of behaviour I expect from your possessive ass.”
“Is that so?”
I pushed his hand away from my jaw. “We all know you have stalkerish tendencies. Since our breakup, you’ve followed me around the city.” I threw him a glare and turned around to grab the shovel. “You’re not sly, Cade.”
He hushed in my ear, “I wasn’t trying to be.”
They were the same words I told him three years ago at the start of my obsession.
I inhaled shakily, concentrating on anything but the sexual tension brewing between us. “Look at the time. We’ve already wasted five minutes going back and forth over your funeral.”
“Flirting with you is never wasted time, pretty girl.”
I was a strong woman. Or I was trying to be. But if this man didn’t stop, I was going to lose my sanity. “Enough chit-chatting. We have a competition to win.”
Cade removed the dare from the shovel and read it. “Dig your own…”
There was only one thing you dug with a shovel on an occasion like this.
We caught on at the same time.
His eyes rose to mine with a knowing glint.
“Grave,” I finished for us. “Dig your own grave.”
As I completed the sentence, a cold breeze sailed through the belfry like a bad omen.
“We’ll have to go into the woods.”
Wordlessly, we both peered out an arched opening. St. Victoria’s woodlands spanned a large chunk of its territory, safe-keeping an abandoned chapel, a decrepit resting place for those who burned in the fire decades ago, and several otherworldly secrets.
“The next dare is in the cemetery,” I said and Cade nodded, watching the moon shine beyond the veil of murky clouds. “I hope we’re not digging up a real grave because that’s fucked-up even by Initiation Night standards.”
In all my years of playing this game, I never received such a morbid dare.
Darla and Shaun didn’t create the blueprint for tonight. There was an entire rulebook on Initiation Night that was passed down from one pair of alumni captains to the next. A lot of these dares had been in existence for decades and got recycled every few years.
“Are you going to give up if that’s what it comes down to?”
I respected the dead and didn’t want to disturb anyone’s resting place. But at the same time… “I’ve never been a quitter, Cade.”
The next gust of wind had my short strands sticking to my glossy lips. A mischievous twinkle sparked in Cade’s blue eyes as he tucked them back behind my ear. I shivered, remembering the way Cade loved to play with my hair when we cuddled or made love.
“Mhm.” He made a deep, satisfied noise in the back of his throat. “That’s a good girl. We’re going to get you that crown, aren’t we?”
The feeling that throbbed through my flesh could only be described as unwanted desire. I wished—God, I fucking wished—this man didn’t affect me the way he did. His voice. His words. His demeanor. His everything. I despised the way I trembled under his heady praise.
I had to strengthen my defences—had to adopt that stoicism that allowed me to escape in my head and far away from Cade.
I hated him for having so much power over my being.
My mind, my body, my soul.
It was still under Cade Killian Remington’s control.
Rolling my shoulders back, I thrust the shovel at him and snatched the dare from his hand. “Let’s get going. It’s a long walk through the woods and digging a grave will no doubt take a lot of time.”
I whirled around to leave, but Cade’s hand on my shoulder halted me. His fingers feathered over my collarbone, the base of my throat—as though tracing his missing necklace—and up my neck until he cradled my cheek in his warm, calloused hand.
I once heard that eyes were the windows to the soul. And Cade had a way of staring at me with possessive warmth that made me feel so revered.
Like right now.
“Your eyes,” he whispered as if seeing me for the first time under the glow of the moonlight. “You’re wearing contacts.”
He always told me my eyes were unique and didn’t deserve to be covered up with contacts.
After our breakup, I’d made many changes, including reverting back to my old ways. I didn’t want people to see my bare gaze when I started university. Having sectoral heterochromia made me feel vulnerable, a woe briefly tamed during my time with Cade, and now I felt insecure about it again.
With his remark, Cade threw our past in my face again, reminding me of how deeply we used to be embedded in each other’s lives.
I couldn’t forgive him for causing all these emotive feelings to whir in my chest.
“Yeah, I am. Do you have a problem with that?” I challenged. “Are you going to tell me next that you have a problem with the length of my hair? Perhaps you’ve gotten tired of the colour?”
“Don’t,” he warned, eyes flashing menacingly. “Don’t do this, Ella.”
A cold smile stamped over my lips and I batted my lashes. “Do you think I should dye my hair blond? Maybe I’ll look more like the girl I caught you cheating on me with. That’s your type, eh? Blondes —”
“Shut up, Ella,” he growled, dropping his hand from my cheek like it caught fire. Going as far as retreating back a step. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No?” I chuckled humourlessly. “Because I could have sworn I caught you in bed with a blond girl, while you were in a committed relationship with me, you asshole.”
I harboured resentment towards Cade for what he did, but I had no ill wishes for the other girl. After all, she didn’t have any loyalty to me. But this motherfucker was supposed to.
Cade ran his fingers through his dark brown hair frustratedly. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He looked like he wanted to desperately say something.
Or throttle me.
Maybe a combination of both.
Cade’s silence only fueled my wrath.
I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me.
Taking another step his way so we were chest-to-chest, eye-to-eye, and heart-to-heart, I trailed my finger down his front, pulling the string of his hoodie in a provocative manner. “You know what I’ve learned about myself since breaking up with you?” I brought my lips to his ear, letting my breath fondle his skin in anticipation. “I’ve got a new type…And it’s not you.”
He flinched, my words ripping into him.
“I like brunets with brown eyes.” I fingered the chain around his neck housing the promise ring I gave him. “Like the guy I fucked over the summer…and Josh.”
Cade’s tormented gaze clashed with mine as he absorbed my ugly lie, completely frozen under the weight of my deceit.
My expression conveyed my gratification. “Maybe I should have listened to my parents and dated your brother instead of wasting three years of my life on you.”
I tore the promise ring from the chain and threw it out the window, right into the darkness of the night.
Then I whirled around and walked away from a shocked Cade.
My pride intact.
My invisible crown in place.
And my broken heart, leaving a trail of blood in my wake.