Chapter Twenty #2
In silence, we remained focused on the actors in front of us. Callum twitching or grunting every time he felt something didn't meet his expectations. I wouldn’t be able to understand, considering I found their acting more than exemplary.
The girl in front of us stood on shaky legs and seemed to be quarreling with the new actor who’d sauntered onto the stage in confident steps.
“What is it that I have so lamentably done to deserve this? Is my devotion to you never sufficient? Is my worship of you, my–”
“I am your husband!” He cried out. “And yet you willfully choose to invest the time of your existence, the existence I allow you to live out, with this…” His lips curled as his hateful eyes slid to the ‘dead’ boy laying in the middle of the stage. “Mortal.”
He’d said the words as if he wasn't one himself. Although perhaps he wasn’t. From my understanding, this was a rehearsal, so the students remained in their uniforms, despite the untucked dress shirts and necks vacant of ties.
The girl forced her words through thick sobs.
“All of this… over your jealousy? You killed the man I love because of an emotion you’d debased and slaughtered mortals for feeling?
” Her eyes turned angry, and her words clearer as she spoke through clenched teeth, “You have taken my beating heart in your palm and crushed it like a spoiled fruit because of something you will never understand. You ridicule these mortals for their fickle age and warring mind. But hear this, on the Oracle, I curse you a life of loveless sacrifice. Every act you take will be in vain. Every word you speak will be blown away like a weak and weightless leaf. So that you, too, may understand what it feels like to give your heart and soul, only for it to produce nothing. No loyalty, no love, not even hatred will be evoked by you. You will live a long and empty eternity, wishing for mortality to take you away from it. I curse you. I curse you. I will curse you until my last and dying breath if I could!”
I felt her words speak to me as if I too was betrayed by my betrothed. As if I too was capable of feeling so deeply.
Callum, on the other hand, was too busy flipping through his copy of the script and cutting and rewriting lines, jotting down notes on the sides and corners before the actors, all three on stage, straightened.
Emotions fell from their faces like melted wax as they faced the front and awaited Callum’s word.
Without meaning to, I looked to him as well. Waiting in anticipation for what he might say–or do. “Dabria…” The girl swallowed, her short bob framing her face, and now, wide eyes. “You will do well in life. Although, you won’t live a life free of jealousy.”
She brightened, her spine perking up and allowing her to appear taller, as her eyes almost seemed to sparkle.
And then he stood, a proud smile gracing his face, though it didn’t seem to blend in well with his sharp features.
Nevertheless, he strolled towards the side of the stage and moved towards the trio.
I watched with my grip tightening around the armrest, as he made his way closer to Dabria, lifting both hands to cup her cheeks.
“I will make you a star. I can promise you that.”
She preened under the attention, and from what I knew of Callum, one should. He wasn't exactly a kind person who spread words of support out of the goodness of his soul.
And then he turned his head to the boy next to her. The immortal husband.
Ah, there it is.
He slid one step over and set his eyes upon him, his predatory gaze making the silence thicker, or maybe it was Callum’s imposing presence alone.
A beat passed, then two. No one moved. Aside from myself, I was sure no one even breathed. Callum stood so still, I momentarily mistook him for a perfectly sculpted statue.
And then, in the silence of the theatre, a slap echoed down to my nerves as the boy’s face whipped to the side from the pressure of the blow.
Open palm.
I lived through a dirty memory in a flash, there and gone, and I couldn’t help but cringe at the pins suddenly pricking every inch of my tight skin.
This is different.
I’ve seen my fair share of violence, and I’ve lived it.
But there’s a wide berth of difference, a thick line between the equal and unequal.
I’ve fought strangers for food, for stealing my cash, for a drunk prick’s jeering.
I’ve done it all. Except, it's never made me recoil like the slap of a young child’s blameless cheeks as his father stood looming over him.
I blinked.
You are Alexandr Miroslav.
Alexandr Miroslav’s past doesn’t exist.
My resolve strengthened as I forced myself to remain seated. Despite every muscle in my body begging me to leave.
Callum and his peer were unequal, as the boy barely lifted his head to glare, to shout, to fight back. Nothing.
His eyes remained empty.
The boy who had played dead seemed to step out of line and move as far as he could without notice or persecution from Callum.
“I expected better, and I expect to see better at tomorrow's rehearsal,” Callum said, not waiting for a response, or rather, not expecting one. “Dismissed. All of you.”
When he returned to his seat and turned to face me, I realized we were alone. Something told me to remain vigilant of my surroundings.
“So, still interested?” Callum’s suddenly dead eyes watched me. The hand he slapped the boy with was twitching.
I matched his stare. “Was that show for me?”
“If you wish for it to be.”
I ground my teeth. “So, he didn’t do anything wrong. And yet, you felt the want to slap him?”
He raised a brow, as if my words had been dripping with audacity. “Don’t lecture me on how things are run here. He knows, as does everyone else, what they’re getting themselves into. I expect perfection. And if these are the means to achieve it, they understand.”
I rolled my shoulders back, trying and succeeding in remaining glued to the seat under me, praying I don’t blow this entirely by lunging for him. “So tell me, what is… expected of a member of the Queen’s Club?”
He laughed, cold and slightly manic, as if only now feeling the rush of what he’d done. “Oh, you’d have to join and find out. We don’t disclose such information to outsiders. You understand.”
I stiffened.
He couldn’t possibly know about the Founder’s Society. In fact, Thaddeus had emphasized the importance of its secrecy on multiple occasions. Matthew Queen wouldn’t–unless he would.
I watched Callum through a new light, choosing my words very carefully. “I don’t. This is the first club I’d be considering since arriving at Castle Hill.”
“Surely not. A socialite like yourself, invitations should be arriving in a flurry. I thought perhaps that was why you’d taken so long to reach out,” Callum retorted.
“I can assure you, they aren’t. I just…” I denied, finding it best. If he invited me because of my supposed position within the Founder’s Society, I had to get him off my scent. “I struggled to find my footing at first. I couldn’t understand how you all balance it.”
I didn’t mind offering up a half-truth, this time. Miraculously, despite the ring of honesty, I didn’t feel embarrassed or pitied.
If Callum wasn’t among the seven chosen, his father had nominated someone else. Unless he suspected Mathew Queen nominated me, I couldn’t find any other reason for why he insists I join.
To figure me out as Rain once tried?
“If you’ve come to accept the offer, it still stands, and I’d be happy to have a new member under my wing.”
I regarded him cooly, my answer already made up but now, for different reasons. I’d wanted to join the Queen’s Club because of its mystery. Curiosity ate at me at who Callum Queen, the ‘what would have been’ Founder’s Society member, truly was.
Now, I wanted to join to prove Callum wrong.
To show him that I was simply another lost and drowning student in the clashing waves of Castle Hill’s body.
However, I wouldn’t be opposed to butting heads if push came to shove.
If Callum saw in me what the Founder’s Society seemed to see, I’d show him exactly why and how I’d survived as long as I have.
“Alright, Callum… you win. I’ll bite and join the Queen’s Club.”
He clasped his hands together, the echo resounding in the empty theater, and the script he held falling away and fluttering to the floor.
“Excellent choice. Though, I suggest beginning in January, after the holidays. The play is already written and finished, roles already assigned. It would just be easier.”
I didn’t care about what he was saying anymore, because my mind was already playing out scenarios of what Callum knowing about the Founder’s Society might look like. “Yeah. I understand.”
He smiled expectantly. “The second Monday of January, at five. Don’t be late, as I do hate tardiness.”
Callum, from what I understood, was a quiet psychopath, and something told me he couldn’t see it.
If I felt he stepped out of line, I’d be glad to open his eyes.
Pounding on Paris’ door later that evening felt as though I were begging to be let in as invisible monsters licked at the ends of my feet, nipping just out of reach in hunger to swallow me whole.
“Paris!” I went to pound my fist again when it fell on empty space, the girl in question swinging her door open with a mean glare. I didn’t acknowledge it as I stepped inside. “Callum knows.”
“What are you going on about, Alexandr?” She hissed and closed her door, looking almost as paranoid as I.
“I said–” Except tremors weren't racking through my muscles, and my eyes weren’t dilated and red as hers were.
Did she say Alexandr?
“Paris… Why do you look like that?”
My voice came out suspicious and rough, which only seemed to pull a knot tighter around her nerves. “I look particularly fine!”
I paused, eyeing her from head to toe, from the sweaty sheen glossing her skin to her tangled hair.
If there was at least one thing I knew about Paris, it was that she didn’t relax, even in the comfort of her dorm. Her loungewear was fancier than a middle-class woman’s fanciest gown.
It wasn’t that late that she’d be preparing for bed so–
I looked around the room, finding it almost as I’d seen it the last time.
Almost.
The anxious tug on my gut I’d been trying to ignore on my way here seemed to depart on its own, as something new took its place.
The small bag on her nightstand filled with a white powder clued me in on the rest of what I felt I was missing.