Chapter 41
Sadie
With the second key, the lock blessedly turns.
I throw open the door and pelt down the hallway, leaving a trail of black feathers in my wake.
Professor Worthington is seconds behind me. He skids through the doorway, pursuing me with a look of pure hatred.
“Bitch!” he bellows. “Cunt!”
Ignoring the pain in my stomach and ankle, I hurtle around the corner into a wider corridor.
I need to find people. He won’t kill me where everyone can see.
Or will he?
After I hit him with the stun gun, he seems to have lost all reason.
He’s not used to his victims fighting back. Everyone said how sweet Hannah and Parker were. From the half-empty teacups and foam from Chuck’s mouth, I’m betting Worthington poisoned him before killing him.
The man isn’t just a murderer, he’s a total coward, like Lucan said.
Deep shadows cloak the hallways, the hardwood floors groaning underfoot as I run. My blood races with adrenaline, the pain in my body muted in favor of survival.
There are no dorms nearby and I haven’t come across any students yet. Dammit. Twenty minutes ago, people seemed to be in every nook and cranny.
Bangs echo outside in the night sky. Moments later, the high windows are awash with luminous orange and green and purple.
Fireworks. The display must’ve drawn people out onto the lawns and balconies, leaving the hallways basically empty.
Air sawing at my lungs, I risk a look over my shoulder.
Worthington’s face is a twisted mask and his arms pump as he runs at full speed after me.
I dash suddenly to the left, my mind frantically searching for a plan.
What will I do? Losing him seems unlikely, because he’s right on my tail and he knows Darkbloom better than I do. I had a chance of fighting him off with the stun gun, but my odds are terrible without a weapon.
Somewhere nearby, maybe a couple of floors above, I hear laughing and music amid the booms of fireworks.
My heart thuds. If I can get to the people, my odds of safety go up.
I take stairs two at a time to climb toward the sounds. At the top step, I draw a breath and scream so loudly my throat feels like it’s blistering.
Someone has to hear and come to investigate.
But I can’t slow down to do it again. Worthington’s powering up the stairs, showing no signs of fatigue.
As I sprint across a landing, the unseen partiers respond to my scream with exaggerated shrieks of their own, followed by hoots and cackling.
Oh god, they think I’m messing around for Halloween. Professor Worthington really chose the ideal night to kill people.
The laughter and screams echo around me like I’m stuck in a carnival house of horrors.
My surroundings are familiar, the oil paintings sparking my memory. I’m nearing the tower where Lucan took me after the Founder’s Feast.
A desperate idea occurs to me.
The tower door opens outward. If I get to the rooftop, I can barricade the door closed with the hefty stone bricks littering the platform. Then I can get the attention of the students hanging out in front of the building. Once the fireworks stop, they’ll hear me shouting.
“Get back here!” yells Worthington.
His voice sounds sinister and rough, like when he growled into my ear trying to abduct me off the street.
My hand catches the bannister, and I hurl myself around another corner to enter the tower. The stairwell is narrow, circular, and made of wrought iron.
The noise of my boots hammering the steps is deafening. Moments later, Worthington’s heavy footsteps join the din.
He’s right behind me. How will I have time to close off the door once I reach the top?
I’ve committed now though and have nowhere else to go. This has to work or I’m dead.
Through the blind fear, snapshots of my life here at Darkbloom flit through my mind’s eye.
Clara and Juliette. The view of mountains and trees from my dorm-room window. Reading in the cozy library. Endless coffees at The Bindery. Filling pages of my notebooks while the creaky old building settles around me.
And Lucan Hale.
He’s everywhere to me. He’s in everything.
At this point, he’s in my bones and blood.
I was falling for him when I pushed him away. Falling harder than I ever thought I would.
Instead of letting myself feel happiness, I rejected it. Not him.
Why couldn’t this clarity have come a week ago? A day ago? An hour?
Death wasn’t hot on my heels, that’s why. The realization is bittersweet on my tongue. I might die with the most important words left unspoken.
The door comes into view, but the professor’s gaining on me. There’s no way I’ll get through in time to bar it off behind me.
Can I kick him down the stairs? Could I be so lucky?
My senses become hyper-sharp. Primal terror wipes my thoughts from my head as I reach for the handle.
I throw the door open, a frigid gust of wind stinging my eyes. Before I can step onto the rooftop, Worthington wrenches me by my wings, taking my feet from under me.
Falling to my knees on the top step, I gasp in pain.
With frenzied grunts, he tugs at my wings, showering us with feathers. The harness is fixed to my shoulders like backpack straps and I twist out of them to release myself.
He falls back, tossing aside the wings.
It gives me just enough time to snake my hand through the doorway to grasp a stone the size of a grapefruit.
As his hands fist my dress and yank me toward him, I spin my torso and slam the stone into his nose with all the strength I can muster.
Blood slides from his nostrils and I hear bones crack.
“Fuck!” he screams, loosening his grip on my dress to grope at his nose. “Fucking bitch!”
Panting, I crawl over the threshold of the door, wriggling through far enough to kick it closed.
I push stones in front of the door, but within moments, he throws his weight against it from the other side.
With me in the way, the door crashes into my head, making the roof tilt. Blood spills warm and fast down the side of my face.
Don’t pass out, I command myself. And don’t you dare give up.
We don’t let cowards win.
Worthington creates a gap in the doorway nearly big enough for him to fit through. My hands search for stones to defend myself with. I stagger, not quite able to stand.
He slams his body against the door again, catching my leg and twisting my knee.
This time, he’s through the gap and I can’t stop him. Worthington looms above me, fists balled at his sides and fireworks exploding at his back.
He grimaces, teeth laced with red. “A minute ago, I was going to break your neck. But now I think I’ll snap each one of your fingers first and beat you bloody. You’ve earned it.”
I swing the stone in my hand, but he kicks my wrist to make me drop it.
The fireworks peter out, leaving white smoke to mingle with the rolling mist. I try to scream, but it comes out as a hoarse, strangled cry, snatched away by the wind.
I’m already feeling for another stone, my vision doubling, when he crouches by me.
“Now, now, Miss Sadie,” he says in a silky voice that makes my skin crawl. “We’ll have no more of that.”
Worthington pushes me onto my back. His knee digs into my sternum, pinning me down and forcing the air from my aching lungs.
His fingertips brush my cheek, twirling loose strands of my hair. It’s almost an affectionate gesture, but then he yanks the hair from my scalp with a sting.
I hate him so much, and I want to keep fighting, but my body refuses to cooperate. I feel like I’m being dragged deep underwater.
He strokes his blood-streaked chin like he’s leisurely thinking of a grand idea.
“You know what? You won’t be a murder victim.
You’re going to kill yourself.” His knee presses harder.
“Yes, this is perfect. Heartbroken and buckling under academic pressure, you throw yourself from a tower like the tragedy you are. You die bleeding and alone on the cold cobblestones below. I carry on as before.”
My vision triples, then blurs. The metallic scent of my own blood fills my nostrils, which gives me one last scrap of an idea.
Not to save me, but maybe the next person.
Sinking my fingernails into his forearms, I scratch him deep. I want his DNA under my nails for the police to find.
Worthington snickers like he understands exactly what I’m doing. “Silly girl. Your suicide will be an open-and-shut case. No one will bother to—”
His voice cuts off. The pressure on my chest disappears so suddenly that I wonder if my ribcage gave way and I’ve died.
But with the pressure gone, I’m able to suck in a raspy, painful breath.
I’m definitely still alive, and two dark figures float above me.
I squint, trying to focus.
“Lucan,” I croak.
He came. He found me.
Is he real, not a wishful hallucination I’m having as I die?
“Sadie.” His voice has a desperate edge, like he’s worried he’s too late and I’m already gone. “I’m here.”
He’s real.
Lucan’s features transform into merciless rage as he holds Worthington higher in the air.
Backing up, I slump against the wall. I try to stand but my knees give way, so I settle for trying to breathe.
Lucan slams Worthington into the balcony railing, making blood spew from his temple.
Wind whips overhead, whistling and hissing like it’s alive. The air teems with a potent energy just beyond my visual awareness.
I feel it though.
A tremor travels up my spine. If the invisible veil between life and death exists, it’s preparing to open.
Someone’s about to go through.
With tendons straining in his neck, Lucan picks up Worthington by his jacket.
For a moment, I think Lucan will say something to him, the way he holds the professor while emanating such fury.
But then, with one swift, irresistible movement, he pitches Worthington off the balcony.
Lucan doesn’t see him land on the cobblestones amid partying students and the statue of Benedict Darkbloom, because he’s looking at me as if we’re the only two people in the world.
And we are.
It’s just him and me together in the dark, being each other’s light, the way it’s supposed to be.
Then the ground tips harder. Time speeds up and I’m encircled in his strong arms and wintry, comforting scent.
My chest and battered limbs don’t hurt anymore, and I can’t stay awake.
The last thing I hear is Lucan repeating my name, over and over again, like a prayer.