Chapter Nine Roses have thorns
CHAPTER NINE
Roses have thorns
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
I forced a smile at Jojo, gesturing to the party hall around us.
“I’m a student. Obviously. This was my last year to enroll, so I did.”
Jojo looked frustrated, and I could tell that his mind was racing. Mine was too. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and now here we both were, at Westfield.
The irony of it all was laughable. Twisted, even.
“I thought you said you’d never come here,” he said.
“I can change my mind. I’m allowed to do that. And so are you, apparently.” I laughed, nodding to his new haircut and Westfield blazer. “You even shaved your locs. Are you actually Jojo Charles?” I should have known he’d been a fraud. Like, two first names. Really?
Instinctively, I reached for him, only stopping myself when he turned away, my palms brushing his cheek. The warmth of his touch made me ache in ways that tore at me.
I pulled away, clenching my fist. “And don’t say it wasn’t because of this place. I guess a research residency at Westfield is just too hot to turn down, even for you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“So, explain.”
His lips parted, but instead of answering, he took my hand.
Heat blossomed in my cheeks, and suddenly, all the hurt and anger and rage I felt toward him for ignoring me these last few months dissipated against the feeling of our interlinked fingers.
But then he spoke, his gaze hardened and focused on the bracelet I wore, and it all came crashing back.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” he hissed. He glanced behind him, worry etched in his expression. “And you’re playing with fire walking around here with it. At least cover it up or try to hide it. Do you want people to start asking questions?”
So he knew the bracelet belonged to the Westfield heir.
“Should they? I mean, it was in your car, Jojo. How exactly did it get there after the stabbing?”
For a moment, with our hands interlinked, a vision flashed in my mind, but Jojo moved his hand to my wrist, pulling me back to the present before my powers could take hold.
“Are you looking into my past?”
I yanked my hand from him.
“Not intentionally,” I admitted, crossing my arms and making sure my fingertips didn’t touch anything.
His gaze searched mine, the worry returning there. “Is something wrong with your powers? Is that why you’re here?”
He’d seen right through me. He knew me so well. And yet, I barely knew him.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Jojo. Why did you have the bracelet?”
“What are you trying to accuse me of, Sianna?” He was going to make me say it, daring me to voice my suspicions, even as I’d wanted to deny them.
And I couldn’t do it.
“Whatever you’re looking for,” Jojo said, “you won’t find it. Leave Westfield. It’s not worth being here.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Honey and the other man watching our unfolding argument. Other people were staring at us. Amid the crowd, whispers began to churn. Jojo noticed too.
“Let’s talk later,” he said, as if I’d already agreed to his offer, as if I was just some helpless, naive girl that he could keep stringing along.
“You can’t make me leave because of some cryptic warning. I have a scholarship. I belong here at Westfield, same way you do.”
He laughed.
“Look around, Sianna,” he said. “None of us belong in this school. We never will.”
But I’d already started walking away, slipping past groups of legacies and regular admits.
Behind me, Jojo called my name, his footsteps following in pursuit.
A waitress tried to stop me, but I ducked out of her way and turned a corner, and then another, and another, until the voices at the entrance of the hall grew distant.
A few paces away, I spotted a cracked door.
One of the security key card readers had been installed beneath the knob.
It blinked orange, rather than red or green, and I looked down to see a small wooden block wedging the door open.
A soft breeze blew from the other side and the door groaned, drawing back ever so slightly before lurching forward.
Ahead of me, the hall continued to an intersection, but Jojo’s footsteps were getting closer and I was running out of time. If he or Honey found me, they’d probably deduct merit points from my student profile. I couldn’t start my time in Westfield with a disadvantage.
I made the decision in a split second, slipping through the door and pulling the wedge from its place. The lock clicked and a pulsing red light blinked from the key reader. Immediately, my body knew that I’d made the wrong choice.
I spun around and found myself at the entrance of a maze.
This area was an open courtyard with perfectly trimmed hedges cutting a series of paths.
It was early in the afternoon now, but dark clouds stretched their hand over the sky, and the only trickles of light came from the soft glow of a reddened sun.
Cold wind pricked against the hairs on the back of my neck, and I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from shivering.
There would be an exit on the other side of the maze. I just had to find it.
So, I started walking.
Gravel lined the path forward. The sound of my footsteps lifting dirt and stone lulled me into a comforting stride. The maze itself was towering. Dark green leaves growing from the hedges cast haunting shadows at every corner, their uniform trim unsettling as I trekked deeper and deeper.
Had I already turned this corner before?
I turned back, only to find another hedge, another corner ahead.
With each one I passed, the enclosure drew me in.
The maze was eating itself like a snake swallowing its tail.
Branches nicked against my arms, the hedges craning closer and closer with every turn.
My footsteps beat against the gravel as the brisk evening wind pricked at my fingertips.
Around the corner a figure stood, shrouded by bloody streaks of sunlight peeking through the hedges.
The figure was tall and broad, their skin pale like moonlight.
Their hair was shaved into a close buzz cut, and they wore a gray hoodie beneath a Westfield blazer.
As I drew closer, the cool intensity of their gaze burned into my vision.
It was like the air had been sucked from my lungs, like the cold had drawn its ghostly hands against my neck and drew tighter and tighter until my breath escaped me.
Pain cut through me, and the ever-faint trace of my perpetual migraine returned.
The figure’s pupils were… empty. Where irises should have been there remained, instead, a fracturing of red lines slicing through pearl white. Wood shavings and sawdust powdered his incandescent skin. And his Westfield blazer—it was covered in blood.
Bile rose in my throat. I stumbled backward, but behind me were the hedges.
Something yanked my arm. Hands—no, branches; branches twisted around my arms, snaking up my legs and thighs, around my waist, my neck, caressing my cheeks, nipping my ears, clawing at the fabric of my shirt and jeans.
I dug my nails into my palms, tried to break away and scream, even as branches covered my lips and leaves sprouted into my mouth, hungry and searching like a thousand salivating tongues.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The figure drew closer and closer.
“B-b-b-beware the mark of b-b-b-b-blood debts.”
When he spoke, it was in unison with the leaves and the branches and the wind; the sound a chorus of nails on a chalkboard, a disjointed echo that raked through the back of my mind.
I tore against the branches, spitting out leaves, and clawing and screaming and suffocating. But I was trapped. Time caught me in its grip, and his empty eyes stared deep into mine.
On my wrist, the cowrie bracelet hummed, a soft glow of light emanating from the ring at the center and from the mouths of the shells. I thrashed and the branches retreated before lurching forward, stronger now, fueled with rage.
Hot warmth pricked against my nose, and a trail of liquid slid from my nostril down my chin. When I clawed at my face and pulled back, my fingers were covered in blood. My blood.
That’s when I started screaming. My view of the present disintegrated into flashes of time: the Westfield heir bleeding out in the alleyway, Jojo and the bodyguard arguing, a figure disappearing down a dark corridor in a hallway that was just as much of a maze as this one.
The visions were relentless. The past and the future melded with my own memories.
It was all-consuming. I wanted the vision to end.
I wanted to tear the bracelet off my wrist. But I was sinking further and further from reality until, faintly, a gentle, steady pressure on my palm broke through my psychic visions.
And then there were hands again; hands emerging from within the hedge, hands that wrapped around my waist and pulled me into the depths of the leaves and twisted branches just as the pupilless figure bared its teeth and launched itself at me.
Pain jolted through my body, and my forehead throbbed. I fell back, letting out a gasp as the arms encircled me and drew me across the threshold, to the other side of the hedge.
“Just breathe. We’re in a courtyard. Focus on that. Focus on where you are.”
The voice was deep and rich, but it came out muffled, like something was obscuring the mouth that had said the words.
Hot tears of pain pricked my lashes. I pressed my eyes shut, trying to channel my powers and rein in the visions.
Slowly, the fractured images of time flickered in and out, in and out, until I was back in the present.
And then I saw him.
He was tall, with dark brown skin, ebony-black hair, and cool, russet-colored eyes. Money dripped from every inch of him, from his clean-cut, low taper fade hairstyle to the designer trousers and shoes he wore and his Westfield blazer. But when his gaze fell over mine, my heart knotted in my chest.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
It was nothing like I’d seen in my visions, nothing like I’d imagined since that night. But here he was.
Alive.