Chapter 33 Salem
CHAPTER 33
SALEM
“We’re done, bitches!” Melissa screamed, throwing her hands in the air dramatically as she tended to do, making Aditi laugh and Salem shake her
head. A few passing students hooted as well, the
air around campus light.
They had all just finished writing their final exam for the semester, the sun was shining after being absent for two weeks straight, and the cold was a memory under its blaze. School was out and they all had the charity gala to attend in a week before going on winter break, returning in the next semester.
Salem was dreading leaving. Despite its secrets and mysteries and shitty weather, Mortimer felt more like home than any home she’d ever had. She had found herself here, found friendships that she was hopeful would last a long time, and found a connection so deep but that she didn’t really know how to define. She had begun sleeping peacefully without medication or tiring herself out, taking long walks all around campus, and studying what she loved without feeling judged for it. She didn’t want to leave the insulated bubble of that, go back to the outside world where she had never belonged, and feel like a square in a circle all over again.
More than anything, she didn’t want to leave Caz. She knew it was stupid, but the idea of distance between them was making her anxious, her doubts resurfacing, questions pouring into her mind.
What if he got space and realized he didn’t want her?
What if she got space and her walls got too high?
What if he didn’t want to crack them again?
Or the worst, what if he forgot about her?
She didn’t want to be forgotten, not by him. She didn’t want to not matter to him. Because he mattered to her—the way he was with her, uncaring about public or private, the way he let her see his crazy and his cozy spaces, the way he forced her to crack open and let him in.
Being with him every day, in her life, in her room, in her bed, had made her an addict. He was her drug of choice, and she was delirious for him.
And for some reason, the idea of leaving him was making her stomach tie itself up in knots.
“Earth to Salem.” Melissa waved her hand in front of Salem’s face, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Where’d you go?”
“Back to bed with her hunky chonk.” Aditi rolled her eyes.
Salem felt her face flush slightly.
Both the girls giggled at her expense.
“Oh my god, you two are insatiable!” Melissa laughed. “How can he be banging your brains out every night and still look at you like he wants to tear you open and eat you up? It’s so intense, it makes me melt just being in the vicinity.”
Aditi nodded. “Listen, I’m happy for you, very happy. You needed a good dicking down—” They giggled again. “—which I’m sure he’s doing very well. But like, the boy is hooked and it ain’t just to your coochie, girl.”
Melissa cackled at the way Aditi said it, and Salem felt her lips twitch too.
She shook her head, turning to a bent-over Melissa. “How’s it going with Mr. Bar Guy?”
Melissa straightened, her face flushed with laughter, and waggled her eyebrows. “You’re changing the topic, but it’s okay. I don’t have any problems talking about my sex life.”
They began to walk toward the main gates, heading to their regular joint as Melissa started telling them about the man she’d met in the bar, the hot man who had just exchanged first names with her before taking her back to his place.
Aditi exchanged a look with Salem as Melissa kept gushing. They were both thinking the same thing.
Not exchanging names, picking her up at a bar and taking her to a sparsely furnished rented apartment in town, going to the city for his “job” on the weekdays and just showing up on the weekends to meet Melissa. It was suspicious. As sad as it was, the guy was either married or a spy.
But Melissa wasn’t a na?ve idiot. She was smart, and if she was trusting herself with the guy, they would as well. So both she and Aditi kept their lips zipped and listened to her.
Salem looked around the campus as they walked out. The activity was the most she’d seen in weeks, from students leaving exam halls to seniors who’d had their exams earlier helping prepare for the gala, to organizers and staff running around and setting everything up.
The Mortimer Annual Fundraising Gala happened every year around this same time, the event highly exclusive and invite-only, hosting an auction mostly from the School of Arts, and all the proceeds going to various global charities. As altruistic as it was, Salem knew the major reason most splurged was to write it off on taxes. Whatever the intent, at least it was going somewhere to actually help.
The event was hosted in the School of Arts building itself, in a massive gallery that took an entire wing of that part of the castle, with paintings on one floor, sculptures on other, and any miscellaneous items on the third.
The buzz this year was louder than usual, because Caz van der Waal was going to display an entire collection of pieces. Salem knew he already had the front of the gallery booked out for his works, students and their families interested both because they had heard so much about his work and because he kept it so private. Salem was curious too, about the last two pieces he hadn’t let her see, one of them painted on the first night he made love to her.
And that was what he did, wasn’t it? Even when he held her by her hair and pushed her into the bed, even when he bit her neck and slapped her breasts, even when he got so rough he became a beast and made her cry and whimper, he made love to her. Because no matter how rough he got or how controlling or how dark and dirty, the after was always the same—full of soft kisses and gentle caresses, of petting and stroking and holding, cuddling with her, treating her like she was something to be cherished, breaking her and putting her back together, erasing her and painting her back to life. She loved the ferocity, the roughness, the dominance because it was always followed with the reverence, the softness, the worship.
She saw the man in question walking toward the woods, Baron and the other guy she’d seen with him once following him.
Salem frowned slightly, wondering where they were heading off to. A meeting? For their club?
“Guys.” She stopped the girls in their tracks, her eyes on the woods. “I’ll join you in a bit.”
Aditi frowned. “What’s going on?”
Salem tilted her head to the woods. “Just need to check something.”
“Ooh.” Melissa rubbed her hands together. “Are we going spying? Love!”
Aditi shook her head and started toward the woods. “C’mon. Let’s check whatever you want to check.”
Salem watched both girls with mild surprise, then shook herself. They made their way into the woods. Thanks to the sunlight, the path was lit up bright, the rays filtering through the trees and giving them a clear view of the three tall guys in the distance. The boys turned right, heading to the clearing where the bonfire had happened months ago.
Salem ducked low and the other two girls followed. They squat-walked their way behind some bushes with a clear view of the clearing, and Salem watched in surprise as two other boys she didn’t know joined the group.
“What’s going on?” one of the new boys asked, pushing his hands into his pockets.
Baron looked at each one of them. “The selection has been made.”
One of the new guys smiled, but Caz didn’t. In fact he stilled, staring steadily, almost deadly, at Baron, his arms folded over his chest. The blond beside him threw them what looked to be a nervous glance.
Baron looked to the guys. “That’s it. You’ll be escorted when the time comes.”
The new guys grinned and thanked him, then ran off. The blond shared a look with Caz before turning and heading out as well, leaving only Caz and Baron in the clearing.
Salem exchanged a look with the girls, each of them wisely silent.
They turned to see the men.
“So, we doing something about it?” Baron asked Caz, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.
“What about… the families?” Caz asked.
“You know it’ll be taken care of,” Baron replied. “You need to tell me right now if you can’t pull through. I get it. But I need to be prepared.”
Caz clenched his jaw. “I’m not backing off.”
“Stubborn fucker.” Baron huffed a laugh. “I don’t get your motive.”
“It’s not for you to get.”
Baron nodded. “I don’t care, honestly. As long as you don’t fuck me over, we’re good.” He extended a hand for Caz to shake.
Caz took it. “What’s the plan?”
“Meet me at the gym on New Year’s. I’ll brief you.”
Caz nodded. “Deal.”
The men exchanged a few more words and then went the opposite way, emptying the clearing, until all she heard was her own breathing and that of the girls by her side.
“What the fuck was that?” Aditi asked, the confusion in her voice the same Salem felt inside. Salem assumed it had to do with the legacy club, since she knew the men were both in it. They didn’t like each other much, barely tolerated each other, but if they were working together, it had to be for the club, right?
“That was so weird,” Melissa whispered, even though they were alone in the clearing. “What do you think that was about?”
Salem shrugged, not knowing where to begin or what to even tell them, when she didn’t know anything for sure.
“You know,” Aditi mused, her eyes on the clearing. “Baron keeps getting these texts and calls at the weirdest of hours. At first, I thought maybe he was seeing someone else. But it wasn’t that. He’s part of some bird-watching group, of all things. Weird hobby, sure, but makes sense why they all gather at odd hours. So maybe this is about that?”
Bird-watching.
Bird.
Vultures.
Salem just stared at her friend, her mind working. It was a smart decoy on Baron’s part, to make it look like a bird-watching group to explain the hours. But the fact that Lara had just said “bird” before dying, and the vultures she kept seeing in her dreams like her subconscious mind was trying to tell her something her conscious mind couldn’t understand, it was all piecing together. The whole picture still wasn’t clear to her yet, but maybe it would be soon.
Whatever was happening, the men were going to talk about it on New Year’s Day outside the gym.
She needed to be there. That was the only way she was going to learn what the hell was going on.
“C’mon.” She spoke for the first time. “Let’s get out of here.”
Slowly, silently, they walked out of the woods, their minds occupied by the conversation they had just heard.
To celebrate the end of exams and a successful semester, they decided to venture out of town and go to Aston, the much larger town an hour away from Mortimer, right past the end of the woods. The main draw for that happened to be a nightclub, the only nightclub in a hundred-mile radius, that was frequented by Mortimer students often.
They weren’t the only ones with the idea, it seemed. Students carpooled and booked cabs, going in droves to celebrate.
Salem adjusted her short dress after getting out of the cab, followed by her friends, who looked like bombshells in their high heels and short, strappy dresses. Aditi was in electric blue that brought out her darker skin, and Melissa in gold sequins.
Salem’s was similar, since all of them came from Melissa’s closet, but hers had to be stretchy to accommodate her curvier frame. It was also short and strappy, only in black. She’d left her hair tumbling and Aditi had done her eyes in a smokey look that made the gold in them pop.
“You look like a dark goddess,” Melissa had complimented her, and she wished Caz could have seen her. Since the plan was last-minute and they had all gotten ready in Melissa’s room, all Salem had done was let him know that they were going to Aston and she’d be back later.
Truth be told, she was a little mad at him for keeping whatever secret he was keeping from her, despite her asking, and instead making plans for something behind her back. It pissed her off, enough that when Melissa had suggested the plan, completely out of her routine, she had said yes.
Aston was much more crowded than Mortimer, and the line outside the club entrance was long. But she could see a few fellow students from Mortimer entering without lining up.
Well, she had a name that held weight too.
Skipping the queue, she told her friends to follow her and walked right up to the security guard, wondering for a split second if Laz Vanguard had worked the same job once just to make sure he and his brother survived.
Shaking off the thought, she held her ID up. “Table for three, please. For Salazar.”
The guard spoke into his headset before giving her a nod. “Right this way, Miss Salazar.”
Tucking her ID away as the girls hollered, they entered the dim space lit up only by neon lights that frankly hurt her eyes and loud music that pounded in her ears. This was so not her scene. She almost regretted agreeing to come, but her friends happily headed to the bar, and she followed, signing herself off for a night of sensory overload.
Her friends got themselves drinks and she shook her head when asked. Inebriation was the last thing she wanted in this new environment that she didn’t trust one bit. Was she too careful? Maybe. But she’d spent her life studying cases of people who would’ve lived if they’d been a little more careful.
“C’mon! Let’s dance!”
Melissa grabbed her hand, leading her to the dance floor, holding Aditi with the other, the three of them forming a train, weaving through the crowd to reach the full dance floor.
The music pulsed in her ears, moving through her body, and seeing the carefree way her friends and everyone around them were moving, she started to move too, letting herself feel free, do something for herself.
She could see some familiar faces from campus around the club as well, seeing them let loose and have fun like the young daredevils they were, and even as she tried to let go completely, a part of her stayed aware of her surroundings at all times, knowing exactly when someone got too close to her or the girls and moving around accordingly.
Until dancing people separated her from her friends, and she missed one completely and felt hands on her waist.
She didn’t know these hands.
They were too plain, too clean, too… nice.
She started to move away but the hands stayed on her, gripping her hard. She tried to turn, but they kept her in place. She tried to lift her heels but they moved in time, keeping her off-balance. Whoever it was, was strong.
Salem began to feel fury fill her. She took a grip of the hands and dug her nails into his flesh, scratching it off until his grip loosened slightly, just enough for her to turn around and see who it was.
He was wearing a skull mask of some kind. Without a word, he put a piece of paper in her hand and left her alone on the dance floor.
She frowned, trying to control her breathing, and opened the paper.
You’re next, goldengirl01.
What the hell?
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are born to Endless Night.
—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”