24. Petra
PETRA
PRESENT DAY
I must be more traumatized by Edwin’s passing than I realized. Hearing the details of his sadistic murder did not help at all, and now I find myself dreaming of the strangest pagan rituals and satanic sacrifices.
Even the prospect of Ms. Matthews’s spirited lectures cannot pull me out of the trenches. The very hallways of the school seem darker, and the sky grows more overcast as well.
My conversation with Fiona and Phil sits heavily on my shoulders, and I feel like I’m moving through a fog.
Yet my surroundings are as animated as ever.
Even as I find my seat and start taking out my things, whispers echo around me, and I catch bits and pieces of conversations that make my skin crawl.
“—some sort of satanic ritual,” a girl is saying. “Just trust me. It has to be connected to the Society.”
“What’s that?” another student asks.
The girl—Sierra’s her name, I think—replies, “The Ouroboros Society. Haven’t you heard of them? The admins on St. Anselm Hive always post about them close to Halloween.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” another voice cuts in. “It’s almost Halloween, right? Maybe it’s a sacrifice for the Ouroboros Society.”
“Excuse me,” says the same voice that had responded to Sierra the first time. “Who or what are the Ouroboros Society?”
A secret society, I want to respond, but don’t have to because Sierra says as much.
“They were formed in the 1800s, apparently. And get this—” her voice drops lower, as if trying to heighten suspense— “their 150-year anniversary is coming up this year! And the same year Edwin turns up dead and stuffed with rats? That cannot be a coincidence.”
Though I’m disgusted by the way she speaks of Edwin, the hairs on my neck stand on end when I realize that the truth will probably be way worse than whatever tale Sierra Nelson cooks up.
“No way,” another girl gasps as the blood drains from her face. She actually believes this local legend nonsense. “You mean like those secret cults you see in horror movies?”
Yeah, right, like St. Anselm Hall is cool enough to have its own Midsommar staged in these hallowed halls.
My annoying inner voice is back in full force, and even outwardly, I don’t bother to hide my scorn for all the melodramatic theories.
Yet the fact that my mind conjured up something similar in my nightmare gives me pause.
“Exactly,” Sierra says with not a shred of irony, bless her. “And get this—there were similar murders exactly a hundred years ago. Bodies found all torn up and missing organs and all their blood.”
Well, at least there’s that—in my dream, the bodies were only drained of blood.
As if that makes it any better.
“Dude, that’s fucking insane,” the other guy whispers. “And you’re saying it’s happening again?”
The talk is getting really cheap at this point, so I try to focus on my iPad instead, jotting down random lines and observations about today’s reading material to keep my mind occupied.
But the chatter in the classroom is impossible to ignore, each horrific theory gaining wind and swirling around like a dark cloud.
I bury my face in my hands. Edwin’s death is becoming a grotesque piece of gossip, and it feels so wrong and disrespectful to the memory of that sweet boy.
I take deep breaths again, trying to block out the voices around me.
At that blessed moment, the teacher finally enters, and the room eventually settles down. The rest of the class passes in a similar subdued vein, and I do my best to pay attention. In another half hour, the lunch bell rings, and I’m happy to put some space between myself and the chatty Sierra.
“And everyone in Radcliffe knows about the Society, too. I’ve heard my parents talk about them when they think I’m asleep,” she’s saying to the group gathered around her.
I shake my head and stride toward the cafeteria. Maybe I will feel less homicidal toward that mouthy idiot after I’ve eaten some bread.
Then again, the cafeteria resounds with its own cacophony of conversation and clattering dishes.
My nerves still on edge, I pile a tray with French toast and fruits, some of the safer foods that my sensitive stomach can handle these days, and scan the room for a familiar face.
That’s when I spot Harry near the buffet. He catches my eye and waves me over. I’m only too happy to comply.
“Hey, Petra,” he says as I approach. “Want to sit together?”
I nod gratefully. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
We find a table near the back of the cafeteria. There is less noise here, and the ugly gossip doesn’t quite reach my ears.
“I heard the announcement yesterday,” Harry begins. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know, the usual,” I respond in a frustrated voice, finally glad to be asked a normal question.
“I got called to the principal’s office so the detectives investigating Edwin’s death could interrogate me about the time we spent together and if I knew who might have killed him so brutally and if I could just give them the culprit’s IG or Twitter handle, that’d be great, too. ”
Harry’s eyes widen, and then his face changes color when he realizes I’m not entirely serious. “Why would they interrogate you, though? You just had one class with him.”
“I don’t know! That’s why it was so irritating.” I take an angry bite of the fluffy French toast and almost immediately feel better. “It’s just been rough,” I continue. “All the rumors and then the graphic details . . . it’s all just too much.”
Not to mention my dreams that are riddled with satanic rituals and charming rakes that want to sell their soul to the devil for a kiss.
I take another bite of my toast, the dream-memory of that kiss suddenly arising in my brain.
“Yeah, no, this whole situation is beyond messed up,” Harry replies. Though he has selected an appetizing dish of baked ziti, he’s barely eaten any of it. I don’t have any bracing words to offer, so we just sit in silence for a while.
But soon I notice a flurry of voices whispering very close to us, and not long after, I see that Sin has just entered the cafeteria with a bunch of his friends.
Even though the girls and guys around him are talking and joking among themselves, his eyes are fixed on me, or rather, on me with Harry.
Again, a dark pool—of malice? or anger—glistens in his eyes. I feel my skin prickle at the expression on his face. So singular is his focus, so concentrated is his gaze, that even the crowd can sense its tangible presence.
Though they can’t pinpoint the exact source of tension in the room, the senses of this mob, which is composed of incredibly spoiled teenagers with a greater-than-average penchant for casual cruelty, are finely attuned enough to detect an incoming tussle.
The SAH crowd loves nothing more than a messy spectacle.
“Petra, I’ve been thinking—” Harry begins, but stops abruptly. Because he has also sensed the shift in the general mood.
Following my line of sight, he sees Sin making his way over to our table with purposeful strides. Instantly, Harry tenses beside me.
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck—
“Harry, is it?” Sin’s chilly words cut into my inner monologue. “Can I talk to Petra for a sec? Alone?”
Harry turns to me, as if he’s trying to show that he only cares about what I want in this situation.
“Is something wrong, Petra?” he says in a level voice.
Sin’s the one who replies. “I need to speak with her,” he says in a crisper tone than before. “Privately.”
I see the confusion and underlying fear on Harry’s face.
“Sin,” I interject here, a barely veiled impatience in my voice, “what’s so important that it can’t wait?”
When Sin glances at me, his expression softens slightly, but the hard lines on his face don’t relax fully.
“Please, Petra. It’s important.”
Harry hesitates for a second more and then reluctantly stands up. “Okay, Petra, if you’re sure. I’ll . . . catch you later,” he finishes in a sheepish tone, giving me a questioning look.
“Thanks, Harry,” I try to reassure him with a small smile.
Sin sits down the moment Harry walks away. His eyes follow Harry like a hawk before turning back to me. The kids around us are furiously whispering among themselves, and Sin’s friends look pretty annoyed, but Sin’s gaze stays focused on me.
“Sin, what are you doing?” I’m beyond pissed at the scene this man is creating, so I try to infuse each word with the utmost derision I can muster. And why does he have to look so good? With his hair perfectly tousled, and his lips plump and inviting, and—
No, no, we’re not going there!
Yet the fact that he looks identical to the man from my dreams makes the situation worse.
The memory of our night together at Elias’s party is now gaining depth with the addition of these new emotions from my dreams. Where the alcohol-clouded kisses we shared might be a little fuzzy, the dream kiss was not. It was . . .
I squeeze my eyes shut. Fuck this and fuck him, and while we’re at that, fuck my idiotic brain, too, for conjuring up those dreams.
“Petra,” Sin begins in a voice thickened with some ineffable emotion. “Look, I’m really sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean for things to escalate like that.”
I cross my arms tightly, not giving him an ounce of sympathy. “Sin, you can’t just scare off my friends and demand that I talk to you.”
Seriously, who the hell does he think he is?
“I know,” Sin replies with an agonized expression. “I shouldn’t have done that. I know I can be overbearing. And I’m sorry for that. I just really wanted to tell you—”
I guess I will never find out what he wanted to tell me at that moment because his words are drowned out by a loud comment from a nearby table.
“Whoa, Sin Arnoult the First is wooing Petra Valentine. Isn’t he scared his dick will freeze off from her frost?”
The remark is followed by snickers and sharp laughter as St. Anselm Hall’s students display their mettle—and taste—for jokes of the lowest possible caliber. Even then, I wince because the cruel words hit home.
But Sin looks positively thunderous, and his jaw tightens. Before I can react, he stands up abruptly. The room falls silent, and the whispering voices are completely cut off.
“Listen up,” Sin says, and the edge in his voice could have beheaded a thousand French nobles. “I know you all like to gossip, but if I ever hear anyone say anything bad about Petra Valentine again, I’ll make you pay for it—and dearly.”
He looks around the cafeteria with fire in his eyes, and I notice some of the students sitting closer to us physically flinch away from his gaze.
“Consider this your only warning,” he finishes in the same low voice, which almost sounds like a leonine growl, and sits down. As if he was used to commanding entire roomfuls of people to do his bidding.
Even after he sits down, the silence remains unbroken for a while. The entire cafeteria seems to be holding its breath. The sheer menace in Sin’s tone has spooked me, as well. Some people exchange nervous glances. Others are suddenly very interested in their trays, which are mostly clean anyway.
“Sin,” I whisper in shock. I’m undeniably stunned and scrambling for words as I sputter, “Sin, you didn’t have to—”
“Yes, I did,” he cuts me off firmly, but his eyes are softer when he looks at me. “You deserve better than their pettiness.”
I am even more bereft of words because nobody, nobody, has ever defended me like that. For as long as I can remember, I have always had to come to my own defense—hence my allegedly thick skin and aloof demeanor.
Yet Sin had declared his allegiance toward me so boldly, so fearlessly, that I’m once again captivated by his chivalry.
The murmurs of the cafeteria gradually do restart, but there’s a noticeable slump in their flow now, like everyone’s too afraid to say anything too loud. I catch a few girls glaring at me, but I lift my chin in open disdain. To hell with the lot of them!
“Thank you,” I tell Sin in a soft voice. “Th-that was nice of you.”
“You deserve to be treated with respect, Petra,” Sin insists again, “and I was only doing what’s right. Don’t think of it as a favor, please.”
The remaining tension in my chest loosens slightly. Still, I can’t completely forget how Sin had menaced Harry just a while back. He needs to know that grand gestures don’t always absolve him of his occasional tendency to strong-arm others.
Before I can say as much, a wave of nausea hits me out of nowhere. Or maybe my body has been sending me warning signals that have gone unnoticed amidst all the conflicts and confrontations.
Either way, I know I won’t be able to hold it in.
“I’ve to go—” I gasp before bolting down the hallway toward the nearest bathroom. Why must this happen to me in front of Sin? Why must he always catch me in my most vulnerable physical states?
The questions mix with the other bilious swirl surging along my food pipe, and once again, I barely make it to the toilet in time.
Of course, my body being unused to these sudden onslaughts of sickness, I am overwhelmed enough to not notice when the bathroom door creaks open or when sharp footsteps ricochet against the walls.
When I exit the stall slowly, my legs shaking ever so slightly and my hair disheveled, Daphne is fixing her hair at the mirror.
She glances at me with her usual expression of disgust until she notices how pale my face looks.
“Rough day, huh?” she says, her tone light. “Or maybe you’re bulimic?”
I ignore her and start fixing myself. The cold water helps me feel better, but Daphne can’t stand anyone looking comfortable in her vicinity, so she says, “Oh, please, don’t tell me someone knocked you up! Is Petra prego?”
She starts laughing at her own apparently clever quip.
But I do something stupid. I flinch, unwittingly and very visibly, at her last taunt.
Daphne may be obnoxiously oblivious to everyone’s feelings, but her sharp eyes widen in realization when she sees my reaction. The laughter stops abruptly. She turns toward me and starts clicking her heels.
“My, my, what do we have here?” Her voice is slippery with poison, and her eyes narrow as she steps closer. “I touched a nerve, didn’t I? Little Miss Better-Than-Us has a bun in the oven!”
Before I can tell her to fuck off, the bathroom door flies open with a loud bang. Sin rushes inside, eyes askance with worry.
“Petra! Are you okay?” he demands, rushing to my side.
Daphne takes a step back, her eyes darting between Sin and me. “Whoa, Sin, calm down! She isn’t the delicate damsel you think she is.”
My heart starts racing as I realize that Daphne is infinitely petty and calculating. If she has indeed understood that her joke is very real to me, she will use that information in the worst way imaginable.
Sin ignores her and steps toward me.
“Hey, what’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling this bad?”
Behind him, Daphne continues to smirk at me, and the ghastliest question presents itself: Will she tell him right now?