22. Blood In
Blood In
Elias
The night after the Halloween party, I wake up to the loud crash of my bedroom door being smashed open.
I don’t even have time to react, reach for the lamp or my phone.
It’s dark in the room, but not so dark that I can’t make out the figures rushing in.
Before I can even sit upright, I’m being grabbed and dragged out of bed.
My leg hits the bedpost hard, but the pain doesn’t have time to register.
A hood is shoved over my head, and then everything goes black.
There are no voices, only the sound of footsteps and movement, the disorienting rush of my breath as I try to gasp in air through thick fabric. Don’t panic. Panic is what kills people. Stay calm.
There’s a rush of cold—we’ve left the dorm building. Crunching gravel, dull wind. Branches whipping against my bare legs and arms. I’ve never regretted sleeping in my boxers more. My feet stumble painfully over pebbles, then frost-sharp grass.
I don’t speak—there’s no point. I’ve pissed off a lot of people over the years, but there’s only one person I’ve pissed off recently. And if Julian Langford is hellbent on revenge, then no amount of pleading or bargaining can save me now.
I don’t know how long we’ve been moving or how far from campus we’ve gone.
Suddenly, the terrain changes under my bare feet: uneven grass and branches giving way to smooth, slippery wood.
I try to rifle through my memories, guess where we could be.
Then we come to a stop so sudden I almost lurch forward.
I’m shoved hard into nothing.
My heart drops through my guts. I reach out helplessly, scrabbling at thin air.
And then I go slamming into ice-cold water.
For a second, the shock is worse than anything else. Worse than the impact, the cold, the suffocation, the panic. My mouth opens on a gasp, and water rushes in through the hood, fabric clinging to the insides of my mouth.
Fuck. I’m going to die here.
I can’t die like this. I’ve made it through too much; all the good shit is still ahead.
All this hard fucking work. I can’t die before it all pays off.
Fuck that.
My body bursts into motion, taking charge.
I thrash in the water, kicking. At the same time, I yank the hood up off my head.
The sudden freedom of my face no longer being covered is treacherous: I open my mouth on instinct to gasp for breath, and gulp in a mouthful of water that seems to rush straight into my lungs.
Shit—calm down, Lennox. Think. Breathing’s not an option. You gotta swim up first. I kick harder, thrusting myself up, arms pushing hard against water. I break through the surface with a yell so loud it sounds ripped straight out of my vocal cords.
I gasp and thrash. The water is disorienting, so is the cold, but the air is a hard icy shock in my lungs, ringing all the way through me like I’m a gong the world has just struck with all its might.
I splutter out a mouthful of water, right myself, catch another breath. Around me, I start making out trees, grey outlines of distant starlight. Swaying sedges, rippling eddies. A narrow wooden dock.
The lake.
I’m in the Spearcrest fucking lake. The realisation sends a beam of clarity through my mind. I’m okay. I just got thrown into the lake. What the fuck.
I slash into the water, swimming swiftly to the dock, where I hoist myself up with a huge effort. I come crashing down onto the frost-slicked wood, landing hard on my belly and chest. For a second, I just catch my breath, letting the shock of the situation ebb slowly away.
The cold is kicking in by now. All I’m wearing are my boxers, sopping wet. My hair dangles over my eyes. I shove myself upright, and as I do, my hand brushes past something cold and sharp. I glance down.
A knife.
I grab it and lurch upright, staring around.
Everything here is moving: the water, the bushes, the tree branches.
But then my eyes catch on something. Light, right there.
I leave the dock, careful not to slip, and plunge into the trees, ignoring the brutal cold, the wind, my own nudity.
My fingers are wrapped tight around the knife.
The light grows more distinct as I make my way through the woods—until I finally reach it, and realise it’s coming out of a window. An old, crumbling building, half-covered in thick tangles of ivy and bramble.
“What the fuck…”
My voice comes out in a broken rasp, steam wreathing from my lips. I recognise the building—the disused hunting lodge. Stalking to the door, I slam it open, knife still clenched at my side.
Inside: old chairs, lamps, a boxing bag, a huge mounted antler’s head. The lamps are on, and there’s a lit storm lamp propped in the empty fireplace. Sitting around the room, grinning smugly, are familiar faces.
Blaise Blackwood, reclined, amused.
Mikhail Rurik, marble-like and unconcerned.
Jamie Vale, holding a cold bottle of beer against his latest black eye, looking mildly surprised.
Benjamin Montgomery, the self-proclaimed future prime minister, legs crossed lazily at the ankles.
And finally, Dimitri Kavinski, sitting hunched, eyes dark, feral amusement leaking out from between bared white teeth.
The Blood Brotherhood.
“You guys are real fucking weird, you know that?” I say to Dimitri.
He shrugs. “Gotta weed out the weak somehow.”
“That’s the best thing you could think of?”
“Not quite.” Dimitri gestures with his chin towards my hand—which is still holding the knife. “Blood in, Lennox. Only way into the Brotherhood.”
I glance down at the knife in my hand, thinking quickly. Then I glance back up.
“I have to spill blood to get in?”
Dimitri’s grin widens. “Simple as that.”
I meet his eyes. “Whose blood?”
Surprise flickers in his expression.
“Yours, presumably,” Benjamin Montgomery interjects with an amused snicker.
“Does it have to be?”
At my question, Jamie and Blaise exchange a glance. Dimitri, whose gaze I’m still fixing, sits up, leaning suddenly forward. “Whose blood would you prefer to spill, Lennox?”
And, because I don’t think it was Blaise, or Benjamin, or Jamie who decided to rip me out of my bed and throw a hood over my face and throw me into a freezing fucking lake, I nod at him.
“Yours.”
For a moment, there’s complete silence. I feel the weight of staring eyes on me, and I know I must look a fucking sight, with my wet boxers and my teeth chattering and my hair hanging over my eyes like a half-drowned dog and my legs and arms covered in cuts and bruises, with all the older scars still there, lurking.
But I keep my eyes on Dimitri, who finally lumbers to his feet.
He crosses the space between us, footsteps making the old wooden floorboards rattle. And then he reaches out his hand.
“Do your worst, Lennox.”
Behind him, Blaise lets out a soft, surprised laugh. Mikhail Rurik, long fingers playing with a cigarette, sits up, glacial blue eyes fixed on the knife in my hand. Jamie’s mouth is parted; Benjamin’s head slightly tilted. They’re all watching—waiting to see if I have the guts to follow through.
I grab Dimitri’s wrist and slash the inside of his hand, deep, without hesitation. The blood pools in his palm and dribbles down between his fingers, from his knuckles, droplets so thick you can hear them hitting the floor.
“Done?” I say, tossing aside the knife.
Dimitri says absolutely nothing, the silence in the room so thick it’s practically an entity of its own.
It’s only then that I realise I’m shaking from the cold, from the aftereffects of shock. But when has anything in my life ever come easy?
Dimitri’s face breaks into a savage, satisfied grin. “Done,” he says.
Sheer willpower alone stops me from dropping to my knees in relief.
“You crazy fucking bastard,” Dimitri Kavinski says. “Welcome to the Blood Brotherhood.”