Chapter 27

HEMLOCK

T here’s a rise to the north of the School of Creation. A road bordered by woods with farmland beyond that provides the perfect parking spot from which to do a little surveillance.

The building sits under cloud cover, the central building’s lower two floors lit up, but even then it’s a dismal looking gray stone affair. You’d think they’d make it brighter, more welcoming considering it houses hundreds of children.

I’ve done my research on the place. The west residences are for humans claimed by vampire houses for turning, and the east residences for children who are sent here for the prestige, and now they’re adding a wing, but for what?

I lower the spyglass to my lap and check the dash clock. It’s almost ten p.m. “The recital will be over soon.”

“Then what?” Ordell asks.

“A meal and the ball.”

He growls in annoyance.

“You’re the one who wants to be here.”

He makes a noncommittal sound, then sighs heavily.

“This is ridiculous, you know that, right?”

“Of course I fucking know it,” Ordell snaps, and I clamp my mouth shut because Ordell rarely, if ever, loses his cool.

Mate marking Orina has thrown off his equilibrium. It’s made this whole year even more of a ticking time bomb than it already was. Of all the women in all the world, his beast had to choose her.

But it also makes sense based on the past.

Orina has a hold on us all, but I have to be strong enough to resist. I can’t allow myself to slip and care too much, because if things go badly, then I’ll be the one who has to end her.

A fist squeezes my heart, and I make an involuntary sound of distress.

“Hem?” Ordell watches me with concern. “Are you all right?”

I press my lips together and nod. “Cramp.”

He sits back in his seat and pulls a cereal bar from his shirt pocket. “You want one?”

“Nah.” We sit in silence watching the gates to the school. “What are you going to do if it happens?”

“When,” Ordell says. “ When it happens. Don’t tell me you’re not seeing it.”

“He’s retreating.”

“Because he’s scared. But he came tonight, didn’t he?”

Yeah, he did, and that proves that it’s working. Orina is working. My chest aches again, but this time with hope. But I don’t voice it. I won’t jinx it.

“We could have missed it altogether,” Ordell says. “If Ezekiel hadn’t massacred all those women, then…You’ll keep her safe until…”

“I will.” I pick the spyglass back up only because it’s something to do.

I don’t expect to see anything strange.

Until I do.

A shadow, too large and misshapen to be a person, darts toward the east residence and vanishes into the gloom.

“What is it?” Ordell asks.

“Movement.”

“Okay…”

“Not a person. One second…” I try to find the thing, resisting the urge to move the spyglass too fast.

“Hem…”

“Wait…Where are you? Come on. Where—” Another hulking figure darts across my field of vision, followed by a third then a fourth. I can’t get a clear look as to what they are, but then the clouds part, and the school is momentarily bathed in moonlight.

Claws of ice sink into my gut. “Fuck! Drive. Ordell, drive now!”