King of Swords (Stormcloud Academy 1)

The alcohol hit me fast. I was already dehydrated from heat, lack of water, and physical exertion (in various forms). Now I was feeling every bit of booze. I wanted to forget the degradation I experienced—naked, held to the bed, used like a common slut, brought to the edge of orgasm by a man of pure evil.

After the second cup of punch, the room went fuzzy. I teetered on my heels.

My eyes shut, and when they opened, I was somewhere else. My mask was gone. I was losing time.

I was in one of those labyrinthine dorm hallways that made Stormcloud Academy so confusing. But now I was alone. There was no music anymore. In fact, the hall was so quiet I could hear little noises behind the bedroom doors I passed. Snoring in one, gossip in another. I heard retching behind one door. Improbably, someone must have been more of a lightweight than me.

Then something changed. A drunken group of students darted down the hall in a singular direction. Their voices rose, their bodies pushing forward as they shoved each other to get ahead. I struggled to make sense of it—an air of excitement that offered the slightest relief from my self-imposed misery. I heard one of them say:

“Holy shit, Brant is dead!”

Those words cut through my drunken stupor. A lump in my throat, a pit in my stomach—I took hold of the wall to steady myself. What had happened to Theo?

There was nothing to do but dash where they were coming from. The pathway took me down an even darker corridor. There were lots of disused alcoves in the dorm wings.

I heard a girl scream, and then a second. They ran past me in costumes only slightly less disheveled than mine. What was everyone running from?

Something clicked in my brain—perhaps that last bit of human instinct for survival. Turning one final corner, I heard the unmistakable sound of fists colliding with bruised flesh. That was when I saw them.

Theo lay slumped against the wall, his black tuxedo torn. Blood seeped from his mouth and down the crisp white of his pleated shirt. His eyes were closed.

I clutched him by his lapels and pulled him into a sitting position. He had a good thirty pounds of muscle on me, so it took all my effort. Not knowing what else to do, I planted a slap on his cheek to try to bring him to. Nothing.

Two fingers on Theo’s neck revealed a faint pulse. He was still there but in bad shape.

The hallway was spinning. All that champagne punch sloshing around my bloodstream ran havoc on my focus. I could feel my vision narrowing.

“We need help!” I shouted, praying someone was still nearby. “Someone’s badly hurt.”

My own voice echoed down the dark corridor. My skull felt too small for my alcohol-pickled brain. I fell heavily into a seat next to Theo’s unconscious body, and my head slumped limply onto his shoulder.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me alone here. Don’t abandon me.”

That was the last thought that echoed in my mind. Don't abandon me...don't abandon me...don't...

Chapter 13

Biba

I hurt. There was no simpler way to describe it. I didn’t even open my eyes but lay there, trying to figure out where the pain was coming from.

Had I slept wrong? Was I sick? I felt the acid coming up my throat and rolled off the edge of the bed to vomit. Once. Twice. A third time.

Only there was no bed to puke off. I was on the decrepit carpet where I’d passed out. I’d coated it with my watery vomit. I would have felt bad for sullying the old school, except as I opened my eyes, I saw this hallway was well-and-truly destroyed without my help.

Both the carpet and the white walls were speckled with brownish dried blood. Theo’s blood, from the savage beating he’d endured.

“Disgusting!” a snotty German voice rang out above me.

I’d been too busy to notice there was someone else in the hall. The huge, spiteful girl from my lunch table. Jabba, as I’d come to think of her, was sitting across from me, as far away from me as she could get.

“What do you want?” I mumbled, “What happened last night? To Theo?”

Jabba hefted her weight and stood. “Frau Wilhelm!” she shouted. “She’s awake. Can I go now?”

“Oh, geez.” I clapped my hands over my ears and rolled over. I heard the clack of Frau Wilhelm’s wooden heels against the paper-thin carpet.

“Vell? Vat do you haf to say for yourself? Eh?”

“Ma’am, I need to know about my friend, Theo.”

“I think dat I should be asking zat question of you, eh.”

“What do you mean?”

“Miss Quinn, we are not stupid, vat-ever you might assume. A vell-known Stormcloud student vas found on the verge of death this morning. The only person near him vas you. You have his blood on your hands, quite literally.”