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I waited for her reply—and waited. My stomach sank the more minutes ticked by. I took notes on the lecture, misspelt diaphragm twice before giving up altogether, and waited. By the time it reached ten minutes, I gave up on a reply, and the back of my neck still burned.
I curled my hands into fists and pretended everything was normal, that everything had been fine since I got to Ford’s End, and nothing was out of the ordinary. I listened to Professor Lancashire explain the process of respiration in a straightforward manner I appreciated. My head was in too messy a state for any complexities right now.
“—and these nerve impulses are what stimulate ventilation and make it possible for us to breathe. Does anyone know how often the impulses occur?”
“Every three seconds,” Phil called from several rows in front of me, her glossy brunette hair pulled into a high pony, all her notes in an A4 notebook.
“Three to five,” Lancashire agreed with an approving nod. “Someone else this time—what is caused by…”
She trailed off when a deep male voice began loudly intoning Latin. I jumped to my feet, my heart hammering a rapid beat, and I wasn’t the only one. Phil leapt out of her seat, and so did Duncan Ford, the blonde clown, Justin Merchant, and three others I vaguely recognised from the party.
“Fuck this,” Duncan spat and rushed down the steps to the door, a MacBook slung under his arm.
“What’s this about?” the professor asked briskly, striding toward the guy chanting as I threw all my stuff into my bag and got, shaking, to my feet.
He chanted louder, his voice carrying enough for me to pick out words—espiritu santo. I didn’t know what it meant, had vaguely heard it in religious ceremonies, but I wasn’t about to stick around and find out what Nightmare planned this time.
The burning on the back of my neck intensified, but I had worse things to worry about than some creep staring at me. I rushed down the steps, Phil right ahead of me, but I glanced in the direction of the chanting and frowned when I realised the man who was chanting wore dense black robes and was holding up a wooden rosary.
Nightmare had holy men working for her now…?
I didn’t stick around to question it.
“Hang on now,” the professor said at our mass exodus. “There’s no need to leave.”
But seven of us were already out of the door, heading up the cold stairs and not looking for a repeat performance of the Halloween party. If I’d had any doubts about Duncan, they were disproven by his jumpy reaction. He was as scared as I was and—
Wait. The guy in the dungeon classroom wasn’t a priest; he was a student, no older than I was.
I stopped in an alcove off the stone steps and scrubbed a hand over my face. Fuck. He wasn’t one of Nightmare’s henchmen, he was one of us. Cursed. I bet he’d dressed as a priest for Halloween.
“Fuck,” I breathed, staying in the alcove long after the footsteps faded to the higher floors. Shit. I was too fucking paranoid for this, for classes and day to day life and students cursed to be priests.
I dropped my hands to text Honey incessantly until she deigned to reply, but when I blinked away the spots over my eyes, I flinched back with a cry.
The staring creep was right in front of me, his ice-blue eyes narrowed with intense hatred that ripped all the breath from my lungs. I backed up, my spine pressing to cold brick, my blood dropping to the same icy temperature. I fumbled for my phone’s keypad and hit my third speed dial after Mum and Virgil, praying Honey picked up quickly.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” I breathed, not understanding the hatred tightening the guy’s sharp-planed face.
That face came threateningly close to mine, until I could see my own face in the reflection of his glasses.
“What makes you so fucking special?” he demanded, snarling and furious.
I jumped violently, holding up my hand, palm out, my phone clutched fiercely in my other. Come on, Honey, pick up. “I’m not special, I swear. Leave me alone.”
Gut him. Carve his stomach open from side to side until his organs spill out.
My breath caught. I shook harder, my fingers twitching, wanting to grab my knife and answer that dark voice. But I couldn’t. Not again. Not here, where someone would see.
“I don’t see it,” he hissed, leaning so close that my stomach swooped.
“Back off,” I warned breathlessly, panic dumping into my system. Twice in one day I’d been thrown around and threatened, and my fight or flight reactions were intense.
Rip his tongue out so he can never snarl at you again.
His eyes flashed, ice blue and intense, a bright warning. I shoved my hands into his shoulders, pushing him away, but he rocked back a step and came right back at me.
“I’m warning you,” I began, my voice low, the way it had been low that night three years ago.
