AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The night air seared my lungs. I told myself it couldn’t be that cold—the snowfall had actually brought the temperature up to what I estimated was mid-forties. If I just kept moving and got this over with, the weather wouldn’t kill me.
Those girls, they could kill me. This wouldn’t.
But I wasn’t athletic. I’d never run a mile in my life, and I raced too quickly down the path. I wasn’t even halfway to my first corner and already my throat ached with each breath. A cramp seized the side of my belly, a claw with icy talons.
I forced myself to slow my pace, but the cold made my gait awkward, and my legs thudded along like frozen stumps. I was chilled to the core, my flesh puckered into tight goose bumps.
As I pumped my legs, my arms, I became aware of strange things—the cold slab of flesh that was my butt, the way the skin of my legs felt so cold, it burned.
I approached the first curve and made sure to stick to the far outer edge, even though a giant, gnarled hedge reached over the path like it might curl down and swallow me. The Initiates had scared me with thoughts of bogeymen hiding in the dark.
Not bogeymen. Vampires, I corrected myself. It was vampires who hid in the night, waiting to grab me. I was still getting used to the thought.
But the Initiates had made a mistake by inadvertently warning me. I’d been straining to see amid the eerie silhouettes of branches, expecting a monster, and so wasn’t surprised when I saw him.
At first I thought it was a statue. Standing still as death, with a lifeless gray complexion to match. Ambient moonlight shimmered on his face, making it gleam.
He might have been carved from stone but for the glow of his eyes. They weren’t red, like in the movies. Just a shimmering, steely glint. A predator waiting, watching in the night.
It wasn’t the headmaster, either. This one had black hair and black clothing that merged with the shadows. In his pallid skin, I saw that he wasn’t truly alive. But his eyes told me neither was he truly dead.
Those undead eyes tracked me. They seemed to glimmer into a grin as I neared. I told myself it was my imagination.
My heart exploded into high gear, but I forced myself to keep my pace. Forced my arms and legs to pump neither faster nor slower.
He hid in the shadows, but something told me he wouldn’t do anything. Something told me these vampires craved an audience. I assured myself of this as I ran toward him, into the blackness of the hedgerow.
A whisper echoed in the leaves. The sound didn’t originate in a single spot; rather, it cloaked me from all around, a hiss that felt as ancient as the land. “Run. ”
Adrenaline dumped into my veins. I tasted it, sour on my tongue. But with it came fury. Torture and hazing and monsters lurking in the dark. I’d hoped for some sort of special college for geniuses, but this macabre mockery of a school? This was definitely not what I’d signed up for.
I relished my anger. Let it bloom into determination.
Time compressed.
I didn’t see or hear the vampire again. My thoughts distilled to two single, bright lights. Vengeance. Freedom. I’d make Lilac suffer, and then I’d get out.
Ronan had said the only way to get off the island was to succeed. I’d wanted to stay under the radar. I’d thought I could quietly do well and then find a way to escape. But Lilac had screwed that up for me. Now all the catsuits knew who I was. I was no longer anonymous—I was the girl who’d fallen in the shower.
By my third lap, my feet had cut an irregular band of black footprints through the melting snow. The rhythmic thump-thump of my pace mesmerized me. The path was slushy and muddy and squished with each stride. All I knew were these sounds. All I perceived was the up-and-down pounding of my breasts. The up-and-down of my frozen cheeks as each step threatened to jostle the flesh free from my skull. The air still stung my lungs, but I forced my focus instead on the white cloud of each exhale.
Thump-thump. Vengeance. Thump-thump. Freedom.
I knew three things: I was cold. This was Lilac’s fault. Lilac would pay.
When I reached the dorm at the end of my final lap, my Proctor Amanda was standing outside, waiting. She was a vision, standing still and tall in a fitted coat. She’d donned her hood, and it haloed her face with a cloud of fur. Her dark skin was luminous in the watery moonlight.
I was watching her, not my step, and I slipped, catching myself with a hand to the ground before I toppled all the way.
“Careful. ” She chuckled. “The snow’s a bit dodgy. ”
“Yeah. ” I stood and dusted myself off. My hands ached to the bones with cold—I felt they might shatter from it. “I got that. ”
“Care for a pointer, dolly, before you head back in?”
The moment I stopped running, I’d started to tremble. My face was a frozen mask, too cold to speak, so I just nodded jerkily, my curiosity piqued.
“Them’s wolves, not girls. You let this stand, and boo, Lilac’s the boss of your little pack. ”
