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The storm is gone. Uneven patches of snow cling to the windowpanes. The candles have all burned to puddles of wax and the tree leans to the right, the once shiny ornaments now dull as if covered by soot or dust.
Bodies lie scattered across the floors and tables, some stirring, others remaining eerily still.
My chest aches and I lift my hand, pressing my palm to cover my heart.
It takes every ounce of energy I can muster to twist my body to face Alastair, my hands coming up to cup his cheeks as I take in his appearance. His body is slumped back against the pillar, hair mussed and cheeks ashen. His full, beautiful lips are practically gray and I want to kiss him, if not just for the pleasure of urging blood back into the sallow tissue.
His lips curve in a gentle smile, and I know it’s his way of reassuring me. We made it through the night and that’s more than I could have hoped for.
Relief tries to claw its way to the surface of my mind but as I cast my gaze around, faces and bodies morphing, the feeling disappears.
There’s a loud thud just outside the large wooden doors of the dining hall, and my body jolts. If it weren’t for Alastair’s arm draped around my waist, I’d have fallen off his lap.
More bodies rise slowly, heads swinging in the direction of the noise that grows louder with each passing second.
The chains used to lock us inside clang against the doors as they rattle with each loud thud and Alastair’s grip grows tighter. My hands tremble, tingles starting in my chest and spreading through my limbs. My breath remains caught in my throat and the wood cracks. The doors are pushed open and men and women dressed in matching outfits that hug their bodies from ankles to necks come piling into the dining hall, wearing some sort of apparatus over their faces, shouting at us to evacuate as they unlatch windows and doors, throwing them wide open.
Alastair lifts me out of his lap, wrapping a wool blanket over my shoulders, and slides his arms through his coat before lifting me in his arms and carrying me out into the frigid morning air where sirens and state official vehicles await us.
Chapter 12
One Day Before Christmas
They thought they were calling down angels.
They thought they would save them.
They were wrong.
The air was thin that night, the anxiety of being held within the walls of the place they’d once thought of as their home had become oppressive. Unable to focus. To think. To breathe.
They sought refuge in the way they so often had. Climbing onto the roof’s ledge, spreading their arms wide and pretending they could fly.
Except this time, they jumped.
And there was nothing but the soft, pillowy snow beneath them to catch their fall.
They laid face down in the snow, their bodies bruised and broken, and as the seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours, the cold air surrounding them stole their last breaths.
Chapter 13
Four Days Before Christmas
Anticipation had sung through her blood, quickly snuffed out by the disappointment that so often followed her when Professor Balor Dinwoodie grew near. She longed for companionship, so much so that she hid their affair from the one person she trusted with everything, knowing she would never approve.
But not everyone could be so lucky as to find the love of their life at the very place they ran to for refuge. And who was she to dole out advice anyway? Calista was wasting precious time, frivolously spending her moments with Alastair hidden in the shadows rather than out in the daylight where their love deserved to flourish.
She was so lucky, and though Ophelia hated the bitter taste of jealousy that coated her tongue, it was terribly difficult to scrape it clean after finding herself in the same position she had every night the loneliness threatened to swallow her whole.
Ophelia laid in bed with her legs tangled in her blood-red, silken sheets, a mess of dark curls smattering her pillow as she stared up at the ceiling, grasping for anything but the numbness.
At the click of her door shutting behind him, she turned her head to stare at the thick chunk of wood. She couldn’t help but think it symbolized the closing of yet another possibility for her. She would never be set free so long as she remained here like a caged bird with clipped wings.
Unclasping her hands from where they rested over her belly, she rolled to her side and forced herself to sit up, refusing to bury her face in the light smoke and leather scent Dinwoodie left behind on her pillows, the only proof that he’d been there at all.
I’ve given the last nine years of my life to this university and I’ve never felt more alone than in a crowd of these people, she’d thought to herself. It was that thought which drove her to stand, planting her feet on solid ground. She dragged in a steadying breath before hastily dressing and making her way to her drink cart, where she poured herself a distastefully full glass of absinthe.
Her throat bobbed with each greedy swallow of the licorice-flavored liquor, the crystal glass pressed between her lips as she tilted her head back and emptied it of every last drop.
