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I heard Grey hiss something nasty at Rook that I didn’t catch and listened to the throaty sound of Rook’s laugh as I left the cafeteria, feeling the itch for a good long run.
“Oh my god, did you get this?” A girl by the elevator asked the guy standing next to her, and I hesitated when the doors pinged opened. “Check your school emails. There’s no way this is real, right?”
“I got it, too! They don’t mean Corvus like the Corvus, right?” the guy asked, and I dropped my tray, breakfast forgotten.
The girl looked up at the clattering sound of the tray hitting the tile and startled when she saw me coming, cringing back into the wall, sinking low into a ball, her phone outstretched to me.
“Hey, whoa,” the guy next to her said, lifting his hands, getting in my way.
I decked him in the jaw, sucking in a breath at the sting in my still-bruised knuckles as he careened to the right, tripping to keep his footing.
“What the fuck,” he groaned, his mouth sounding like it was full of marbles.
I took the phone from the girl’s hand and lifted it to my face, scrolling back up to the top of the email on the screen.
“What is this shit?” I asked, nudging her with the toe of my boot.
“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I swear, it just came to my phone.”
The email was a photocopy of an old newspaper. Almost twelve years old.
The headline jumped out on the screen in bold text.
CULT KILLINGS: FIVE DEAD IN BRUTAL SLAUGHTER
What the fuck was this?
All around me, students paused on their way to breakfast and classes, their devices pinging as the email was circulated.
I scrolled lower on the screen, my pulse racing as the gruesome image of a crime scene devoid of bodies but not of blood screamed at me in black and white. It was a child’s bedroom. Complete with train-patterned sheets, tiny toy cars, and a starscape nightlight. The entire thing was coated in blood. It puddled on the mattress, soaked into the carpet. Splashed over the wallpaper. A tiny dark handprint was left on the floor near the base of the bed. A child’s handprint.
My stomach turned.
I scrolled lower, reading the first few lines before I had to force myself to stop.
It was a brutal scene in east Lennox this morning when the bodies of married couple Francine and Douglas Adler were found in their home along with Douglas’ brother, Chris Adler, and their eight month old son, Emmanuelle. They are survived by their eldest son, who was admitted to Lennox General this morning with only minor injuries. Authorities suspect the killings were part of a cult ritual due to the nature of the deaths and the—
I couldn’t bring myself to read any more.
Bile rose up the back of my throat.
Emmanuelle.
The tattoo on Corvus’ chest.
Everyone in the state knew about the cult murders. The Adler family was only the first to go. After them, the Finches and the Hayes were found dead in their homes in similar ways. It was later learned that they were all in the cult together. That Douglas Adler was their leader.
I glanced back down at the text in my hand, seeing where the photocopy of the newspaper had been altered. A piece of paper cut into a thin rectangle covered a line of text that seemed to be saying how the surviving boy’s identity would be kept confidential. On it were the words: CORVUS JAMES ADLER.
Fingers shaking, I tapped on the sender’s email at the top of the screen.
[emailprotected]
My heart lurched in my chest, heat sizzling down my spine.
I chucked the phone at the wall, and it smashed into tiny bits, raining down onto the tile to the backdrop of gasps from the students in the atrium.
I stalked to the nearest student and knocked the phone from their hand. “Don’t fucking read that.” I seethed, staring at all the other students as they stared back at me.
