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“Exactly,” Avery growls through the phone. “Are you at that school?”
“A case of FOMO?” I quip, pinching the bridge of my nose. The situation is more serious than I realized.
“Yes,” he scoffs, followed by a muffled scuffle. “Damn it, Ashton, don’t push.”
“Just get through.” Ashton’s voice is sharp in the background.
“There’s no need to shove your thumb up my ass,” Avery retorts.
“I didn’t shove it up your ass. I merely implied that I would,” Ashton counters.
Hearing the door open, I quickly end the call, cutting off their bickering. I stand at the entrance of the hall, debating whether to proceed alone, but instead, I take just one step forward and close my eyes, inhaling deeply.
Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. Perhaps the real estate agent was ill and ghosted me because she was unwell.
Deep down, though, I know there’s more to it.
The only scents that greet me are mildew and mold, overpowering in their mustiness.
“There you are.” Avery’s voice reverberates down the hall, breaking my concentration. “This place is creepy as hell. Is this the building Devlin wanted you to check out?”
“Yeah,” I reply, absentmindedly running a thumb across my bottom lip, eyeing Avery as he joins me. He scans the area, his youthful face clean-shaven.
It’s only now that I truly notice him, seehimin a new light. As I turn away, I inadvertently inhale a whiff of his cinnamon scent, but not before catching Ashton’s gaze. His head tilts, his eyes holding an unspoken question.
“Smell that?” Avery suddenly steps over broken glass toward a hallway, his nose wrinkling, followed by an unexpected sneeze. “Blood.”
I stride swiftly, pushing past him into what appears to be a dilapidated cafeteria. The disarray is striking—a serving line, a kitchen area, chairs haphazardly strewn about, and tables shoved against walls.
“I don’t smell it,” I admit, scanning the room.
“I do,” Avery replies, his confidence bordering on pretentiousness. He strides out of the cafeteria, glancing left and right with each step.
As we pause, his fingers rhythmically tap against his thigh, a silent drumbeat in the eerie quiet.
Suddenly, a faint, metallic twang catches my attention—blood. I swiftly turn to the right, and in two long strides, I push through the door into the art room. They divided the space into two distinct areas—a classroom at the front and an array of easels lined up against a row of windows at the back, the streetlights casting eerie shadows across the space.
My heart races as I scan the room until I spot it. “There,” I announce, heading straight for a wire rack that once held pottery.
“Max.” Ashton’s voice halts me, a chilling edge in his tone. “Max.”
I whirl around to face my packmate, standing just a few feet away, his gaze fixed on a vase among dozens on a shelf. It stands out, perhaps a demonstration piece from the last art class held here.
Ashton breaks from his trance and reaches for the vase, his hands trembling. “It’s not hers,” he murmurs, then corrects himself as he inspects it. “It is hers, just not the one I have.” He hands me the vase, revealing a little cat etched on the bottom, but no signature.
“How do you know it’s Seraphina’s?” I ask, passing the vase to Avery.
“The cat. She never signed her pottery,” Ashton explains, his head tilting slightly. “Instead, she drew cats.”
“That’s very on brand for her,” Avery observes, sniffing the vase. “But the blood scent isn’t coming from here.”
“No, but…” Ashton spins around, surveying the room.
I take a deep breath, and the scent of blood is unmistakable, but there’s something about it that stands out. “Old blood,” I conclude.
The stale air of the abandoned school hangs heavily as I step closer to Ashton, my boots crunching over shards of glass strewn across the floor. The sharp, acrid scents of decay andmold assault my senses, mingling with the faint, metallic twinge of blood that lingers in the air, elusive yet unmistakable.
Ashton’s voice, laced with a mix of curiosity and caution, echoes in the empty hallway. “How old though?” His words reverberate off the peeling walls, a reminder of the building’s forsaken state. I try to focus on the faint scent of blood, but it’s diffused, almost as if woven into the very fabric of the dilapidated building.
