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As though in answer to my prayers, a break in the clouds allowed the moon to illuminate what was unmistakably a building taking shape amid the trees around the next bend.
A weathered brick exterior covered in young ivy came into view in bits and pieces. Darkened windows on the main floor were framed in black metal to match the large door set into the shadowy maw of a front stoop. Above the door in a bold pewter serif readBriar Hall,and below in shining silver cursive were the wordsas the crow flies.
What? No Latin inscription?How very modern.
I chuckled darkly to myself, wincing as the strain to my shoulders began to reach a breaking point. The damn suitcase chosethatmoment to catch a loose stone on the curving driveway and the case went down hard, nearly ripping my fucking arm from its socket.
I whirled around and kicked the thing as hard as I dared, cursing under my breath.
“What did that poor suitcase ever do to you?”
I had a blade out in half a second, letting the suitcase fall with a thud at my feet.
A girl emerged from the gloom beneath the front stoop, her shining brown eyes wide as she took in the slim blade gripped in my left hand.
“Uh, sweetie, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just the welcoming committee.”
That was when I noticed the haze of smoke in the air around her and how the heel of her knee-high black boot was stubbing out the remnants of a joint.
Not a heartbeat later the smell of pot-smoke wafted toward me on the cool breeze. I relaxed.
“Weapons aren’t allowed on school property,” she added, clearing her throat as I slipped the blade back into the garter belt beneath the hem of my skirt.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” I replied, inclining my head toward her foot and the stomped out joint hidden beneath it.
She laughed, bending to retrieve what was left of her midnight puff. I guessed that meant it was a deal. “I assume my aunt called ahead?”
The girl nodded, pushing long black hair back from her face. “Yup. Apparently, Mrs. June couldn’t be bothered to welcome you herself since it’s the middle of the night and all, so you get me.”
“And you are?”
“Becca. Becca Hart. You’ll be rooming with me.”
She didn’t sound too thrilled about that. Her smile tight.
“I was told I’d have my own room,” I argued, a prickle of unease going through me at the idea of sharing with a total stranger.
If I’d learned anything, it was that people could not be trusted. And having a safe space to plop your ass down at the end of a hard day to sleep was paramount to survival.
A shudder ran through me, and it wasn’t from the chill of the late hour. I shook off the imposing memories. This wasn’t the time.
The girl, Becca, came down to the bottom of the stoop and reached out to help me lift my suitcase from the ground, showing off fingernails that were polished a perfect pearlescent black. Not a single chip.
Mine were a similar color, a deep plum, but shorter, chipped, and with all the color peeled off the right pinkie. She definitely noticed but said nothing.
“You do have your own. We share the floor as in: you have your own room, I have my own room, but we share the common living space. Most of the other students share at least four to an apartment. And on some floors, it’s six. No one at Briar Hall has their own apartment except Bri. Well, and me, I guess, untilyoucame.”
“Shitty,” I muttered as Becca helped me get the suitcase to the top step.
She made no comment to the contrary, but I felt her gaze roving over me as she shouldered the heavy metal door open and ushered me inside.
“The elevators are usually reserved for the Crows, but since they aren’t here and it’s the middle of the night, I think we’re safe.”
Becca walked across a wide marble foyer toward the single elevator against the far wall. To my left was a hallway twice as wide as the ones at my old school, a wooden sign on a wrought iron hook hanging from the ceiling farther down indicated the main office. Opposite that hallway on the other side of the foyer was a curved staircase leading up to where I imagined the classrooms to be.
The whole place smelled of oiled wood and old paper with an undertone of chemical cleaning product.
A louddingin the dim foyer brought me back to reality, and I saw Becca striding into the elevator, throwing out an arm to keep the door open.
