I wantedhim.
“Well, I did find something interesting.I’d like to show you rather than risk talking about it here.I confirmed my suspicions in a book at the library.If you both have a free period, we can go there now.I’d feel more comfortable discussing it where a sanctuary spell has been laid out.”
“A sanctuary spell?And why are we not ‘risking it?’”
Rubbing Lizzie’s arm, I raised my brow at her, offering a small, hopefully helpful smile.“Lizzie, maybe we should just talk about it there?”
“Ugh,” Lizzie rolled her eyes as she stood up from her chair, and I quickly moved to follow, “fine.”
“I assure you, Lizzie.It’s best we move with discretion.I’m more concerned about the killings than I was even last night.There’s so much to fill you both in on.”
“Duuude,” Lizzie laughed, pulling me along as she stuffed her arm through mine, “phrasing.”
“What?”Caleb looked so confused, and I couldn’t help but laugh a we left the classroom.We walked companionably, the campus busy as ever this morning, and I glanced overhead at the dark gray clouds that blocked more of the sun.
“Is it ever clear out?”
Caleb looked up, smirking as he chuckled low.“No, not really.We geta lotof rain.Though during the summer, we will get the occasional sunny afternoon when the grounds finally need a break from all the ‘gloom.’”
“The grounds?As in the school decides the weather?”I raised my brows at him, halting for a moment, which unfortunately made Lizzie stumble, her water bottle flying out of her bag.
“Dammit, Temps!”
“Sorry!”I called out, waving as she rushed behind a bush to fetch the thing.“But seriously?Does the schoolbuildingdecide the weather?”
Laughing louder now, Caleb sighed as he nodded once, reaching out to the stone pillar of an archway nearby that hung over this walkway.
“It does.Gets finicky, too.However, it doesn’t affect the town.So keep that in mind if you’re going back and forth.”Caleb glanced around me, his brow down over his mesmerizing blue eyes.“Where’d Lizzie go off to?”
“She dropped her water bottle.”I turned around, looking at the bush where she’d scampered off and still not seeing her emerge.“But it shouldn’t take that long.Hold on.Maybe she’s peeing.”
“Behind a bush?”
“You never know with Lizzie.”
Shrugging with a laugh, I smiled as I hurried over to the small thicket of bushes at the edge of the arch and called out for Lizzie.
“Lizzie!Dude, what are you doing?We need to go!”
She didn’t answer at first, and then, as I pushed through a small gap between the stone of the arch and the stone of another dorm room’s bricks, I found her standing with her back to me, not moving.
“Lizzie?Lizzie, what’s up?”She still wasn’t answering me, and I approached, reaching out to grab her shoulder and force her to spin around.“Elizabeth, talk to me.”
I knew she hated her full name, so I figured that would snap her out of it, but nothing.“Come on.This is getting freaky.I—”
But as I looked from my stepsister to the ground in front of us, I knew why she’d stopped, why she hadn’t said anything, and a scream tore from my throat before I could even think to do it.
There on the brown earth—orange and yellow leaves flattened to the mud underneath them and dusted over the top of them too—were two bodies.From what I could tell, they were both students, lying there as white as death and more.It was a young man and a woman, and their eyes had been burned from their sockets.
Fifteen- What Cannot Be Named Can Still Cause Pain
Caleb
Godsdamnit,thisis exactly what I’ve been so fucking nervous about.Because I let them get involved with this, two more lives have been traumatized because of this bullshit.
“Do you want water or anything?”It was a stupid question, but Lizzie and Temperance had been sitting on the couch in my office for a few minutes now, once the cops released us from the scene, and I didn’t know what else to do to help them through this.
They’d been the first to stumble upon two more dead bodies, these far more gruesome than the last.The sigils were still carved into the flesh, but now, something had been done to literally burn their eyes out of their sockets.It was brutal and not something I’d ever heard about in all my time studying witchcraft and alchemy.Witches could be capable of horrible violence just like anyone else, but the magic used to dothatwas unheard of.
