Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (64 page)

“Well, it
is
a college town,” he said.

“Harper, come on.”

He ate another bite of pizza. “I’m only saying that there could be some reason that girls are out in woods without clothes besides satanic rituals.”

“I’m not saying they’re satanic,” I said. “Near as I can tell, Scales and Fangs worships some kind of snake deity. They addressed some of their chants to it.”

His eyes got wide. “You’re admitting they tapped you.”

“I thought that was a given.”

“You kept denying it.”

“Because it’s a secret,” I said. “But if they’re trying to hurt me, all bets are off. I don’t care who knows about them.”

“Right,” he said. He set down his piece of pizza. “Man, all this time, I’ve wanted to be tapped by Scales and Fangs, and now you’re telling me that they’re crazy and creepy and stuff.”

“Sorry,” I said.

He picked the pizza up. “Wait a second. I don’t know if I buy this.”

“You don’t?”

“Why would they do this?” he said. “They’re a campus society. I mean, they throw parties, and they network, but they don’t do weird... sacrifices and stuff.”

“How do you know?” I said. “What they do is secret.”

“But why would they need to do that to girls?”

“Maybe it’s the way they get their power,” I said. “Maybe they have to do something to a girl to appease their deity or whatever, and then all of the members get continued success and wealth and everything else.”

“I don’t know.”

I stuffed a piece of crust into my mouth. Maybe it
was
farfetched.

“If it’s something they plan out, why is it so erratic? Your mother was twenty years ago, right? And then the other girl is thirty years before her. And the other one is forty whole years before
her
. There’s no pattern.”

“That’s true,” I said. I shrugged. “It was just a theory.”

“You want another piece of pizza?”

“Sure.”

He handed me one. “I think maybe that lady in the library got you worked up over nothing, Teagan.”

“No, she knew something,” I said. “Something bad has been happening to girls here.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” said Harper. “It’s only three girls. We know that your mother is schizophrenic, right?”

I sighed, starting to feel defeated. “Yeah.”

“Well, is it so farfetched to think that two other girls were raped in the woods or something in the past ninety years? I know it’s horrible, but it’s college. A bunch of young, drunk people all in one tiny space. It could happen.”

He was right. I munched on my pizza. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Honestly, I kind of hope I am. Because I don’t want you to be in danger.”

“That’s the thing, Harper, I am. Even if they haven’t been hurting girls for ninety years. They’re doing something to me. I don’t know what it is.” I peered down at the old, scanned-in news story, reading through it thoroughly.

This time something stuck out at me. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“The girl ninety years ago? She had a name. Miriam Moss.”

“She had the same last name as you?”

I got up. “My aunts always said that the Evil Ones stole our power, and that we were in danger. They didn’t want me to leave the house because they thought it protected us.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think I’m related to Miriam Moss,” I said. “She probably was my great grandmother or great great aunt or something. I think that Scales and Fangs takes girls that are from my family. They’re targeting me specifically.”

“Teagan...”

“No, think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. My aunts were always going on and on about how the Evil Ones wanted to steal my light. Scales and Fangs fixed it so that I would win the Cross Scholarship. And it was weird for me to win, wasn’t it? Reba said that they usually pick people who’ve been in the department, right?”

“Well, that’s true, but they’ve picked incoming freshman before.”

“Really? How often do they do that?”

“It’s rare, but it doesn’t mean—”

“I think it does,” I said. “I think they got me here, and they’re keeping me here. And they want to keep me away from Carter for some reason. Why don’t they want me near Carter?” I shook my head.

“Look, Teagan, you’re upset. Maybe you should get some rest.”

I pointed at him. “We have to get inside Scales and Fangs inner sanctum. I’ve been there. I know how to get inside. Will you come with me?”

“Oh no,” he said. “That is a spectacularly bad idea. Everything you’re saying, it sounds... kind of...”

“I thought you were on my side.”

“I am,” he said. “And if you go messing around with Scales and Fangs, you’ll blow your chances of getting into the secret society, and it’s a really awesome networking opportunity.”

“Are you even listening to me? They’re planning to hurt me. I don’t care about Scales and Fangs.”

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Teagan. I just think it’s a bad idea.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

* * *

A pounding on my door. “Teagan?”

I sat up in bed, pulling my covers tight. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Harper. Let me in.”

I switched on the light and went to the door. “What?”

He pushed his way inside. “I changed my mind. Let’s do it.”

“What?”

“Let’s break into the inner sanctum, like you were saying.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you change your mind?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I guess I just started thinking about all the stuff you were saying. And it is weird. And I
am
on your side. So, I don’t want to let you down. If you think we can find out more information on the inner sanctum, then I’m in.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, then, when I’m ready to try to break in—”

“No, no,” he said. “Let’s do it now. No time like the present, right?”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Which is why it’s the perfect time.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I scurried over to my dresser. “I’ll just get some clothes and throw them on in the bathroom.”

“Wear dark colors,” he said.

Oh, that was a good idea, too. I picked up a pair of black jeans and a black shirt, and I went into the bathroom. As I changed out of my pajamas, I contemplated Harper’s about face. I was glad he was helping me. If he hadn’t, I would have done it on my own. It would be nice to have some company.

But he was doing all this stuff for me because he liked me, and I still didn’t like him back in that way. I was still hung up on Carter, even if he’d told me to stay away from him, even if he’d gone away, disappeared from campus, abandoning me to Scales and Fangs. There was something powerful about our attraction to each other, and I couldn’t let go of it. When Harper figured out that I wasn’t going to get over Carter, would he still be so helpful?

Somehow, I kind of doubted it.

We left the dorm together. It was so late at night that the Resident Assistant on duty at the front desk had already gone to sleep. It was mostly quiet. The only person we saw was a guy in his pajamas stalking in front of the vending machines. He was muttering to himself, but it sounded like he was drilling geometry formulas or something. He didn’t pay any attention to us.

Once outside, Harper let me take the lead.

I took us into the woods, doing my best to remember how to get to the weird old tree out in the forest. Then I remembered that it was close to the amphitheater, and I asked Harper to help me get there.

“You mean that the inner sanctum of Scales and Fangs has been underneath that tree the whole time?” he asked me.

“I guess so,” I said.

“I’ve walked by that tree so many times.” He shook his head. “I never would have guessed.”

But when we approached the tree, we heard voices.

There were two figures there, both in robes.

Harper and I crouched down, out of sight.

“You don’t think he’ll be a problem, do you?” said one of the robed members.

“He’s the last person I would have expected to go soft,” said the other.

“He certainly seemed capable of pulling it off at the beginning.”

“Oh, he’ll pull it off. Now, how long he’ll last afterwards, when he’s destroyed that girl, that I can’t say. Armstrong made it twenty years. We can only hope for that long again.”

They swept past us, moving through the forest, and their voices faded away.

Who had they been talking about? Was I the girl who was going to be destroyed?

Shivers ran through me.

When we were sure that they had gone, we got up and crept forward to the tree.

I turned in a circle at the base of it. “There’s a hidden trap door here, somewhere.” I began to stomp my feet on the ground. There. A hollow noise beneath me. “It’s here.”

We knelt down and pushed aside the leaves and branched that had been thrown down as camouflage, exposing the wooden door in the ground.

Which was locked.

“Great,” I muttered. Why hadn’t I thought about this?

“It’s okay,” said Harper. “I think I can pick this lock. Go and see if you can find me a sturdy stick that will fit inside the lock.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You think that’s going to work?”

“Sure,” he said. “Trust me.”

Well, I didn’t know anything about picking locks, so maybe he was right. I started to look around on the ground for a sturdy, but small twig. Honestly, I was pretty sure that anything he put in there would just break. You couldn’t use wood against metal. It didn’t work. Did it?

“Teagan, I got it.”

I hurried back. Sure enough, the door was open.

He grinned. “I, um, found a paperclip in my pocket. It worked pretty well.”

It did? “Where’d you learn to pick locks, Harper?”

“Oh, you know, around,” he said. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

I hung back for a second. Had that been too easy?

He held out his hand for me. “Come on, Teagan.”

I reached out and let him take my hand. Together, we climbed inside, pulling the door closed after us. We descended the stone steps into the depths of the inner sanctum of Scales and Fangs.

It was dark, because the torches on the walls weren’t lit.

Harper took one off the wall. He lit it with a lighter from his pocket. And when he did, he pulled something else out too. Something that glittered and fell, hitting the stone steps with a small clang.

A key.

I picked it up.

Harper gulped, his face flickering in the torchlight. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“You didn’t pick the lock at all, did you?” I said. “How did you get a key to the inner sanctum of Scales and Fangs?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Professor Bancroft gave it to me.” Harper darted forward and captured both of my wrists. “Stay calm, Teagan.”

I tugged at my hands, trying to get away from him.

“Stop it.” He scrabbled on the wall for balance. We were still on the steps, and my movement threatened to send us both sprawling. “Calm down.”

“Calm down?”

“Listen to me, you’ve been down here before. You must know that if you take off running, you’ll just get lost. These tunnels go on for miles. Do you want to starve to death underground, Teagan?”

I remembered having a similar fear the last time I was down here. He was right. Unless I could get free and get back up the steps, I didn’t have much reason to run. Harper was blocking the steps, but maybe if I knocked us both over...

Abruptly, he let go of my hands.

I lost my balance and toppled down the rest of the stairs, my body glancing painfully against the stone. I cried out.

He hurried down after me, and knelt down. “Sorry about that. I saw what you were thinking. Trying to make a break up the steps, right? I couldn’t let you do that.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Why, Harper? How did they get to you too?”

“Oh, I was tapped last year. I’m a full-fledged member of the society.” He moved the torch over my body. “You bleeding anywhere?”

“But you said you weren’t in Scales and Fangs.”

“So did you,” he said. With one hand, he began unlacing his shoe.

“And the first night, the night we went to the bar, you didn’t know about the meeting.”

“I knew about it,” he said. “I chose to be with you instead. I didn’t know you’d been tapped at the time. I didn’t know who you were. It was only recently that they told me everything.”

“Everything.”

“Well, I didn’t know you were fucking Carter.” He pulled his shoelace free, set the torch in a holder on the wall, and began tying my hands together. “That was kind of a nasty surprise. Of course, I knew you were going to be fucking him eventually. The ritual demands that. But I thought before then, you were open season. He’s really kind of hogging you, you know. Not fair.”