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Why had I never realized it before?

“But I like pudding,” I answered calmly, stunned by my own revelation. I recognized the haunted look in his eyes because I wore it as well. Was he the kindred spirit that called to my own? Like recognized like, after all. And there was no denying the pain emitting from his body in palpable waves.

“This pudding is disgusting.” He lowered his voice to a mock whisper. “I heard they make it out of human blood.”

Elbowing him lightly in the stomach, I laughed. “They do not.”

“Do too,” he protested. “Sacrificial ravens.”

“So how did the blood go from human to bird?” I asked cheekily.

“Spoiler alert: Maybe the humansarethe birds.”

“Plot twist: Maybe the birds are the humans,” I countered.

Movement out of my peripheral ensnared my attention. The professors were once more gliding gracefully into the room. The chatter and whispers diminished in the cafeteria like a flame being blown out until the room was utterly still. Fear prickled beneath my skin until I was shaking with the force of it.

Kace grabbed my shoulder and harshly pushed me to the ground, behind the buffet line. His body protectively covered my own.

Once more, the mechanical voice grated over the loudspeakers.

“Tiffany Mehal.”

Screams. Cries. Pleas.

I was suddenly grateful that I wasn’t witness to this horrific scene. My nails dug into my palms even as my face burrowed inside the crook of Kace’s neck. His hand automatically tightened around me, holding me to him.

“Jeffery Lirrent.”

“Mallory Kent.”

Another scream. The sound of flesh hitting flesh. Feet dragging across the linoleum tiles.

“Tobias Matter.”

At the last name, the speaker abruptly cut off, and silence descended. I pressed my face farther into Kace’s skin, breathing him in deeply. For some inexplicable reason, I felt comfort in his arms. The sense of safety. I couldn’t entirely understand it myself nor did I want to.

Fear continued to strangle me long after the teachers left and conversations resumed like normal. It held me in a chokehold, refusing to release its tenacious grip. I was trembling when Kace finally helped me to my feet, eyes staring blindly ahead at the door the majority of the professors and selected students had disappeared down.

My stomach was a tumultuous mixture of fear and desperation. I wanted to vomit, to scream, to cry, to rip my hair from my head.

Because if the guys were telling the truth, if what I had seen with Kelly was reality, then those students were going to die.

They were going to get sacrificed to a monster.