Page 19 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

The incense scratches my throat. I try to clear it, but it fogs me up. Have they laced it? My head buzzes with sudden dizziness. My eyes burn from not blinking. I’m barely breathing, every fibre of me straining to hear the figure on the stage. To hear that I’m wrong.

But I’m not. Of course I’m not. That’s not how life rolls for me. Tilda’s here, so why wouldn’t he be? I knew it was a possibility applying for the place. He loved it. Just like his mother, and her mother before that.

But it has to be more than that. He wouldn’t be here just to give some speech to a bunch of barely-adults.

Not out of any kindness. He’s not the king around here anymore.

Fina’s taken that throne; it was always going to be hers.

He would hate this—some unfrocked has-been, just a churner for the good old days.

No, if Damien’s here, it’s for a reason.

It’s then I remember I’m not wearing my mask. I duck my head, knowing it’s too late. He knows I’m here. He’s here for me.

I hear my own breathing, his voice coiling around me like a constrictor snake.

It’s like we’re in the basement. It was dark down there too; he liked it that way.

‘I’m here to talk about blood,’ he says. It’s a strong opening. Sinister. Got everyone listening. ‘Useful stuff, right? It flows through all of us, bonding us to life, bonding us to each other. We have the blood of our mothers, our fathers, our brothers and sisters, our cousins.’

I swallow, closing my eyes. He’s talking to me. There’s no one else in the room now.

‘I suppose everyone here offered their blood. A miniscule sacrifice to secure your place in The Order. We contain the blood of each other. We’re family. That’s the pact we made.’

It was the sea we offered it to, freezing our asses off in the middle of the night, on the highest point on Hazelhurst, cloaks cracking around us like bin bags. Holding our bleeding hands over the edge. Itched like a fucker for weeks afterwards. Still got the scar. Fina cut mine too deep.

Should have known there was magic in that too. A binding power that’s brought him back to me. The thing keeping me standing here when everything’s screaming at me to run.

‘You can’t escape family,’ he goes on. ‘It would be a perversion of the blood we share, the blood we mixed. And why would you want to? We’re so much stronger together.

A unified force. Same masks, same cloaks, same blood.

We hold each other up like pillars, like the foundations of this very cave.

You fall, and I reach down with a hand. Because that’s what family does.

And I would expect the same from you. That hand could be anything.

Anything I need, anything you’ve got to give.

Dig deep. Because we’re always willing. Eager for it.

Frothing at the mouths. We belong to each other now. We’re never alone.’

He clears his throat, making me flinch. I glance up. He’s pacing the altar slowly, hands still behind his back. I see him so clearly now. The same stockiness, the same arrogant, I-own-everything-on-this-earth-and-more attitude. It exudes from him like smoke.

‘Even when we leave this place, we’re still part of The Order.’

I’m released from his clutches when he redirects his speech.

I gasp in a breath, my fingers tingling.

I furl them to fists, panicked I’m about to faint.

The cavern erupts in applause. It’s so zealous, so fervent.

This fucking cult. So desperate to belong.

I’m disgusted with them all, no more so than myself.

Mora howls, a piercing, mournful sound. Fina must have trained her to do that. She does it every time we clap. Damien descends the altar, disappearing into the crowd, and that’s when I find the strength to run.

I turn, glancing off bodies as I stagger back into the tunnels.

I can’t let him find me down here. It’s dark and cold and we’ve been here so many fucking times.

I should have run back then, but there was nowhere to go.

Not until push came to shove and I couldn’t take it anymore.

And that was years. Years of Damien and that basement, grams and grams of coke just to make it bearable.

My harried steps echo, making it sound like he’s on my heels already. It makes me run faster, taking turn after turn, no fucking clue where I’m going. I should be out by now. The tunnels have been taking me downwards instead of up.

I stop to calm down. This feeling. Jesus. Thought I was over it. Disgust drenches me like the sweat under my cloak. I’m no different to the kid I was, except that kid never ran. Not until she could. That kid was stronger. All that’s left is this husk.

Then something more than disgust drenches me when I hear his voice.

‘Aw, don’t stop now, Nicole. I was enjoying the chase.’

Tilda

I almost scream when Nic jumps from the cliff. Glad I hadn’t now; would have given me away. Her head remains bobbing just above it, so I assume there’s some kind of ledge there. I put my hand to my chest, trying to tell my heart that.

I watch her disappear before venturing over to see that ‘ledge’ was the right word. The foot or so of flat cliff stone and some precarious looking handholds certainly don’t constitute a path.

Too stubborn for my own good, I draw in a breath before shuffling along it. Glad for those bouldering lessons at school now. The wind’s so strong here I can barely keep my eyes open.

It widens on the other side by about a metre or so. No sign of Nic. There’s just Blakely lounging there in a black cloak, Nic’s hockey stuff at her feet. A strangely ominous sight.

‘Look who it is. Wednesday Addams. Visit the Vaults once and you think you’re all in, huh?’

I approach slowly, moving one of my plaits off my shoulder. ‘I’m here for Nic.’

Blakely smiles, some teeth-baring grimace. ‘She’s busy, little girl. She’ll be out to play later.’

I look behind her at the tunnel entrance she’s guarding. There’s nothing to indicate where it leads, only a plaque with an embossed wolf’s head on it. In the middle of its gaping maw is a four-pointed star.

Goes into the labyrinth maybe? Just how many secret entrances are there? There’s no point trying to barrel past. Don’t particularly like standing this close as it is. I have zero desire to be put over her shoulder again.

‘What’s going on in there?’

‘Nothing that’s your business.’

Rude.

‘How long will she be?’

‘We’re honouring a special guest tonight. Could be a while.’

I peer into the darkness. ‘It goes underground?’

‘All the way to hell, baby.’

It might even be the truth. I’m starting to think this castle’s a lot more sinister than any of us first thought.

And of course Nic’s mixed up in it all. I feel a weird heaviness in my heart. It hurts to compare the two, to think how she ended up. Angry and hateful and distant. How many years did I pine for that girl, never knowing she didn’t exist anymore? All this time I’ve been mourning a ghost.

Ghost or not, it’s one I’m desperate to commune with. She’s been at her tent all week. No doubt she’ll return to it later. Hockey was the only time I could corner her but she was a step too quick for me.

But fuck that. I’m not waiting until next practice to see her.

I stalked her to the gym, waited outside like a creep, then followed her here.

Bloody leggy thing. Practically had to skip to keep up.

‘Who’s your special guest?’ I come to stand on the other side of the entrance to Blakely. She’s as good a windbreaker as any.

‘An old president of ours. Never met him myself.’ Blakely eyes me side-on.

Her irises are the creepiest colour. They practically glow in this light.

‘Your Nic would have though. Happy cousin reunion. Don’t suppose you’re responsible for the state she was in the other morning?

’ She shakes her head. ‘Always the pretty girls.’

I frown, struggling to sort through all that. What state was Nic in? Was this after Anarchy? ‘Wait, did you have anything to do with her getting hurt?’

‘Nope, that was alllll her. I just provided the fists.’

‘You hit Nic?’

I straighten up, feeling my blood flow faster.

Now this is a familiar feeling. How many times did I stick up for Nic on my old estate?

Those chavvy little kids, spotting her dad’s fancy car when he visited.

It made her a target, any time she was out with me.

Couldn’t buy ice pops from the corner shop without some thug trying to trip her.

She was still tall back then, dressed in clothes a little too fancy for where we lived.

None of that lankiness though. She still had baby fat, always hunched in on herself.

She seemed sad even then. Now she’s just a grump.

‘She was pretty beat up before she came to me. Bleeding her sad all over the place.’ Blakely holds up her fists. ‘Think you got to her before me.’

‘That is beyond fucked up.’ I shake my head, not willing to delve any more into that. I’ve barely sorted through my own sludge from that night.

Then I remember the rest of what she said.

‘Tommy,’ I say quickly, suddenly panicked.

Blakely stares dumbly. ‘Who the fuck’s Tommy?’

Of course it’s not Tommy. He’s only a fresher. Not old enough to be any president, certainly not of some creepy secret society. Couldn’t think of anything he’d like less.

‘Damien?’ Even the name in my mouth sounds wrong. I want to spit it out.

‘Nic’s cuz?’

‘Yeah. Is he in there?’

‘Maybe.’

I put my hand to my forehead. ‘You literally just said he was. Blakely. He can’t be here. Not in there. Not with her.’

She raises her eyebrows as though asking me to elaborate. I’m hesitant. This asshole beat Nic up so bad she didn’t kick me out her bedroom. Let me administer a compress to her eye. Even muttered a thanks. Why would she care about Nic’s fucked up family? That’s private, none of her business.