The Devil of Westbrook Academy

CHAPTER 4

I think about how naive I was, arriving here as a kid, so hungry for a life that turned out to swallow me whole instead. I had one good thing survive the wreckage of my brother and now even that's been stripped away.

The other half of my soul, gone. Extinguished.

That's the whole reason I'm sitting in this car right now summoned back by a phone call informing me my twin brother is dead. I am eighteen years old. A hundred plans he never got to live out. Gone, just like that.

I hope that little girl with the sprinkler gets to run in the sun for as long as she possibly can. Life's shorter than anyone tells you.

Breathing doesn't equal living. I know that better than most. I'd have stayed buried in my own personal wreckage indefinitely if it hadn't been for George pulling me back toward daylight, again and again, just to catch a glimpse of his smile. And now that particular light has gone out too. Permanently, this time.

"Nearly there, Miss," Trumbull says, and I surface from the pit I'd been sinking into.

"Thank you."

I was thirteen. Broken, terrified, and they sent me away like garbage right when I needed my family, my boys, anyone, and instead I got a one-way ticket and a locked door.

The click of my tongue bar against my teeth is the only sound in the car besides my own heartbeat, both competing for volume.

The road tilts upward as we leave the valley behind, climbing toward the estates that always looked to me like beautiful houses wearing monster faces.

My stomach lurches. Sweat breaks out along my spine. Not here, not now, I coach myself, aware of Trumbull's eyes flicking toward the mirror every few seconds. Hold it together, Ly.

I should've medicated before landing. Should've known better than to think I could white-knuckle this one.

Eyes shut, I try to will the panic back down where it came from. Now is genuinely the worst possible moment.

I can do this. I have to.

And then, naturally, the second I convince myself of that, I look out the window and ruin it completely.

Those gates. I'd recognize them blindfolded. The gates of hell, dressed up in landscaping and good lighting.

The crest is bigger than I remember gold now instead of bronze, gleaming with the kind of arrogance that dares you to approach.

That crest speaks for the whole town, honestly. Two phoenixes flanking a double-edged sword, a crown resting on top. The King family crest. Ace's family crest.

He's everywhere in this town without even being present, and I despise how my pulse reacts to that fact, how my fists curl reflexively, how some stupid animal part of me wonders if he's watching this exact moment unfold.

My eyes trace lower, down to the flames engraved beneath the sword, and that's when the floor drops out from under me entirely.

Fire. Real, roaring, close enough to scorch. I can smell it, feel the heat crawling up my arms, hear the crackle like it's happening right now instead of four years ago.

I know this fire.

My breathing goes ragged. My teeth start chattering. Every cell in my body screams to run.

"Stop the car," I manage, though it barely makes it past a whisper.

I need out. I need distance. I can't pass through those gates. I told myself the whole flight over that I could handle this, and I was lying the entire time.

"I'm sorry, Miss, I didn't catch that," Trumbull says, but I can't even see him clearly through the blur of unshed tears.

"Trumbull. Stop the car. Now."

Either he doesn't hear me or chooses not to, because instead of slowing, the car picks up speed as we pass beneath the gates.

I claw at my own palms, nails biting crescents into skin I barely feel. My breathing turns ragged and loud in the enclosed space. My eyes dart everywhere, searching for an exit that doesn't exist.

I'm burning up from the inside, dread curdling in my stomach like acid.

That fire I remember with a clarity I thought I'd successfully buried.

I hunt for an escape route out of pure animal instinct, and then I hear the doors lock, like the old man reading my mind before I act on it.

Damn it.

"Almost there, Miss. You'll be able to rest soon," he says.

I don't answer. I can't. I'm too busy trying to remember how lungs work.

Breathe, Lyra.

I grip the pendant at my throat like it's the only solid thing left in the world, and it does absolutely nothing as the first estate looms into view, enormous, stone, exactly as I remember it, glaring at me like it's been waiting.

I need to pull myself together. In minutes I'll be face-to-face with my parents, and I refuse to hand either of them the satisfaction of watching me unravel.

Get it together, Ly.

I fumble with my seatbelt, twist around toward the trunk where my luggage got loaded, hunting frantically for my backpack barely registering the road rushing past, barely registering the strange, prickling sense that we're not alone out here, that something else is watching from close by.

My fingers finally close around the strap, buried beneath the larger suitcases, and just as I yank it free the car brakes hard enough to throw me backward, my spine cracking against the seat behind me.

Somewhere close, an engine growls low and powerful, then vanishes as fast as it appeared. Great. My nervous system is thoroughly done for the day.

"What the hell, T?"

"Goodness, are you hurt?" he asks, glancing back to find me sprawled gracelessly across the floor mats. Same flat voice, though something like irritation flickers behind his eyes. Aimed at me, maybe. Hard to say.

"I'm fine. What was that?" My voice shakes along with the rest of me, but I've got my bag now, and I don't bother climbing back onto the seat. Not sure I could manage it anyway.

"Just some unexpected trouble on the road," he says smoothly, facing forward again as the car resumes motion.

I don't care enough to push. All that matters is what's in my hands.

I tear the zipper open and dig, searching for the one object that reliably talks me down off whatever ledge I'm currently standing on.

My fingers find the bottle. I yank it out twelve pills left, and something in my chest loosens at the sight of them, pathetic as that is.

I don't even have to think about it anymore. Muscle memory. Cap off, one pill out, cap back on. I grab my unopened water, twist it, drink, swallow the pill down without hesitation.

Within moments my limbs go loose, my breathing slows, and everything sharpens into a strange, still calm. My nerves settle. My feelings, or the absence of them, click neatly back into place. For the first time since the plane touched down, I feel like I might actually survive the next hour.

"You'll want to sit up, Miss. We're home."

Home. The word means nothing to me anymore, and it hasn't in years. How does he expect me to call this place that, when the only thing that ever made it feel that way is in the ground?

This isn't home. It's a building I have to bury my brother from. The people who were supposed to be my home decided a long time ago that I wasn't worth keeping not after what happened to me here.