Chapter 2

“Who?” Zoe asked, her voice small as if she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

“Cameron Steel.” Luci’s answer made me cringe again.

I knew that name. It was the name of one of the Golden Suns - the Winterwood Academy football team and one of Booth’s teammates.

Suddenly he was all I could think about. Not Cameron but Booth. He must be feeling awful right now.

“How did it happen?” I asked, unable to look at any of them. I was trembling so badly that I moved my hands from my stomach to the edge of the bed, holding on so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

I didn’t really need to ask the question because I already felt like I knew. That was the aching feeling in my gut - the knowledge of what had happened.

“Booth found him,” Keeya answered, and my stomach lurched all over again, “He was his roommate. Apparently, he tried to wake him up but when he rolled him over his face was covered in blood. It was like he bled to death in his sleep.”

Bile rose in the back of my throat, and I placed a hand over my mouth to stop myself from retching.

The other girls looked just as horrified as I felt, but I knew one thing that they didn’t. Tonight, Cameron would be buried in an unmarked grave outside the boundaries of the main cemetery. Why? I didn’t know, but the sensation in my gut told me that I needed to find out.

“I have to go,” I told them as I jumped up from my bed and grabbed a pair of sandals from my closest.

“What? Go where?” Zoe gaped at me as if she was stunned by the fact I could even move after what we had just learned.

“I have to go and see Booth,” I told her.

I was relieved when a look of understanding crossed her face.

“The two of you have been getting really close lately,” she remarked with a raised eyebrow. “What’s going on with that?”

I shrugged because the truth was I didn’t really know the answer myself. All I did know was that we were the only ones who knew the truth. After all, he had been the one to show me the unmarked graves when I arrived at the Winterwood Academy. As far as I knew, other than Celestria and the two guys she had doing her dirty work, he and I were the only ones who knew what she was doing while the rest of the school was asleep.

I had to go and see him. I had to find out if he knew anything. And most of all, I needed to know if he was all right.

I had barely taken a few steps across the courtyard, in the direction of the Sun dormitory—that’s what the boy’s dorm at the academy is called—when I heard the sound of my mobile ringing in my small black side satchel that I’d grabbed in my hurry to get out of the bedroom.

With a groan, I paused and slipped my hand inside to retrieve my phone.

Guilt bubbled in my stomach as soon as I saw my best friend’s face flashing on the screen.

I hadn’t spoken to Peter since lecturer Merrin had whisked me away to The Winterwood Academy. That was totally unlike me. Usually, I saw him every day at school, but I hadn’t even been able to drop him a text to let him know I was going away. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I won’t be going to Gilford High anymore because I’m a witch and I’ve been moved to a school for freaks’.

It was time to finally bite the bullet. I pressed the answer button and closed my eyes tight shut as I raised the phone to my ear.

“Hey, Petey,” I said, my voice far too quiet.

“Don’t call me that.” He growled down the phone at me. “You haven’t been at school for a week, and you’ve ignored all my calls and texts. What the hell is going on?”

“Nicola told you I was ill, didn’t she?” I said, my voice still far too quiet to be believable.

At least that’s what Nicola had told me she’d been telling everyone whenever they asked about me.

“Too sick to even text your best friend?” Peter sighed. He sounded hurt. I hated lying to him, but what could I say?

“When are you coming back to school?” He asked before I could say anything. My breath caught in my throat. I never should have answered my phone.

“I’m not coming back to school,” I mumbled, and my hand instinctively moved to the gemstone pendant around my neck for comfort. It was the only thing that seemed to keep me calm these days.

“That’s crazy talk! What’s going on, Bri? Did you get expelled or something?” Peter asked. Was he playing stupid, or was he serious? If I’d been expelled, he would have been the first person I told about it. Surely he knew that? Then again, I hadn’t spoken to him in so long he probably thought I’d forgotten about him entirely.

“Bri, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” Peter’s voice was soft now, filled with concern.

A week ago, I’d have given anything for him to call me Bri. Anything was better than the pet name he’d picked out for me when we were kids - Red.

But now I craved that pet name. I craved for my old life where I was constantly being hounded by his super annoying, super crazy girlfriend.

I really am going insane. I thought as I tried my hardest to come up with a reasonable explanation for my sudden disappearance off the face of the earth.

“Polly is worried too,” Peter continued, and my stomach clenched at the mention of his adorable little sister. I wondered if she was missing our bus rides home as much as I was.

“Tell her not to worry. I’m okay,” I said weakly.

“You don’t sound okay. Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”

For just a moment, I allowed myself to imagine what it would like for Peter to ride up in his beat-up old Corsa like a knight in shining armour.

I wanted nothing more than to see my best friend again and go back to my old life.

The marks on my back began to tingle as though telling me that was impossible.

Though I’d only caught glimpses of them in the mirror whenever I was showering, I’d been able to piece together what they would look like.

The Triple Goddess symbol sat proudly at the nape of my neck connected to the symbols of the four elements by swirling patterns that looked like wind and flames and waves and even grapevines. It was a patchwork of art that reminded me I was different, even in a school full of witches.