Hex Hall Read online

  "Has she said anything?" Elodie asked. "Did she say who did it?"

  Mrs. Casnoff frowned slightly. "Not at this time. And I encourage all of you to use your best judgment before you go around spreading rumors about this incident. We're obviously taking this very seriously, and the last thing we need is panic."

  Elodie opened her mouth, but a look from Mrs. Casnoff stopped whatever nasty thing she was about to say.

  "All right," Mrs. Casnoff said with a clap of her hands. "Everyone off to bed now. We can discuss this further in the morning."

  CHAPTER 17

  When I returned to my room, Jenna was inside, sitting on the dresser next to the window. Her forehead was resting on her knees.

  "Jenna?"

  She didn't look at me. "It's happening again," she said in a thick voice.

  "Just like Holly."

  She took a deep shuddery breath and said, "When I saw them carrying

  Chaston out . . . it was exactly the same. The holes in her neck, the slashes on her wrists. The only difference is that Chaston was white. Holly w-was nearly . . . nearly gray when they p-pulled her out. . . ." Her voice broke.

  I sat on my bed and laid a hand on her knee. "Hey," I said softly, "that wasn't your fault."

  She looked up, her eyes red with anger. "Yeah, but that's not what everyone else thinks, is it? They all think I'm what, a 'bloodsucking freak'?"

  She hopped off the dresser. "Like I asked for this," she muttered in a low voice, pulling clothes out of her closet and tossing them on her bed.

  "Like I wanted to come to this damn school anyway."

  "Jen," I started to say, but she whirled around on me.

  "I hate it here!" she cried. "I . . . I hate taking stupidass classes like A

  History of Nineteenth Century Witches. God, I j-just wanna take algebra or something stupid like that. I wanna eat lunch-- real lunch--in a cafeteria, and have an after-school job, and go to the prom."

  With a sob, she sat down on her bed, like all the anger in her had evaporated. "I don't want to be a vampire," she whispered, and then she broke down crying, burying her face in the black T-shirt she was holding.

  I looked around the room, and for the first time, all the pink didn't seem cheerful; it just seemed sad, like Jenna was trying to hold on to whatever life she'd had before. There are times when saying nothing is definitely the best course of action, and I felt like this was one of those times. So I just crossed the room and sat on her bed, stroking her hair like my mom did for me the night I'd found out I was going to Hecate.

  And after a while, Jenna leaned back against her pillows and started talking.

  "She was so nice to me," she said softly. "Amanda."

  I didn't have to ask who Amanda was. I knew she was finally telling me the story of how she'd come to be a vampire.

  "That was the biggest part. Not that she was cute, or smart, or funny.

  She was those things too, but it was the nice that got me. No one had ever paid so much attention to me before. When she told me what she was, that she wanted me to be with her forever, I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe it until I felt her teeth in my neck."

  She paused, and there was no sound in the room except the soft rustling of the breeze in the oaks outside.

  "When the Change happened, it was . . . amazing. I felt stronger and just better, you know? Like the rest of my life had been a dream. Those first two nights with her were the best nights of my whole life. And then they killed her."

  "They?"

  Her eyes met mine. My tiny reflection in her eyes looked very pale.

  "The Eye," she replied, and an involuntary shiver ran through me.

  "There were two of them. They broke into the motel where we were hiding, and they staked her while she was sleeping. But she woke up and she started . . . she started screaming, and it took both of them to hold her down.

  So I got up ran out the door and I just kept running. For three days I hid in somebody's garden shed. I only left there because I was starving. So I stole some food from a convenience store.

  "As soon as I put the first Twinkie in my mouth, I felt like was I going to die. I chewed it maybe twice before I had to spit it out. The--" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The manager of the store came out and found me on my knees in the parking lot. He saw the wrapper and started yelling about calling the cops, and I--"

  She broke off and wouldn't meet my eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to console her or let her know I didn't care that she'd drunk someone's blood, but I couldn't look at her face.

  "After . . . after that, I felt better. I got a bus back into the city and found Amanda's parents. They were vamps too. Amanda's dad had been bitten years ago and had changed all of them. So they contacted the Council and I got sent here."

  She looked at me again. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said plaintively. "I don't want to be like this without Amanda. I only wanted to be a vampire if we could be together forever. She promised." Tears were glistening in her eyes.

  "Wow," I said. "Who knew girls sucked just as bad as boys?"

  She sighed and tilted her head back against the headboard, eyes closed. "They're going to kick me out."

  "Why?"

  She looked incredulous. "Um . . . hello? They're totally going to pin

  Chaston on me. Holly was one thing, but two girls in a six-month period?"

  She shook her head. "Somebody's gonna go down for that, and you can bet it's gonna be me."

  "Why?" I repeated. Jenna was the only person at Hecate I considered a friend. Well, maybe Archer and I were friends now, but there was still that whole possiblybeing-in-love-with-him-maybe-a-little thing, and that pushed him out of the friend zone. If Jenna left, I'd be at the mercy of Elodie and

  Anna.

  No way.

  "You don't know that they're gonna kick you out. Chaston may remember what happened to her. Just wait and talk to Mrs. Casnoff, okay?

  Maybe by tomorrow everyone will have calmed down some."

  Her derisive snort told me exactly how likely she found that scenario.

  After a moment she began putting her clothes back in the closet. I stood up and helped her.

  "So how was cellar duty tonight?"

  "Cellar-ific."

  "And your stupendously futile crush on Archer Cross?"

  "Still stupendous. Still futile."

  She nodded as she hung up one of her many Hecate blazers. "Good to know."

  We worked in companionable silence.

  "What did you mean about Elodie and her coven trying to raise a demon?"

  "That's what Holly told me they were working on," she said as she closed the closet. "Mrs. Casnoff was really pimping the whole L'Occhio di

  Dio will kill us all thing she's so big on, and their coven freaked out. Holly said they thought if they raised a demon, it would give them more power and they'd be safer should stuff go down."

  "Did they do it?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know."

  The lights blinked out, plunging us into darkness. I heard a few startled shrieks from down the hall, but then Mrs. Casnoff's voice boomed, "Lights out is mandatory tonight. Go to bed, children."

  Jenna sighed. "You gotta love Hex Hall."

  Bumping into furniture and whispering bad words, we made our way to our respective beds.

  I flopped down on mine with a low groan. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was until I felt my cool soft pillow under my head. So I was nearly asleep when I heard Jenna whisper, "Thank you."

  "For what?" I mumbled.

  "Being my friend."

  "Wow," I replied. "That's like, the lamest thing anyone's ever said to me."

  She gave a cry of mock outrage, and a second later one of her many pillows landed on my face.

  "I was trying to be nice," she insisted, but I could hear the laughter in her voice.

  "Well, don't," I retorted. "I like my friends mean and hateful."

  "Will do
," she replied, and a few minutes later we were both asleep.

  I awoke to Jenna's screaming and the smell of smoke.

  Confused, I sat up. Morning sunlight was streaming into the room and onto Jenna's bed. It took me a minute to realize that that's where the smoke was coming from.

  Jenna's bed. Jenna.

  She was frantically trying to stand up, but she was tangled in her sheets, and panic was making her clumsy.

  My feet barely touched the floor as I leaped from my bed and tossed my comforter over her. As I did, I caught sight of her hand. The normally pale skin was bright red, and it was bubbling up in places.

  Without thinking, I pushed her into her closet.

  Once she was in, I grabbed one of her sheets and shoved it against the crack underneath the door. Jenna was crying, but she wasn't making that high-pitched sound of pain anymore.

  "What happened?" I shouted through the wood.

  "My bloodstone," she sobbed. "It's gone!"

  I ran to her bed and crouched to peer under it.

  Maybe it just fell off, I told myself. Maybe the clasp broke, or it got caught on her pillow.

  I wanted it to be one of those things.

  I pulled everything off the bed, even shoved the mattress off the box springs, but Jenna's bloodstone wasn't anywhere.

  Rage surged inside of me.

  "Wait here," I yelled to Jenna.

  "Oh, like I'm going anywhere!" she replied when I was already halfway out the door.

  There were a few girls in the hall. I recognized one, Laura Harris, from Magical Evolution. Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

  I ran to Elodie's room and pounded on the door.

  She opened it, and I pushed past her into the room.

  "Where is it?"

  "Where's what?" she asked. There were dark circles under her eyes.

  "Jenna's bloodstone. I know you took it, now where is it?"

  Elodie's eyes flashed. "I didn't take her stupid bloodstone. Although if

  I had, it would've been totally justified after what she did to Chaston last night."

  "She didn't do anything to Chaston, and you could have killed her!" I shouted.

  "If she didn't attack Chaston, then who did?" Elodie asked, raising her voice. Little threads of light were racing under her skin, and her hair was starting to crackle. I could feel my own magic pulsing like a second heartbeat.

  "Maybe that demon you were trying to summon," I fired back.

  Elodie made a disgusted sound. "Like I said last night, if there were a demon, Mrs. Casnoff would know it. We all would."

  "What's going on?"

  We both whirled to see Anna standing in the doorway, her hair damp and a towel in her hand.

  "Sophie thinks we took the vamp's stupid bloodstone," Elodie told her.

  "What? That's ridiculous," Anna said, but her voice was tight.

  I closed my eyes and tried to get control of my temper and my magic.

  Then, picturing Jenna's necklace in my mind, I murmured, "Bloodstone."

  Elodie rolled her eyes, but there was a distinct squeaking sound as one of Anna's dresser drawers slid open. The bloodstone rose up from underneath a pile of clothes, its red center glinting.

  It floated into my hand, and I closed my fist around it.

  Surprise flickered across Elodie's face for a moment. Then it vanished.

  "You have what you came for, so get out."

  Anna was looking at the floor. I wanted to say something withering, something that would make her feel ashamed for what she'd done, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth it.

  When I got back to the room, Jenna's sobs had dwindled to sniffling. I opened the closet door a crack and handed her the bloodstone. Once it was back on her neck, she came out of the closet and sat on her bed, cradling her burned hand.

  I sat next to her. "You should get this looked at." She nodded. Her eyes were still red and watery.

  "Was it Elodie and Anna?" she asked.

  "Yeah. Well, it was Anna. I don't think Elodie knew, but it's not like she would've disapproved."

  Jenna released a shuddery breath. I reached up and brushed her pink stripe out of her eyes. "You need to tell Mrs. Casnoff what they did."

  "No," she said. "No way."

  "Jenna, they could have killed you," I insisted.

  She stood up, pulling my comforter around her. "It'll just make it worse," she said wearily. "Remind everyone that vamps are different from the rest of you. That I don't belong here."

  "Jenna," I started.

  "I said drop it, Sophie!" she snapped, her back still turned.

  "But you're hurt--"

  And then she whirled on me, her eyes bloodred, her face contorted with rage. Her fangs slid out, and she grabbed my shoulders with a hiss.

  There was nothing of my friend in her face.

  Only a monster.

  I made a shocked sound of hurt and fear, and she abruptly released me. My knees gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.

  She was immediately beside me, Jenna again, her eyes pale blue and filled with apology. "Oh God, Soph, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Sometimes when I get stressed . . ." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "I would never hurt you," she said, pleading.

  I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.

  "Girls? Is everything all right?"

  Jenna looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Casnoff stood in our doorway, her face unreadable.

  "We're fine," I said, standing up. "I just slipped, and Jenna was, uh, helping me up."

  "I see," Mrs. Casnoff said. She looked back and forth between me and

  Jenna before saying, "Jenna, if you don't mind, I need to speak with you for a moment."

  "Sure," Jenna replied, in a voice that was anything but certain.

  I watched them leave the room, then sat down on Jenna's bed. My shoulders were sore, and Jenna's fingers had left a mark.

  I sat there absentmindedly rubbing my arms, the smoky smell of

  Jenna's burned skin still stinging my nose.

  And I wondered.

  CHAPTER 18

  A week later, things still weren't any better. No one had heard anything from Chaston, so Jenna was still the number-one suspect.

  After dinner, I was in the cellar with Archer again. This was our fourth time down there, and we'd begun to work out a kind of routine. For the first twenty minutes or so we just worked on the shelves. Half the stuff we'd catalogued the last time had usually moved, so we'd spend time trying to sort that out. Once this was done we'd take a break and talk. Our conversations hadn't really graduated beyond small talk about our families and the occasional insult, which wasn't that surprising. Other than being only children, Archer and I had almost nothing in common. He'd grown up super wealthy in a big house on the coast of Maine. I'd lived with my mom in everything from the cottage in Vermont to a room in a Ramada Inn for six weeks. But I still found myself looking forward to our talks. In fact I'd started dreading the days when I didn't have cellar duty, which was almost too pathetic to contemplate.

  Archer sat in his usual place on the steps while I hoisted myself onto a bare space on top of Shelf M.

  He pointed at a pile of empty dust-covered jars in the corner. Two of them rose in the air and twisted and contorted until they were cans of soda.

  He flicked his hand in my direction, and one of them sailed straight toward me. I caught it, and was surprised by how icy cold it was.

  "I'm impressed." I meant it, and he nodded his head in thanks.

  "Yeah, turning jars into soda. Let the world tremble before my power."

  "Well, at least it proves you still have powers."

  He looked up at me quizzically. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Crap. "I--uh, I just . . . some people said that you left last year because you wanted to get your powers taken away."

  I'd assumed he'd heard all those rumors, but he looked genuinely surprised. "So that's what everybody thinks. Huh."

  "They know you d
idn't," I replied hastily. "Lots of people saw you drop Justin on the first day."

  A smile played around the corners of his mouth. He looked up at me.

  "Bad dog."

  I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling back. "Shut up. So where did you go?"

  He shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. "I just needed a break. It's not unheard of. The Council acts like it'll never let anybody out of

  Hecate, but they'll give you a leave of absence if you petition them. I guess they figured I needed it, especially after Holly."

  "Right," I said, but the mention of Holly had me thinking about

  Chaston again. Her parents had come to get her the day after her attack.

  They'd been in Mrs. Casnoff's office for over two hours before Mrs. Casnoff had come to get Jenna.

  When Jenna had come back to the room, she hadn't said a word, just gone to lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling.

  The sudden shift in my mood must have showed on my face, because

  Archer asked, "Is Jenna okay? I noticed she wasn't at dinner tonight."

  I sighed and leaned back. "It's not good," I told him. "She won't go to class or meals. She barely gets out of bed. I don't know what they said to her in that meeting, but the fact that they called her in there seems to prove her guilt to everybody."

  He nodded. "Yeah, Elodie's pretty pissed."

  "Wow, what a shame. I hope it doesn't give her wrinkles."

  "Don't be like that."

  "Look, I'm sorry your girlfriend is upset, but the only friend I have here is being accused of something she didn't do, and Elodie is leading the charge. I just can't feel sorry for her right now, okay?"

  I waited for him to fire back, but apparently he decided to drop it. He got up off the steps and went back to his clipboard.

  "Have you seen anything that looks like 'Demon-possessed

  Instrument: J. Mompesson'?"

  "Possibly." I hopped off the shelf and went to the space where I'd found a drum the other day, but of course it had vanished. By the time we found it (it had hidden itself behind a pile of books that disintegrated when we moved them. "Really, really hope those weren't important" had been

  Archer's only comment), our hour was nearly up.

  I heard the lock above us click open. The Vandy had stopped coming down to the cellar to get us; she just unlocked the door.