Chapter 5 005-The Blood Price

The red letters on the wall didn't drip like in horror movies. They were dry, precise, almost elegant. Whoever wrote the message hadn't panicked. They wanted us to see it.

To fear it.

Bea stared at the words like they were a curse. Eloise, for once, didn't crack a joke. Theo clenched his fists, knuckles going pale.

"Your silence won't save you. Your blood will."

I turned toward the open window. Cold wind pushed through, rustling the curtains. Auden's ring gleamed on the sill.

They'd taken him.

"Auden wouldn't just leave without telling me. Not after what we-what we found out," I said, my voice brittle. "This was a warning."

"Or a threat," Theo muttered, already moving toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To the archives. Maybe there's something in the hatch. Something we missed."

"Or maybe there's someone waiting to trap us again," Bea said. "We can't just run around campus like Scooby-Doo in plaid skirts. They're watching us."

Eloise pulled out a joint from her back pocket and lit it. "Okay, first of all-rude. Second, she's right. We need a plan. A real one. We can't keep reacting. They're three steps ahead."

"They always have been," I whispered.

But not anymore.

I clenched Auden's ring in my fist. I wasn't just going to sit around. I was done waiting to be hunted.

Now, I was going to hunt back.

We split up before dawn.

Theo went to the archives. Eloise hacked into the school's private network through the Headmaster's files (using a burner laptop stashed in a stuffed teddy bear named Vengeance). Bea agreed to trail Marcus during his morning staff meetings and try to steal his access badge.

And me?

I went to Cecilia.

Her dorm was too clean. Too perfect. Framed photos on the walls. Organized books. Scented candles and pastel pillows that screamed Stepford.

She opened the door in silk pajamas and a smile like a weapon.

"Lydia," she said, like she'd been expecting me. "Come in."

I didn't.

"They took Auden," I said. "Do you know why?"

Her eyes flickered, just for a second. Then the smile sharpened. "He knew too much."

"So do I."

"I know."

"Tell me the truth," I snapped. "All of it. No more cryptic riddles or Bible-verse threats. Just. Talk."

Cecilia sighed, then motioned me inside.

She poured us tea like this was afternoon brunch, not a conspiracy confession.

"You want the whole story?" she asked.

"Start with the Society."

She nodded. "The Society isn't just about influence or money. It's about purity. Legacy. Bloodlines. My mother-your mother-was a threat to that. She wanted out. She tried to run."

"Did they kill her?"

"No," Cecilia said. "They locked her away. Somewhere she couldn't ruin everything they'd built."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

Liar.

She hesitated before continuing. "But I know what they're planning. The Ceremony is coming. The Blood Rite. It hasn't been done in a generation. They need heirs from the founding families. That's you and me."

I choked. "You're saying they want us to-what? Be sacrificed?"

"No," she said softly. "They want us to breed."

I left her room shaking.

Breed.

Like animals.

Suddenly everything made sense. The stone table. The shackles. The "perfect bloodlines." Marcus didn't just want to control me-he wanted to use me.

And Auden?

If he resisted, if he tried to help me escape...

They'd bury him. Just like they buried Kellan.

Bea met me in the greenhouses. She had Marcus's access badge. Swiped it from his coat pocket when he stepped out to scream at the Latin department.

We waited for Theo and Eloise at the east gate.

Theo looked pale. "There was something in the hatch. A journal page. New. Fresh ink."

He handed it to me. The handwriting was Auden's.

Don't trust her. Don't trust any of them.

They're making the same mistake again.

But this time, they want a witness.

They want you.

– A

I clutched the note so tight it ripped.

"What do we do now?" Eloise asked.

I looked at all of them. My heart pounded like a war drum.

"We fight."

Night fell fast.

We used Marcus's badge to sneak into the faculty wing. Eloise jammed the security cameras with a device she built from stolen science lab parts. Theo kept lookout. Bea and I went straight for Marcus's private study.

The door clicked open.

Inside was chaos.

Papers covered the walls. Diagrams of family trees. DNA reports. Vintage photos with the faces of women blacked out in thick ink. One of them looked like Vivian.

A leather-bound book sat in the center of the desk.

I flipped it open.

It was a manifesto.

Written in Marcus's hand.

"The bloodlines have fractured. The Morrow line must be corrected. Lydia is the last untainted carrier. She will carry the next heir."

My stomach turned.

"Burn it," Bea whispered.

I lit the edge with a match. Watched Marcus's twisted legacy curl into ash.

And then we heard it.

Footsteps.

Heavy. Deliberate.

Coming closer.

We didn't make it out in time.

Marcus stepped into the study, three faculty members behind him in black ceremonial robes.

"Well," he said, eyes glinting, "I suppose I should thank you for saving me the trouble."

He reached toward me.

But Theo tackled him from behind, sending Marcus crashing into the bookshelf.

Eloise launched a glass paperweight at one of the robed men's heads.

Bea grabbed my hand.

"Run!"

We bolted into the hall. Marcus roared behind us.

We didn't stop until we reached the auditorium. The emergency tunnel in the prop room was still open.

We dove in and slammed the trapdoor behind us.

My chest heaved, lungs burning. But my mind was clear.

They weren't going to stop.

They wanted my body.

My blood.

My future.

So I'd take theirs instead.

That night, we hid in the abandoned observatory on the far edge of campus. No one used it anymore. No cameras. No patrols.

Just us.

Just the storm building inside me.

"I'm done running," I said.

"We noticed," Eloise muttered, holding an ice pack to her knuckles.

"I mean it. We hit them next. We don't wait for them to try again. We expose everything. The Ceremony. The Blood Rite. The experiments. The secret tunnels. All of it."

Theo nodded. "I can get into the server. Download student and faculty records. Even the blacklisted ones."

Bea smiled grimly. "And I can talk. I know half this school's secrets. If we go public, the fallout will be nuclear."

"But we need more," I said. "We need someone on the inside."

Silence.

Then Eloise said, "What about Cecilia?"

I looked at her.

"She knows things. She might help."

"She might also be setting us up."

Eloise shrugged. "So we find out. We don't survive this by trusting no one. We survive by trusting the right ones."

I went back to Cecilia's dorm alone.

She opened the door wearing a black dress. Her eyes were swollen. She'd been crying.

"They're making me take your place," she whispered.

"What?"

"They think you're corrupted now. That you've seen too much. Fought back. They've chosen me for the Ceremony."

Her voice cracked.

"I don't want to be a vessel. I don't want to be a sacrifice."

I didn't know whether to believe her.

But I took her hand anyway.

"Then help us burn it down."