Page 54 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
My nails dig into the back of his hand as I stare wide-eyed at the man lying so close, I could tip my head up and kiss him.
But that’s the farthest thing on my mind.
“Who? Headmistress Krist?”
“No. She doesn’t get her hands dirty. She has others to do it for her.”
Hyde.
People don’t like to say the doctor’s name. He’s a mystery man in this place. A myth. A legend.
A fucking nightmare.
“Why? What are they using us for? And how are they taking Sekar magic?” The simple word is seething with pent-up anger and flickering violence.
Pale white hair shifts back and forth against the pillow as he shakes his head slowly.
“I have no idea. I only remember the before. And the after . . . the after was burning agony. Days of recovery. Headmistress Krist used to nurse me back to health like I was her own son. Until the magic bled out of my runes.”
I blink through all the questions slamming through my mind and try to take them one at a time.
He chuckles, and the sound is a bitter, dead thing. "I shouldn't have trusted her so easily, but by the time I realized what she wanted, it was too late. She had me in her grip. Without powers, without my relic, little more than her slave. And then—" He breaks off and goes silent.
“Then what?”
His dark lashes lift, and he stares so deeply into my eyes, it feels like he’s looking for his own soul instead of mine.
“Then she said they needed two.”
“Two what?” Confused stupidity slips through me.
It’s a blessing, really.
Confusion is a bliss for those who do not know what awaits them.
And that’s exactly what it is for me.
Until he says what I should have known all along.
“Sekars.”
Chapter Fifteen
That one word has lit up a fire within me like nothing ever has.
I was brainwashed into the promises of safety and protection, but it’s always come at a price, one I’m not willing to pay when their safety means little more than slavery and experimentation. And their experiment, it’s breeding. They need two Sekars because they ruined the one they had. They’ll breed our power somehow.
I may not know how or why. But I know e-fucking-nough.
They’ve taken the Sekar within Sialen, and they’ve broken him. They’ve hexed Styx, and suppressed Rue’s truest, most powerful form. They’ll break all of us eventually. Including me.
We’re leaving. All of us.
As soon as I find Kira, who hasn’t come back from her checkup. I haven’t seen her it feels like in days.
And to do that, I have to get rid of the threat of belladonna first.
For that, I call a meeting. We need a plan, and I need them to help me come up with one because I can’t stand it here anymore.
