I think.”
“Well, fuck,” I groan. This is not what we were expecting. An evil monster with seven mouths to eat us? Possibly. A giant swirling vortex sucking us into its murky depths? Maybe. But the cunningness this thing is showing far outweighs our presumptions of it, at least it does for me.
“It’s highly intelligent,” Preston adds, as if reading my thoughts. “I don’t know what I thought the Darkness was, but I had never considered that it had consciousness.”
“I know what you mean,” Auston agrees. “It’s smarter than we thought.”
“Do we tell anyone about Hadley?” Preston cuts in. “Like, do we tell Administer? Or maybe—”
“No.” Auston’s voice is firm. There will be no arguing this. “We’ve barely managed to trust each other, much less anyone else. This secret stays between us.” Auston locks eyes with each of us. “Are we in agreement?”
“Agreed,” I chime in, along with Brax and Pres. “Now, if we’re done speculating, I’d like to go look for her before it’s too late.” Spinning on my heels, I head towards the door.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Brax calls from behind me. “We stick together from now on.” That stops me in my tracks, and I turn back to look at him.
I fold my arms over my chest and lift an eyebrow. “Well, come on then. Unless you want to just sit here with your horn up your ass until the Darkness invades your mind too?”
Brax scowls but moves to follow me.
“Wait for me!” Preston calls, practically tripping over his two left feet in order to not be left behind.
“Where do you want to look first?” Auston asks from behind me.
“The tunnels. They are more vast than I think you realize.” I pick up my pace, floating through the woods more rapidly than before. “There are walls in there that I can’t pass through, doors with no handles, places where everything is backwards and physics no longer exists. And I don’t mean just because we’re dead.”
“Have you…found more than…one entrance?” Brax asks me, his voice bouncing as he jogs behind me.
“Several. But the main one you’ve been to before is the one I’ve explored the most.”
“The one in the fireplace in Premonitions?” Preston inquires.
“Mmhmm. That’s where we should start.”
Conversation dies as we all get lost in thought. Soon we reach the end of the woods, and the grounds begin. I hear Preston shriek and glance behind me to see Brax and Auston have each grabbed a hold of one of his arms and have taken him into the air with them.
I stifle a laugh at his terrified face before making myself invisible. I don’t even see my surroundings as I hurtle across the grounds; everything around me is a blur of color. I pass through the dorms and veer off to the east woods. Trees pass cleanly through my body as I push myself faster, wanting to get down into the tunnels before anyone sees us. The last thing we fucking need is to be stopped by one of the teachers, asking us where we’re headed off to so fast. Shit, we’re still wearing the same bloodied and tattered clothes we’ve had on for the past two days. And I’m sure we smell as bad as we look.
Afterworld Academy looms in front of me as I exit the east woods. This place has always elicited strong emotions from me. Mostly a feeling of belonging, a place where I could hide in plain sight, a place that has as many secrets as I do. But now? All I feel is anger. Because this place didn’t protect my girl like it has protected me. Its secrets aided in her capture, her possession, and I want to burn the fucker to the ground for its responsibility in her demise. It’s an accomplice to the Darkness, and for that, I will never be able to look at this place the same.
I can see my brothers land on the top of the stairs just before I ascend them. Preston falls to his knees, completely out of breath, even though all he did was exist as my brothers carried his ass. I slap him on the back of the head and pass through Brax and Auston, who make gagging noises as I do. I smirk to myself at their reactions and float up through the floor to the Premonitions room, remembering back when I was a DD. Mrs. Myle was our teacher in Ghosts 101, and as part of our introduction