Page 53 of Bonds of Magic
But I’d stopped listening again, because I could hear sounds coming from behind the other door. They weren’t loud, but as I moved closer, I could catch some of what was being said.
“There’s no way the official explanation is true,” a woman on the other side of the second door said. Was that Valeria? The real one? She sounded heated. “I can’t believe they expect us to believe that.”
I turned back to Ash and Felix, but they seemed to be arguing with each other instead of listening. I knew Felix was right about the danger, but I wanted to know what this was all about.
“He’s obviously lying,” said another voice, male this time. “They’re clearly covering something up.”
Coveringwhatup, I wondered. It was hard to tell, because the next minute was filled with various people talking loudly, and someone repeatedly calling for order. Just how many people were there on the other side of that door?
When the crowd finally quieted down, the next person to take the floor was a softer speaker. I had to step closer to the door to hear them.
“He doesn’t want us to ask any questions,” the voice said. I thought it belonged to a woman. “But he wasthere. He probably started concocting the story the minute Erika died. We have to find some way to force him to tell the truth.”
Erika. Fuck. The official story they were talking about was the one the dean had put out about her accident. And it sounded like the majority of Hunt didn’t believe a word of it.
“So we force it out of him,” said a new voice.
My stomach dropped. That voice belonged to Sean. Which meant we’d found where he and Tim had disappeared to. But he wasn’t officially a member of Hunt yet. Why would anyone listen to him? And how the hell did he think they could force the truth out of the dean?
“No,” said the first woman. Her voice dropped lower, and I leaned in even farther. “No force unless we have to. That’s a last resort.”
“He knows the truth about Erika,” said the earlier male voice. “How can you be so calm?”
“You think I’m calm?” hissed the woman. “You think I’mcalmabout my sister’s death?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, I think that’s exactly what you meant,” Valeria said. It had to be her. “Because that’s always your answer, isn’t it? Fists first, questions later. But untilyourlittle sister is murdered, Cal, I’m the one in charge of this investigation. And I say we’re going to try to avoid rushing into violence. There are subtler methods we can use.”
Her voice dropped even lower, and I pressed myself up against the door—then jumped back with a yelp of pain. I felt like I’d been electrocuted. Bolts of lightning shot out from the door, and thunder filled the room. One of the bolts caught me in the stomach, and I yelled again at the burn of it.
Ash’s head whipped around. “What the—”
“Run!” I gasped. “Now!”
I lurched across the room and threw Superman’s door open. He stumbled backwards as it slammed into him, but I didn’t have time to feel bad. I was much more concerned with the door behind us, and who might be coming through it. I was surprised it hadn’t opened yet.
“Go, go!” I shouted at Felix and Ash, waving for them to come through after me. “We need to go now!”
They’d just run past me when the other door burst open, but I didn’t stop to see who was coming after us. I turned and ran.My stomach burned where the lightning bolt had seared it, but I couldn’t worry about that now.
“Was that Evelyn?” shouted a voice behind me. “How did she get in? Val, you said this was off-limits except for Hunters.”
Confusion to my enemies, I thought, still running after Ash and Felix. Anything that slowed them down was good. I wanted to make it out of Hunt alive.
Luckily, Ash seemed to have kept track of all the twists and turns we’d taken, because we made it back to the entry room with the chandelier of bones. I could hear footsteps pounding behind us and lunged for the door. My entire body felt like it was on fire.
Ash and Felix darted through the door, and I swung it shut behind me, following them out into the corridor we’d been in earlier. I thought they were headed for the refectory, and I was so focused on getting away that I didn’t notice they’d stopped until Felix snagged my arm and pulled me back.
“What are you—” I asked, but Felix cut me off with a sharp, “Shhh.”
He tugged me and Ash into the corner where the hall made a left for the refectory. What the hell was he doing? Didn’t he realize we needed to keep moving?
I turned to ask him exactly that—and the light around us abruptly disappeared, plunging our corner of the hallway into pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing—not Felix, not Ash, and definitely not the door to Hunt Haven at the other end of the hall.
But I couldhearit open, and hear the Hunters who poured through it a moment later. My heart pounded as their footstepscame down the hall and turned the corner to the refectory. But no one seemed to notice the giant shadow they were running past.
Finally, I heard Valeria’s voice. “Whoever they were, they must have gone upstairs. Let’s spread out and keep looking.”
