Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

I rubbed my thumb across my index finger and flinched at the lack of sensation there. Fuck. I’d just taken a dose of the toxin two days ago, and based on the last dose, it should’ve lasted a week, or more. Long enough for me to synthesize more of it.

In the glass dome, the moth Lilia had named Patroclus barely fluttered across the floor of the cage, not only no longer able to fly, but in a state of constant paralysis. The toxin was metabolizing too quickly. The effects were wearing off as the body learned how to respond to it. I should’ve had another test subject lined up, but I’d gotten too overconfident.

Too fucking cocky.

And I didn’t have time to go hunt down Angelo DeLuca, to infect him, and harvest more of the toxin, as I had with Barletta. All that remained was a single sample and what I’d harvested from Angela Kepling weeks ago, which might not even have been viable.

If I wanted to save this study, to keep it from slipping into failure, I needed to find another victim. The reality weighed heavily on me, and yet, at the same time, the only reason I’d made progress so swiftly was because I had sought out test subjects. Without them, I’d have been in a stagnant state of growing toxin in moths.

At the click of the door, I frowned, turning to see Lilia enter the lab. An unexpected intrusion, seeing as it was early afternoon and she didn’t typically come visit the lab until evening, but her presence was certainly welcomed.

Every muscle in my body goaded me to sweep her up, but as I clenched my hands over the numbness that persisted there, I didn’t move.

The expression on her face as she approached told me something was troubling her, as well.

“What is it?” I asked, wishing I could reach out and caress her face, but not being able to feel her skin would only stab me in the fucking chest.

She stared off for a moment, frowning. “Can you take me somewhere?”

“Where?”

“Away. I just need to get away for a couple of hours.”

“I know of a place.” I pushed to my feet and gave a jerk of my head, stuffing my hands into my pockets. For a moment, she looked confused. Rightfully so. I hadn’t kissed her. Held her. Offered her any of the affection I’d given her over the past week.

Wearing a downcast expression, she followed after me, and after we’d deposited our lab coats on the hooks in the autopsy room, I led her through the cadaver entrance to the door leading out into the woods behind the school, where I’d parked my car in a small lot. I opened the door for her, allowing her to slide into the seat.

“Jesus, a Maserati?” she asked, the amusement in her voice an improvement from the somber tone moments ago. “And black. How did I know Doctor Death would drive a black car with black leather interior?” She ran her hand over the seat as she settled in.

“It suits me.” The Ghibli was a sportier car, but practical, too, as it had a backseat, where I tossed my sport coat, and a trunk big enough to stuff a body. After rounding the vehicle, I slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.

Locked in her preoccupations, she remained silent, just staring through the window, stirring my concern.

“What’s troubling you?” I asked again, driving down the small dirt road that ran along the perimeter of the school and down the mountainside.

“I learned who my father is today.”

When she didn’t say more, I cocked a brow and tipped my head to get her attention. “And?”

“I’m not sure I should say. I don’t really want to put it out in the universe. He doesn’t matter. He never did.”

“Then, don’t say his name.” I shifted the gears on the car, allowing it to pick up speed as we hauled down the mountainside at about seventy miles-per-hour. As though sensing my venturous intentions, she opened the sunroof and tilted her head back, closing her eyes beneath the few scant rays of sunlight pushing through the overcast.

With my own head wrapped up in a mire of shit, I didn’t prod her for a response. Instead, I let her enjoy the silence between us, with the cool sea air blowing her hair in disarray, and Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major blaring through the speakers. In spite of the mildly cool temps, a strange warmth settled over me, making me wish I’d opted for a T-shirt instead of the dress shirt. An ache throbbed in my muscles, though not necessarily unusual, given the dosage had begun to taper.

As we approached a familiar road, I slowed the car, and Lilia sat up in her seat. I dared to turn down the long, tree-lined drive, even though it sent a pulse of dread through my veins, as memories emerged from the dark corners of my mind like corpses rising up from the grave.

Beside me, Lilia looked around at the dark and dilapidated trees that hid the long stretch of dirt road. “What is this place?”

I rolled the car to a stop just outside of a black, wrought iron gate with Bramwell Estate etched into its metal. “It’s where I grew up.” Beyond the gate stood the dark and dreary gothic mansion with its stained-glass windows, steep gabled roof and turret.

The place had always physically looked to be in a state of mourning, with its weathered, vine-covered stones, chipped and decayed, and the unkempt gardens my father had refused to keep maintained after my mother had passed.

She peered through the window, giving a quick glance to me and back. “You lived here?”

“Generations of Bramwells have lived here. Caed and I were away at school most of the time, so we rarely spent much time here. But, yes. This was my home.”

“Is this where you stay while on campus?”

“No. I haven’t set foot in the house in a decade. Not since my father passed.” I hadn’t seen my father in five years, when our family lawyer had contacted me, urging me to pay him a visit. He’d been on his deathbed for some time, afflicted with the same condition with which I suffered. It was the day I’d refused to carry on his work. The day I told him I’d happily watch him die knowing everything would die with him. “The house is mine, though. The bastard cursed me with it.”

“Your father wasn’t a good man?”

“No. He wasn’t.”

“So, the rumors of what he did …” A hesitation carried on her voice, as if she didn’t want to risk letting me know she’d heard of it. “The Crixson study. Do you believe them?”

“Are you asking me if my father murdered six women?”

“I’m asking if he murdered my mother.”

I couldn’t look at her. My feelings for Lilia had grown to be complicated. The lies to protect her no longer came to me as easily as before. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Perhaps the most honest I’d been with her. While the details of her mother’s death and the timeline of her illness didn’t scientifically add up, I knew my father. I knew his sadistic tendencies, his greed and desires. “It’s quite possible. Though, I’ve never heard of anyone harboring the parasite for so long. I can’t even investigate the circumstances. There were files that went missing. A number of them were destroyed.”

“I think Gilchrist has those files.”

Frowning, I turned toward her. “How do you know?”

“Because she offered to hand them over if I stopped seeing you and left Dracadia.”

“These files have information about your mother?”

“Supposedly.”

“And you didn’t leave? You didn’t accept this offer?”

She lowered her gaze to where her hands wrung in her lap, and a smile played on her lips. “After I lost my mother, and Bee went off to school, I kind of spiraled into myself and learned how to find solace in loneliness. It became my home. The only place I felt safe. Then I came here. And I met you. And I learned that loneliness was a choice for me. This place is more than just a school to me.” The turmoil bubbled to the surface as she sat fidgeting. “I suppose I could’ve kept to myself, as I always have, and remained another forgettable face in the crowd. And maybe Gilchrist wouldn’t have bothered. Or maybe she would’ve and I’d have just gone back to my old, lonely life, and had all the answers I’ve yearned for.” She shrugged and looked away. “Answers that don’t really matter anymore.” From her profile, I watched a hint of a smile play on her lips. “The decision was made the moment I met you, though. To stay here. I choose you.”

Damn her. Damn this. What the hell was I doing to this girl? What the hell was she doing to me?

I pushed past the revolting lack of feeling and hooked my finger beneath her chin, turning her to face me. “I choose you,” I said, and pulled her in for a kiss, feeling the smile against my lips. “And believe me when I say, you’re hard to forget, Miss Vespertine.”

Reversing the car back down the drive, I pulled out onto the main road and kept toward the north end of the island.

“I meant to ask. Why women? Why did your father choose strictly women for the study?”

For years, I’d suffered through the rumors that my father had been no different than my great-great-grandfather, who’d chosen prostitutes as victims. It wasn’t until I studied the parasite that I learned the truth of why. “The toxin responds more favorably in women.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t gotten that far. Genetics? Evolution? There’s so much left to learn about it.”

“I feel like I should hate this parasite more than I do. Everything about it fascinates me, though.”

I sighed. “Welcome to my world.”

We finally reached Amorisse Cove, and I parked my car off onto the shoulder. After opening the door for her, I led her down a rickety staircase, to the beautiful cove surrounded by the tall, stone walls of the cliffs. In the distance, about a half mile offshore, stood the arch known to the locals as Lover’s Leap. An archway that made up the tail of the dragon-shaped island.

Lilia followed behind me toward the water, the urge to grab her hand smothered by the numb tingling in my fingertips. We finally reached the shore that opened onto white sand and the soft, gray waves of the ocean. I came to a stop on a short stretch the tide hadn’t yet reached, and she sauntered up beside me, wind sifting through her hair as if it longed to touch her the way I did.

“It’s so beautiful.”

As she stared at the arch, I stared at her. “Lover’s Leap.”

“I remember seeing this one in a booklet I grabbed from town. Haven’t read it yet. What’s the story behind it?”

“A local native girl, the daughter of a chieftain who fell in love with a simple Dracadian fisherman. She asked the gods for permission to marry him, and the gods refused, banishing him from the island.” As I relayed the story, I toed the sand with the tip of my shoe, unearthing a shell that I picked up and rubbed the sand away from with my thumb. “She climbed atop the arch to watch his boat depart, and out of nowhere a white squall struck his vessel, crashing it into the rocks beneath where she sat. Devastated, she leapt to her death.” I handed the perfectly intact shell to her, watching her marvel it as if I’d given her a rare jewel. “From that day forward, the gods gentled the waters around the arch, made it shallow there, so no one would ever perish by those rocks again. The indigenous believed the arch to be a gateway to the afterlife.”

Her lips curved to a smile, and the wind blew a stray hair loose that I wanted to capture between my fingers and tuck behind her ear, but I didn’t dare.

I didn’t dare because it would’ve only infuriated me to confirm I couldn’t feel its silky texture.

“Everything about this island is a story. The sirens of Bone Bay. The nymphs in Squelette Lake. And now Lover’s Leap. Every corner seems to hold something magical and terrifying.”

The waves drew closer. Closer. She backed herself up, nearly tripping, and I reached out a hand to catch her. Biting back the repulsive lack of sensation, I forced a smile, as she chuckled.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” I asked, releasing her. “The sea awaits.”

She shot me a look, as if thinking she shouldn’t dare to. Her bottom lip slipped between her teeth on a smile, and she yanked off her boots and socks, tossing them to the dry sand behind us. With her feet together, she took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. The waves reached for her again with the kind of longing that I could feel pulsing in my own chest.

On a squeal, she jumped back, then cautiously stepped forward. Another wave followed the first, and I watched her legs jerk, as she lifted her dress and let the water pool around her. Over her shoulder, she shot me a smile–one so fucking beautiful, I wanted to frame it. Capture it. Study the alchemy of it. How wonderfully intoxicating one simple expression could be.

Emboldened, she skittered forward, letting the next wave pool above her ankles. A little more, and the next one pooled at her calves. I watched in awe as she let the sea seduce her, tickle her into a giggling young girl, dancing, hopping, and tumbling in the waves. It was there that my failures and her worries were swept away, cleansed by the salt and air and the sounds of calm that reverberated off the surrounding rock walls.

It was there that I began to wonder if what I felt for Lilia was something more than I cared to admit.

I dared not slip into those thoughts, though, because I knew fate and the world didn’t give so freely. It lured us on a siren’s call and pulled us to the inevitable depths of pain that followed.

Lilia was a liability. A weakness. The one crack in my armor that threatened to crumble my defenses. I couldn’t afford that. Not when The Rooks were watching so closely, waiting for the news of my latest variant.

Yet, the radiance she gave off was fucking addicting. A warmth that reminded me how cold death could be sometimes.

She jumped and stumbled in the waves, trying to lift her foot from the water. After an unsuccessful examination, she hobbled back across the sand with her toes stuck upward, red trailing after her foot. “Think I cut myself on a shell,” she said, grimacing. “Damn it.” When she finally plopped down beside her discarded socks and shoes, I took hold of her foot and examined the small cut just below her toe.

“I’ve got something to clean it up. Hang tight.” I strode back up the staircase to my car, and from the glovebox, I pulled a small emergency kit I kept stored there.

An intense pain struck my skull at both sides.

Fuck!

Hands clutched at either side of my head, I screwed my eyes shut on the intense ringing that sliced across my eardrums like hot blades, and fell to the pavement. The agony radiated outward, down my neck, into my arms, where it electrified my bones. As a searing heat struck my spine, I arched and grunted, feeling the attack crawl down into my legs, like my whole body was crystalizing inside. There was nothing I could do. Every muscle had locked itself into paralysis. Inside my coat pocket in the backseat hid the last dose of toxin, but hell if I could get to it. A stabbing pain pierced my chest, and I rolled onto my back, staring up at the birds–ravens–circling overhead.

An omen of death.

This is it.

Impervious. Impervious!

An invisible fist clamped over my lungs, banishing the air on an excruciating gasp.

Fucking figured that just as I’d begin to feel something through this numb existence, fate would tear it away from me like a jealous lover.

I closed my eyes and let the blackness take me under.