Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

In the bathroom mirror, I twisted my face to the side, eyeing the bottom of the wound, where I recalled the blade scraping against bone. Sickened by the thought, I turned away. Even if Devryck had meted out his own form of justice, I’d never rid myself of Angelo. He’d always be there, every time I had to look in the mirror. Every time I’d find myself desperate to forget that night, the vestiges left behind would take me right back to it.

I brushed my teeth with the toothbrush I’d rifled out of my suitcase, cringing each time the movement of my jaw stretched the stitches. I’d changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and after relieving myself and applying some deodorant I’d scrounged from my suitcase, I decided to leave my room and explore the expansive mansion.

The crack created by my ajar door showed a dark hallway. Spying an ornate light switch a few steps down from my room, I stepped out into the corridor and flicked it. Antique sconces on the wall lit up, glowing as if a flame burned inside of them. I padded down the hallway, passing enormous portraits, some of which were covered in white sheets. From the paisley print runner across thick wooden floors, the beautiful crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling beyond the staircase, to the rich detail in all of the trim, the house carried a very regal appeal about it. A far cry from where I’d grown up. I found it strange that Devryck had let the house sit unused. Abandoned.

When I reached the staircase, I turned toward one particularly striking portrait on the wall. An austere man, with light hair and intense eyes, stood flanked by two identically handsome boys, perhaps no more than sixteen years old, by my estimates. I couldn’t say that, with their serious expressions, I’d have been able to tell the two apart. Trouble, for sure. Both boys carried a deviant glint in their eyes, one a slight smirk to his lips that’d probably turned a lot of girls into a gooey mess.

Tired wood creaked beneath my feet, as I made my way down the stairs to the foyer of the house. Nothing there looked familiar to me. I couldn’t recall one moment when I’d awakened to see anything, the night he’d carried me up to that room. I must’ve been out cold.

A den stood off to the right of the foyer, all the furniture covered in sheets, and as I made my way down the hallway, I passed a library, a small bathroom, a storage room under the staircase, and an empty utility closet.

A faint sound reached my ear as I stepped back from the closet, and closing the door, I frowned. I listened again, more intently. Closing my eyes brought the sound to the fore. An agonized scream. Crystals of fear skated down my neck, and my eyes shot open.

Go back to the bedroom, my head urged.

I knew in that instant what Devryck had done with Angelo. A wild fear shook my muscles, and I touched the wound at my face.

“He won’t hurt you again.” Devryck’s words echoed in my mind.

For reasons I couldn’t grasp, I needed to see for myself. I needed to know if there was even the remote possibility that he’d come for me again. I wanted to take something from him, so that if he ended up dying at Devryck’s hands, he wouldn’t haunt me in death.

While every muscle in my body warred with my head, my feet moved on their own toward the door through which the screams seemed to bleed. My hand brushed against my thigh, an instinct to grab my pocketknife. I lifted my gaze to the kitchen and dashed ahead, searching for a knife block. Instead, I opened a drawer to a collection of fancy steel blades. I opted for a thick cleaver, the edge of which looked sharp enough to cut bone.

Of course, I didn’t want to imagine that, but in the event that Angelo may try to attack again, at least I was armed. I tiptoed back to the door and listened again. The cries seemed fainter than before, but still carried a pitch of agony.

As I placed my hand on the knob, I tried to imagine what state he might’ve been in. Don’t do it. Leave it alone.

I couldn’t, though. The bastard had threatened to fuck me with the sharp end of a blade. And I believed he would’ve carried through on that.

I opened the door to a staircase that descended into darkness below. A flip of the switch beside me brought the old-fashioned sconces flickering to life, lighting the path ahead. Cold air sent puffs of steam from my mouth, and shivers only added to the anxiety pulsing through me, as I made my way down the cold, stone staircase.

Down.

Down.

Until the bottom finally opened onto a dark corridor that extended in both directions. I flipped on lights, illuminating the long stretch to my left, and waited. Listening. Anxiety crushed my lungs, and I breathed hard through my nose. Cleaver still in hand, I held my arms to stave off the cold.

Quiet moans directed me to the left, and I padded in that way. A door at the end of the corridor stood cracked. God, please. Let him be restrained, or something.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I peeked inside. The moans grew louder. Pulse pounding, I widened the crack of the door.

Across the room, Angelo lay on a steel examination table. His arms had been removed and cauterized, leaving only a dark, burned stump.

Air sawed in and out of me, as my feet brought me closer and my eyes swallowed up the gore laid out before me. I’d clocked some of it in my periphery, my head locked on the necklace covered in blood at his throat. With a trembling hand, I reached out for it, curling it into my palm, and he turned toward me on a scream. My breaths choked on a jolt of terror, as his body wriggled in panic, and a jerk of my hand tore the necklace away from him.

Blood streaked down his temples from eyes that had been maliciously gouged. I trailed my gaze lower, toward the slaughter I’d avoided looking at directly. His stomach had been cut open, his entrails spilling out. Blood everywhere I looked. Body writhing on the surface, he opened his mouth and released a moan, and I caught sight of the sawed tongue still oozing blood, which he spat as he turned to cough.

A slithering cold stirred in my gut. I dropped to my knees, the knife hitting the cement on a clatter. Acids shot up my throat, burning my nose, and poured out onto the floor, spattering over the surface. Angelo’s moans heightened into a panicked howl. Beside me, a piece of his bowels lay on the floor, and I upchucked again, arms trembling as I fought to remain upright.

A clammy, cold sweat settled over me, my head dizzy as I turned away from him. Necklace clutched in my hand, I pushed to my feet, and a wave of vertigo struck, knocking me to my knees again.

It was too much. Too fucking much.

Hands pressed to my ears to keep from hearing him moan, I stumbled toward the door, and once out of the room, I fell against the wall, every muscle quaking with fear and repulsion. Not so much for the fact that Devryck had punished him. I didn’t even want to imagine what the scene must’ve looked like to him, when he’d walked in on Angelo assaulting me, but I needed to. I needed to force myself to imagine what could’ve brought a man to inflict such brutality. My head pushed through the shock and summoned the horrible things Angelo had promised to do to me. Slicing my throat. Cutting me up so he could easily remove me from the apartment. Yes. All those things he’d promised to do. And he would’ve.

I didn’t doubt that.

With renewed anger, I pushed off the wall and made my way back toward the staircase. Another high-pitched scream from the room brought me to a halt. Icy branches of fear skittered down the back of my neck as I turned toward the room where Angelo lay.

His screams fell to an eerie silence.

I waited to hear if they’d start back up again.

A figure stepped out into the corridor.

Ripples of terror coiled around my spine as I stared back at the obscure form of someone in a long cape and a plague mask. In his hand was the cleaver I’d dropped, its surface wet with what I had little doubt was blood.

Air stuttered in my chest, and I closed my eyes.

Not real. He’s not real. He’s not real.

Except, when I opened my eyes, he was still standing there. And when he prowled toward me, my muscles seized up. Lungs locked. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. For what seemed like an eternity, I stood watching this apparition I’d made in my head trek toward me at a sickening pace.

The doorbell rang.

He ground to a halt.

I broke from the trance and glanced to the side, where a light shined at the top of the staircase. Adrenaline surged through my veins, and I pivoted and dashed up the stairs. A tearless sob broke from my chest. I glanced over my shoulder to see him chasing after me, and I let out a scream.

The moment I breached the staircase, I sprinted down the hallway to the foyer and swung the door open on Professor Gilchrist, who let out a wild screech of flying hands.

“Please! Please, he’s after me! He’s coming!” A light push knocked her sideways, as I bolted past her. I damned near leapt down the stone staircase toward the gravely, overgrown circular drive. It was there that I twisted around and waited for the masked man to come flying out at me. Wheezing and gasping, I stood bent over myself. Waiting.

He didn’t appear.

Seconds ticked by, the air cold on my skin as an autumn breeze swept over me.

Frowning, Gilchrist tipped her head and peered into the house.

I imagined it to be the moment the killer cracked her in the skull with the blade, but instead she turned to me with a frown. “Lilia? Are you all right?”

“I was … he was … it was …” I couldn’t catch my breath, the fear and sickness still twisting up my insides. “I swear there was someone.”

God, maybe I’d imagined it again. Maybe the sight of Angelo had triggered the visual. With a trembling hand, I rubbed my forehead, and took long, easy breaths.

“Lilia, are you sure you’re all right?” Her voice held a guarded edge of uncertainty.

Head lowered, I let out an exasperated exhale and nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“What happened to your face?”

“I fell,” I lied, watching the skepticism deepen her frown. I needed to get back inside, to shut her out before she got nosey. With quick strides, I hustled back up the stairs for the door, frowning when the strangeness of her visit finally struck me. Devryck had told me no one would know I was here. Had he sent her? “What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice as guarded as hers had been moments ago.

“Perhaps I should be asking you the same question. It’s my understanding you left.”

Devryck hadn’t sent her, then.

“Devryck isn’t here,” I said, backing myself into the house, ready to slam the door in her face, if necessary.

“I’m here, Beautiful.” At the sound of the deep, spine-tingling voice, I turned to see him casually strolling down the hallway, toward me, his hands tucked in the pockets of his dark jeans. A black, form-fitting T-shirt was a contrast to the white button-down he’d worn earlier.

Confused, I took a step back, as he approached. “Where …” Gaze shifting toward the opened door of the cellar staircase and back, I shook my head. “When did you return?”

“Just a few minutes ago,” he said, slowing to a stop. Eyes adoring, he cupped my face and gave a gentle stroke of my cheek just outside of the scar, the urge to turn away from him pulling at me.

In returning my attention to the driveaway, I noted his car wasn’t there. Had he parked it in the garage? Or out back? Had he arrived with Gilchrist?

When I turned back to him, I caught sight of a red splotch at the corner of his eye, as if he’d broken a blood vessel there. My staring also drew attention to a scar just outside of the same eye that I hadn’t noticed before.

The corner of his lips curved to a smirk, and he turned his attention to Gilchrist. “I trust you brought what I asked?”

She held up a black memory chip, and he stepped past me to her side, grabbing her by the waist in a way that looked too intimate.

He pressed a kiss to her lips.

What the fuck.

Jaw unhinged, I stared back at the two of them, trying to discern whether, or not, I was caught up in a nightmare. Perhaps a hallucination. My heart withered, and it was only when my chest punched for air that I realized I’d held my breath.

“What is this?” I managed through choked breaths.

Devryck twisted toward me and smiled, swiping the chip from Gilchrist’s hand. “Isn’t this what you wanted from her, Lilia? All the files on the Crixson Project?”

I shifted my gaze from him, to her, and backed myself further away from the two of them, my head spinning in chaotic confusion. It must’ve been a dream. A horrible, fucked-up dream. “Devryck? W-w-why would you do this?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t wear a single ounce of remorse in his apathetic expression, as he stepped toward me, reaching out a hand that I swatted away.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Don’t be like that, baby,” he said, while I mentally fought to make sense of the scenario.

Baby? He never called me baby. What the hell was this?

The smug grin on Gilchrist’s face twisted to repulsion as she stared back at me. “Oh, God, your … your wound is bleeding.” An air of disgust clung to her words, and I lifted my hand to my wet cheek, drawing my hand back to show bright red blood painted across my fingertips. “That looks positively awful,” she added, still grimacing.

Devryck’s lips curved to a snarl, and he took a harsh grip on Gilchrist’s hair, tugging her head back, the reaction so out of character, I jumped back on a sharp breath.

“Devryck!” she said, her voice affected by the angle of her head. “What are you doing?”

He turned back to me and, from a holster strapped at his hip that I hadn’t noticed earlier, he tugged out a knife, pointing it at me.

Air exploded out of my lungs on a shocked exhale. He planned to hurt me?

“Go, have a seat in the den,” he commanded in a gruff tone. “We need to talk.”

I didn’t want to talk. I silently begged my head to wake up. Wake up from this horrible nightmare that was tearing at my heart.

“Just let me go. Please. I won’t say anything, just let me go.” My gaze shifted toward the door, gauging if I could slip past him and Gilchrist.

As I lurched toward it, he released Gilchrist and stepped to the side, blocking my escape. “Sit.”

Fuck this.

I spun around on my heel and headed in the opposite direction.

A sharp woosh rushed past my ear and thunked against the wall ahead of me.

I skidded to a halt.

The hilt of his blade stuck out from the wall, taunting me with the realization that it’d just missed my head.

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

Hurt me? I hadn’t thought him capable of such a thing.

I turned around to find him unlatching a second holster at his hip, and before he could remove what I assumed was another blade there, I shuffled past the two of them into the den.

Arms crossed, I plopped down on the couch, my whole body trembling from a mix of adrenaline, anger, and fear. Something I never imagined I’d ever feel with Devryck. I studied the room in search of escape, while my head continued to spin in disbelief.

What had happened in the moments from when he’d left until now?

He directed Gilchrist toward a chair and removed the sheet covering it.

As she took her seat, he placed his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them, and again that smug grin found me. From the floor where he’d discarded it, he swiped up the sheet that’d covered the chair and held it in front of her. “Arms crossed,” he commanded.

Frowning, she kicked her head to the side. “Excuse me?”

Instead of answering, he grabbed one of her arms and pressed it into her chest, then the other, roughly forcing her to cross them.

Wearing a mask of confusion that mirrored my own, she held them there without moving, and he trapped her inside of the sheet, gathering the ends of it behind her chair, back around to the front, and behind her again, securing her.

“We’re gonna play a little game. Lilia. I’m going to ask her some questions, and she’s going to answer. If she doesn’t, you get to watch me soak this sheet in her blood.”

Jesus.

Gilchrist gasped, her face twisting with new fear, and I watched her throat bob with a swallow.

I eyed the exit again, wondering if he had the balls to throw a knife in my skull.

Once she was secured, he stepped back and turned to me. “Are you ready?”

Still frowning, I stared back at him, searching for any sign that this was some crazy scheme he’d conjured, and I just hadn’t caught on yet.

I looked back to her, and for once, I imagined we both agreed on one thing: something was absolutely fucked about this.

“How did Lilia’s mother become infected?”

I snapped my gaze to him, taken aback that he’d ask the very question that’d plagued me since I’d found out about the Crixson Project. The very one she’d offered to tell me, had I left Dracadia.

While I suspected, from my mother’s note, that she had somehow gotten infected in her meeting with Lippincott, I wanted to see what Gilchrist knew. If there was something tangible that I could use against him.

She didn’t answer at first, but with a hard nudge from Devryck, she glanced over her shoulder and shifted in her chair. “Her mother seemed to have natural resistance, as was documented in her chart. When that changed, I don’t know. What I do know is, I saw Vanessa with Lippincott four years ago. About the time she got sick. And I firmly believe it was that encounter which sealed her fate.”

“How do you know this?” he asked, as if he were inside my head right then.

“If you’re asking for proof? All I can say for fact is that I distinctly remember her leaving his office. Beyond that, it’s speculation. Who else would’ve wanted her dead?”

I didn’t like this game with him, but I couldn’t deny the relief in knowing that her timeline seemed to match the one from my mother’s note.

“Did you kill Jenny Harrick?” Devryck circled her, coming to a stop in front of her.

At first, she didn’t answer, but when he reached for his holster, she cleared her throat. “No. Of course not. She nosed around, but she wasn’t a threat to me, by any means.”

“In other words, I didn’t want to fuck her, so you had no reason to be jealous.”

She shot him a disgraced-looking glance and nodded.

“Tell her what you told me about Spencer.”

“I learned from Spencer that Mel had made a drunken confession to him, the night he drugged her.” She seemed to shift in her chair, as if uncomfortable in her restraints. “She claimed to have a sexual relationship with his father.” Her eyes fell on me, the expression in them far less cavalier. “Your father, essentially.”

“And? Why do I care about that?” I snipped, eyeing the door again.

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss the small details, Lilia,” Devryck warned. “They might be important.”

“So we’re clear, I had no part in getting you expelled. I may be a bitch, but I’m not that ruthless.”

I begged to differ. “Spencer mentioned that someone had put him up to drugging Mel. Was it you?”

“I asked him to see what he could gather from her. Drugging her was not my idea.”

“But you manipulated him. Took advantage of him. Why?”

“To live among the wealthy, you have to learn how to manipulate the game, or they will eat you alive. There’s no better way to learn your enemy’s secrets than befriending the son he can’t stand. Spencer was merely a pawn and nothing more.”

Eyes narrowed in disgust, I shook my head. “I was right. You are a horrible woman.”

“It’s time to play a different game now,” Devryck interrupted, his eyes on me again. “The one where I fuck you in front of her.”

Needles of panic numbed my throat, and I shook my head. “You touch me, and I’ll–” I choked on the last word.

“You’ll what?” He stared back at me with a cagey grin. “Fighting only makes it better for me.”

“Fuck you.”

His eye twitched. “That’s a fantastic idea.” He spun Gilchrist around to face the fireplace. As he strode toward me, he peeled off his shirt. Tattoos and scars colored his chest and abdomen–a skull jester, a dagger piercing a heart, another skull in barbed wire with gears and a clock’s face, and two pissed-off looking dragons at each flank that disappeared behind his back.

My heart stuttered.

Not Devryck. Definitely not Devryck.

Oh, God.

I scrambled backward, as he lowered to his knees in front of me, tongue sweeping over his lips.

Rough hands gripped my ankles, jerking me toward him.

“You’re … you’re … Caedmon,” I whispered. A part of me felt relieved, the other part of me still reeling from the shock.

“What is going on?” Gilchrist asked, neck craning over her shoulder.

Fists planted at either side of me, he pushed forward, caging me against the back of the couch, as if he might kiss me.

I kicked my head to the side in refusal, and he licked the edge of my wound that’d bled moments ago, twisting my stomach.

“So loyal to him, aren’t you?” He nipped my earlobe with his teeth. “Pity. I love a good revenge fuck.” Where Devryck smelled of cinnamon and cologne, Caedmon smelled of mint and leather with a hint of campfire. “Did you like my artwork? I made it for you.”

“You did that to Angelo?” I spoke as low as I could to keep Gilchrist from making out what I’d said.

“Devryck had a head start with his tongue, and some severed body parts. Appendages, mostly. His hands are in a specimen jar. How fucking romantic.” His dark chuckle spiraled around my nerves, squeezing them. Oh, God, Devryck had actually cut them off, as promised. “My brother’s come a long way, hasn’t he?” A gentle grip of my jaw turned my face back to his. He shared the same copper-colored eyes as Devryck, though his held more of a feral glint. “He isn’t like us, though.”

“How so?”

“This scar that Angelo put on your face?” He shifted his gaze to my wounded cheek and back. “He put one on me, too.” He leaned back, offering a view of his torso, where a white scar marked a slash in his stomach, covered by his dragon tattoo there. “You and me? We’re gonna go on a little ride together.” He released me and jumped to his feet, swiping up the discarded shirt. “Now.”

A glance to Gilchrist and back, and I frowned. “You can’t just leave her like that.” I had no good reason to help the woman, but it wasn’t right to leave her tied up there. I scurried toward her, keeping my eyes on him, in the event he tried to stop me with one of his blades.

Once her binds were loosened, she scrambled out of the chair, letting the sheet fall to the floor as she pushed to her feet.

At the tight grip of my arm, I turned on a gasp to see Caedmon pulling me after him. I wrenched my arm to get loose, planting my heels as firmly as I could. “Where are you taking me? Just tell me, and I promise I won’t fight.”

His eyes shifted from Gilchrist to mine, and no doubt, he’d picked up on my intent to have her privy to the location in the hope she’d run into Devryck. “The university,” he said, as if it didn’t trouble him to reveal it.

“You won’t get in. Not without an admin code,” Gilchrist argued.

Caedmon swung back around. “I already have a code.” Devryck’s, no doubt. A rough jerk of my arm had me stumbling after him.

I had no reason to trust him. I had no reason not to trust him, either, even if he was a hell of a lot scarier than Devryck. He was still Devryck’s brother, after all. The one he’d thought was dead all this time. The one who plagued him with guilt.

I followed Caedmon out of the house to Gilchrist’s car in the driveway. At first, I thought he’d try taking her car, until he unsheathed his blade and slashed two of her tires.

“Why would you do that?”

He didn’t answer, just tightened his grip, yanking me after him toward the gate.

“So, that was you. In the cellar. With the mask?” All the time I’d thought of it as nothing but a trick of my head, it turned out to be real. When he didn’t bother to answer, I added, “Interesting choice of costume.”

“It belongs to your boyfriend.”

“What?” A divot in the lawn rolled my ankle, and I stumbled, bringing Caedmon to a stop. A mild ache throbbed in my foot, only a minor distraction to the turbulence pummeling my thoughts, as I grappled with his admission. No. Devryck had told me the costume I’d seen was all in my head. “You’re lying.”

“The liar is the one you’ve been fucking all this time.” Grip tighter than before, he pulled me after him as he continued on his path.

“What is the costume for?”

“To hide their faces when they murder.”

“Who’s they?”

“The Rooks. Your little fuck-toy is one of them.” It was clear, in that moment, that Caed harbored animosity toward Devryck. Did that extend to me, as well?

I twisted my wrist, testing the strength of his grip, only to find it was immovable.

“Was it you following me around on campus?” I asked, as we breached the iron gates that I recalled seeing with Devryck when we’d visited the mansion.

He didn’t answer, but offered an insidious half-smile that reminded me of his twin. The similarity between them was unmistakable, but the more I stared, the more I noticed the differences, too. The small, subtle scars on his face. A wound at the back of his neck, as if it’d been cut open at some point. Scars on his hands, some discolored and stretched, like his skin had healed wrong. He was the broken version of Devryck.

He headed toward the woods with little concern over the sharp twigs that scratched at my feet, as I hopped over the brush after him.

“Why did you kill Angelo? I don’t believe that was for me.” It seemed far too passionate of a kill for him to have done that for me.

“Had I known Angelo was hiding out with you the whole time, I’d have spared you that scar.”

The pieces suddenly snapped into place. Realization dawned on me. “It was you. You were after him. You were the one he was afraid of. You’re the one who brutalized that rich guy, the CEO, or whatever he was.”

He swung around, and before I could even so much as breathe, he gripped my throat. “Don’t,” he said through clenched teeth.

Fear shook me as I took in the deadly glint in his eyes. Whoever that man was, he’d done something to him, that much was clear.

I stared back at him, not saying a word, until he finally released me.

With another yank, he dragged me forward toward a small stone structure that reminded me of a petite cottage. Behind it stood a sleek black motorcycle–the sporty variety.

Shaking my head, I backed up a step. “I’m not getting on that thing. Not with you.”

Ignoring me, he shoved a helmet toward me, which I pushed away.

“Don’t fuck with me. Put it on.”

“At least tell me this much. Do you plan to kill me?”

“Every minute that you stall putting that helmet on, I find less reason to keep you alive.”

With trembling hands, I slid the helmet over my head, letting out a pained hiss as the cushioned interior of it slid across my stitches. Helmetless, Caed kicked his leg over the bike and jerked his head for me to get on.

I could’ve run, but I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t kill me.

So I did as he told me.

I got on the fucking bike.