Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Sneak Peek of REIGN

  A Note from Ketley

  About the Author

  Copyright © Mitchell Tobias Publishing, 2021

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba at Maeidesign

  Editing by Madison Seidler

  madisonseidler.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Sign up for Ketley’s newsletter so you never miss out on exclusive news, excerpts, bonus scenes, and new releases!

  Briarcliff Academy Student Playlist

  Call You Mine - The Chainsmokers

  i miss you (with Au/Ra) - Jax Jones, Au/Ra

  Feel it Coming On - Contessa

  Trampoline (with ZAYN) - SHAED, ZAYN

  Past Life (with Selena Gomez) - Trevor Daniel, Selena Gomez

  Bridges - Aisha Badru

  WOW - Zara Larsson

  Wildfire - SYML

  Where We Come Alive - Ruelle

  Lonely Hearts Club - Winona Oak

  Find the rest of the playlist on Spotify

  1

  My death is silent.

  On the outside, the quiet is suffocating. My ears are clogged. My limbs hit nothing. My voice is strangled and without breath.

  I’m sinking into the black, but my eyes are wide open.

  Bubbles of the remaining life I cling to escape my lips, though I can’t see them, not even when I tilt my head skyward, my hands curled into claws, desperate to grab something.

  Water runs through my fingers, thick and viscous, but not tangible enough to lift me to the surface and gasp for air.

  I can’t swim.

  My mind understands this, but my body refuses to concede. It jerks, seizes, flails, and yet I’m sinking, down, down…

  Inside, I scream. Inside, my heart refuses to die. It pounds against my ribcage, my rebellious pulse transmitting the frantic message to my neck, banging against my eardrums and shrieking into my mind: Swim! Swim, damn it!

  I try. Oh God, I’m trying, but nothing ripples above. There’s no break in the black, the sea claiming me as easily as a stone plinking into its depths.

  Chase.

  My last thought is of him, the tightening in my chest swelling to unbearable levels. I’m choking because I’m refusing to allow my body to do what it does best: breathe.

  There’s no oxygen down here. No life.

  But I…

  My chest seizes. My eyes pop wide. I stop flailing and wrap panicked fingers around my neck, my instincts taking control.

  Don’t try to suck in air. Don’t breathe.

  My mouth opens.

  Lake water fills the one spot it hasn’t claimed, rushing into my lungs.

  I gag.

  Squeeze my throat.

  Burn from the inside out.

  A strand of hair tickles the side of my cheek as I stare into the horror of dying…

  Hands clamp under my arms.

  I’ve curled inward, my eyes rolling back into my head, but a small spot at the base of my brain communicates a crucial fact: Someone has you.

  Water splices against my body as I’m pulled, up and up, a sliver of moonlight piercing the surface of the lake the closer I’m led to the top.

  Those same hands switch to my waist, propping me against their side until my head breaks through the water.

  A horrible, grotesque noise I’ve never heard before escapes through my airways, my nose and throat spluttering. Lake water warmed from my lungs is vomited out.

  I scramble for a handhold as I cough with painful heaves, hollowed-out barks escaping my throat as my eyes stay scrunched shut.

  They won’t open after being stretched to their limits, the underwater prison creating an ironic dry grit that scrapes against my lids every time I try.

  “Easy,” a voice says behind me. “I got you.”

  They guide my hand to a piece of wood, curling my hands around its edge. “Hold on tight.”

  “Wh—wh—…” I’m seized by another coughing spasm.

  “Slow breaths,” the same person says, rubbing my back as I move to grip the dock with both hands. Water laps at my elbows. I’m exposed to the air from my shoulders up, but too much of me remains buried in the deep.

  “Let me—” I gulp. “Get me—get me out. Lift me up.”

  “I … I can’t, Callie.”

  That voice, the musical, familiar lilt of it, starts to make sense. I blink, scrunching down hard, then force my eyes open.

  At first, all I see is a panel of wood, moist and slippery from mildew and reeking of the same scent. But I twist my neck—oh, until the person holding onto the dock beside me, the one who saved me, centers in my view.

  “…Ivy?”

  Her ice blonde hair is slicked back and flat against her head, wisps of it floating around her shoulders where the lake still claims it. Thick, dampened eyelashes border her wide, worried gaze, droplets of water clinging to her brows, her nose, the crease of her upper lip.

  She doesn’t say anything, just continues to regard me with that anxious, frightened stare.

  “How…” I clear my throat. “What’s going on? Who pushed me?”

  She licks her lips, a bead of water dissolving on the tip of her tongue. She glances up, over the dock, then back at me.

  “You got what you wanted,” she whispers.

  “I—what?”

  “Calla Lily Ryan,” another voice says. “My, oh my…”

  The careless tone stiffens my shoulders, despite my feet treading uselessly underwater.

  Shoes clomp closer, stopping at my fingertips. A heavy, golden cloak flutters around the ankles, and I know, before I continue my upward survey, who owns this unconcerned gait.

  “Falyn,” I grit out. My hands clamp harder around the dock’s edge, readying for her heel to come down on my fingers and send me screaming back into the murky depths.

  A full-body shudder overtakes that thought, and I swallow the impending bile.

  Ivy’s here, I reason. She won’t let that happen to me again.

  But why is she here? And why did she allow it to happen the first time? I could blame the grogginess of almost drowning, but in truth, my subconscious has collected more suspicions about Ivy than my present mind ever did.

  “Did you find the answers you w
ere looking for down there?” Falyn asks with a smile.

  Every molecule in my body wants to get out, get dry, get away, but Falyn blocks my scuttle to the ladder by laying the tip of her shoe on my fingertips.

  She says to Ivy, “Has your time with this water-logged possum softened your heart so much that you couldn’t leave her without a swim buddy for two seconds?”

  Ivy tips her chin to Falyn, adding a glare. “You shouldn’t have pushed her. It’s too dangerous. Callie doesn’t know the docks like we do. She could’ve swum up and hit her head. Or been caught in the anchoring ropes. It was a stupid move, Fal.”

  Ivy and I lock eyes over the rippling water against our jawlines, her expression stiff with a silent, desperate message she tries to send my way. I read the warning through her squinted gaze.

  Falyn has no idea I can’t swim.

  I give Ivy a minuscule nod.

  “Everything we do is dangerous,” Falyn says. A breeze ruffles her cloak, pushing the hood wider, and I catch the twisted glee written across her features. She looks down at me. “And the beginning of a serious awakening.”

  My fingers ache with their hard clench. The adrenaline drifts away with the same speed, and I kick my jellied legs in an attempt to raise myself higher. “Not to be a buzzkill, but can we finish your life lessons on land?”

  Instead of being insulted, Falyn answers with a low, languid laugh. She glances behind her. I follow her gaze to a line of Cloaks, waiting silently ten feet away. Seven of them stand as straight and stiff as chess pieces, save for the ominous movement of their gold-threaded robes, fluttering in the night breeze.

  Falyn turns back to me. “I assume you managed to read the two words in your invitation before you were butt-kicked into the lake.”

  My mouth turns grim. “Yes. I’m in. Now let me up.”

  She doesn’t step back or lay off my fingers. Instead, Falyn’s grin grows wider. “I’m guessing you didn’t have time to turn the card over.”

  “Stop, Falyn,” Ivy says next to me. “We’re freezing. Let’s finish this when you give us some towels, at least.”

  Falyn ignores her. “Let me be the bearer, then.”

  Falyn picks up the thick card that fluttered from my fingers to the edge of the dock when I was pushed.

  “It says.” Falyn stops to clear her throat. “‘If you choose to accept your first initiation rite, you will land on the path to become one of us.’ You’re not a Virtue yet, Callie.”

  Controlling the shivers in my voice, I respond, “I’m still trying to pinpoint when I accepted being pushed into a lake.”

  “Oops.” Falyn’s lips curve.

  My face doesn’t betray my thoughts as I scan behind Falyn toward these girl soldiers who must be awaiting Falyn’s orders.

  Is Falyn really their leader? I find it difficult, even while flailing around half-submerged from her doing, to see her at the top of a secret society pyramid.

  “Do you want the key to our temple?” Falyn asks me, her voice candy-coated and thin.

  “Falyn,” Ivy hisses.

  “You didn’t go through all this trouble for nothing, did you?” Falyn arches her brows as she regards me below her. “Here’s something you can accept: Go fetch.”

  “What?” I look from Falyn to Ivy in hopes Ivy can explain, but Ivy’s face is either too numb from cold, or she’s too stunned and horrified to move her muscles.

  “This isn’t good for me, is it?” I mutter to Ivy.

  She blinks. Swallows. Her eyes soften, shimmering with warm tears against the cold drops of water in her lashes. “I’m so sorry, Callie.”

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” I whisper in return, but my words are so much hotter than hers. She doesn’t respond, which is answer enough. “How could you not tell me?”

  Ivy answers with a moan. “I thought I was keeping you from the worst.”

  “Are you done with your pep-talk, Ivy?” Falyn asks from above. “Your bleeding heart can only go so far in this scenario. You know the rules. Callie’s on her own. Come up and leave her to it.”

  Ivy braces her hands on the dock.

  “You lied to me?” I whisper hoarsely.

  Ivy pauses before she lifts out of the lake, her elbows spearing to the sky. She turns her head and whispers through stiff lips, “Kick off your shoes. Underneath the dock are vertical slats of wood. It’s what keeps the platform secure and floating. In between those slats are pockets of air.”

  I find enough space in my lungs to say, “What?”

  “Grip those slats. Hold your breath and pop up for air whenever you can. You can do this.”

  “What the fuck, Ivy—”

  Water sloshes when she lifts herself up in a streamlined move. Once her knees are on the dock, she rises to a stand. Her clothes are stuck to her body and soak my trembling hands when she moves to stand beside Falyn.

  “Welcome to your first test of allegiance,” Falyn says. “You’re a late-term pledge, but that doesn’t exempt you from what the rest of us had to endure.”

  Ivy lays a hand on Falyn’s robed arm, and my face spasms with the agony of betrayal, but I do as she says. I toe off my shoes and picture them sinking, down, down, and landing silently on the brackish lake floor.

  “Your key to our temple is tied under this dock,” Ivy says. “Find it, and you’ll succeed in becoming a Baroness.”

  I go cold on the inside, its spreading icicles leaving frost on my numbed skin. “I…”

  “Get it over with, Callie,” Ivy cuts in. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Or don’t,” Falyn is all too happy to add. “Frankly, the queen gave you an easy in. If you can’t do this much, then you definitely don’t belong with us.”

  Queen?

  “Who’s your queen?” I ask, my throat shrinking in size. Falyn may not know I can’t swim and thinks this task is letting me off the hook, but … and my stomach sinks as I look to Ivy … what about the person in charge? Did she require this specific hazing because she’s aware of my handicap?

  A clawing ominousness clamps around my heart as I quietly answer my own question. Falyn’s been put in charge of my initiation—that’s evidence enough.

  Despite every part of me pleading with Ivy, she gives a slight shake of her head. Ivy can’t—or won’t—do anything besides offer silent support.

  “You’ll meet our queen when she deems you worthy,” Falyn says. “Now hurry up and dunk. We’ve got parties to get to.”

  My hands turn into Arctic-level claws. I risk dipping my chin into the water, then choke on a terrified squeal and shrink closer to the dock when it laps over my mouth.

  I can’t do this. I may be as close as I’ve ever been to uncovering what Piper might’ve died for, but I can’t face my fear. I refuse to willingly drown for—

  “Oh, fuck this,” Falyn says, then kicks at my fingers until they rip from the dock.

  2

  I don’t give into the hysteria of freaking out. It didn’t do me any good the first time, and I refuse to be rescued a second time … if any savior would come.

  As soon as lake water covers my face, I scramble for the dock, gripping its underside to keep from sinking.

  There isn’t enough breath in my lungs. Even if I prepared for Falyn’s move, there wasn’t time for a big gulp of air.

  Meaning, I need oxygen. Now.

  My heart pounds against my ears, and a blaring panic alarm lances through my system, but I force myself to give into the quiet and think. THINK.

  In my desperate scrabble, I’m gripping the bottom of the dock. I have no idea where to turn to find the edge, and I can’t swim to find it.

  I can’t swim.

  Ivy’s words prod the back of my skull. I’d waste precious time questioning them, so I release one hand and let it explore for a neighboring slat, my legs assisting as much as they can with hard, uncoordinated kicks.

  The backs of my fingers hit a vertical plank, and I grip it with all my might and do an underwater pul
l-up until my nose is pressed against the slime and decay of submerged wood.

  With my lips pursed and jaw working like a fish’s, I search for the kiss of air, however small, to meet my lips.

  Water peels back from my face, its waves climbing up my cheeks at each small ripple of movement, but it’s enough to suck in the stink of limited oxygen and blink my eyes.

  Black. It’s so black under here, and my ears are submerged and blocked from sound. But I feel footsteps up above, one pair crashing down harder than the others, and I swear I hear a voice hollering “Where is she?” through the clogged clamshells of my ears.

  My heart crashes and ricochets along the walls of my entire body, emitting the obvious threat to my life in urgent, pulsing bursts, but my emotions won’t get me out of this.

  I keep Ivy’s advice in mind as I gulp in breaths and tentatively move my grip up and back, testing each hand’s strength. Flooded, manmade wood is so different than it is on land. Slimy. Soft. Almost pliable. Certainly not easy to use to keep my head above water.

  If I slip … I’m done for.

  As if calling on fate, my arms and hands tremble and ache under the strain.

  I can’t stay still much longer. If I keep my body this stiff, I’ll have no hope of clinging to the surface.

  Don’t freak out.

  Falyn said the key is tied somewhere under this dock. What would it be attached to?

  Someone must’ve swum this path before me to leave the key. Would they be adventurous, or would they want to get the fuck out of here like I do?