The Curse (H. Academy Series #1)
Chapter 52: Sacrifice

Leon’s eyes rolled back and he lost his consciousness again. I fell on my butt, eyes wide, but heart filled with relief. He was alive.

“I brought- I brought him back.” I stuttered, my entire body shaking.

“Yes, and now we have to get him the fuck out of here.”

Thar wasn’t messing around anymore. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me up with ease. I let him. I couldn’t make anymore decisions. I was completely drained.

“He- he needs a shirt.” I mumbled as Thar tried to lift Leon off the floor.

“Fucker’s heavy.” Thar grunted. “Help.”

“We have to cover him-”

“Jade.” Thar met my gaze, his hands under Leon’s armpits. “We need to get him out of here. Now.”

“Okay, okay!” I yelled. “Give me a fucking second!”

I took Amma’s phone off the floor and called Morta.

“Where the fuck are you?” She answered after the first ring. “Darth’s losing his shit, the ooze is acting weird!”

“I need you to find a shirt somewhere, there is probably one in Amma’s backpack.” My voice sounded more distant than hers. “Then come here with the shirt. Do it now. Don’t let anyone see you.”

“Are you okay? Has a demon possessed you?”

A strained laugh left my lips, “Not me.”

“Jade...” Thar warned.

“Jade, what the fuck?” Morta mumbled.

“Just get me a shirt.” I repeated. “Don’t let anyone see you, and don’t tell them where you’re going.”

“How am I going to pass through the hallway?” Morta asked. “The ooze went that way.”

“It’s clear.” I said. “Trust me. There is nothing here. Not even a demon.”

“Seriously?”

“Trust me.” I chuckled. “It got what it wanted.”

“You’re freaking me out.”

“Just get the shirt. Quickly.”

Morta arrived five minutes later, out of breath and carrying one black shirt. She looked terrible. Her usually pale face now turned almost blueish. Her eyes were bloodshot. Arms bruised. Sweat coated her forehead, smudging her makeup. Her mascara was smeared. As soon as she arrived, she noticed Leon on the floor.

“What... happened to him?”

I took the shirt from her hand, “He fell down the stairs.”

“Last I checked, stairs didn’t leave weird symbols on one’s chest.” She came closer.

Pulling the shirt over Leon’s head and down his torso took some effort, and I was reluctant to hold him too tightly, but I managed. I brushed his hair off his forehead and it made me cry.

“Oh.” Morta took in a sharp breath.

“Come on.” Thar stood behind Leon’s head, put his hands under his armpits, and pulled up his torso. “Help me get him to the training room. How’s the situation there?”

“Under control.” Morta immediately grabbed Leon’s legs. “Darth is panicking because the ooze stopped attacking us, which has to be the most confusing emotion I’ve ever seen. He thinks it’s planning something.”

“How’s Amma?” I wiped the tears off my face and pulled myself up.

“Alive.” Morta shrugged. “Unconscious, and she has a fever. Lorenia handled the wound as best as she could, but she’s going to need good old antibiotics.”

“How many others managed?” I asked.

They lifted Leon off the ground. I put my hands under his back, trying to help them as much as my strength allowed me.

“Around a hundred.” Morta said. “There are still some alive that escaped to the third and fourth floor, and the ooze barely reached them. Like- it’s like-”

“Like it needed a certain number?”

We moved through the hallway slowly.

Morta let out a sigh, “How many?”

“A hundred, I think.” I shrugged. “The symbol on my wrist is complete.”

“The first girl was a test.” Thar grunted, his grip under Leon’s armpits tight, muscles straining. “Probably to see if the spell worked. The first attack on the main hall in the eastern building was a test to see if the curse on the teachers’ worked. This- this was the main event.”

Then I remembered, “Leon has photos!”

“What?” Thar glanced at me.

I touched Leon’s back pocket, happy to find the phone still there. But it was broken and burned, and the screen didn’t light up.

“He sent them to me.” I said. “Photos of my father in the library right before the ooze attacked.”

“Goddess.” Morta’s eyes widened. “So, he really is behind this.”

“One hundred percent.” Thar’s jaw tensed.

Morta eyed me, demanding an explanation, but I shook my head. Neither time nor place.

We walked to the stairs when we finally reached Lange, Lorenia and the rest of the students. Some were helping them break through the ooze still covering all the windows on the first floor. Some were too exhausted, and just paced back and forth, their expressions haunted.

Lorenia walked over as soon as she saw Leon, and put his hand on his forehead. “I think he has a fever. What happened?”

“He fell down the stairs.” Morta said.

Two students took over for Morta and me and helped Thar carry him down the stairs and to the training room. The wounded were there. Quite a few were unconscious, including Amma. All were bruised and wounded, some bleeding, others crying. Some lost limbs.

Thar and the students put Leon on the floor next to Amma.

Her forehead was sweaty, her breathing shallow. Her arm was bandaged, but blood broke through, smearing the fabric dark red. I had no words. No thoughts.

I drank the entire bottle of water and sat next to them on the floor. Magic whooshed somewhere outside, but cries of pain and sorrow were louder. They were the only thing I heard.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Morta sat down.

“I used a spell to bring him back.”

Morta’s throat bobbed, but her expression gave nothing away. She glanced ahead and didn’t comment. After a minute of silence, Morta faced me again.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” I pulled my knees to my chest.

“For not listening to you.” Morta’s laugh was dry. “Not that you’ve handled it properly.”

“It was a gut feeling.” I shrugged. “I had no proof.”

“Amma listened.” Morta’s gaze jumped to her. “I should have gone with her.”

“You made it out.” I said. “That’s all that matters.”

“I’m also sorry for being a bitch to you.” She said, making me look at her. “Because you slept with Leon.”

I laughed, “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t realise it.”

“Realise what?”

Now, she glanced at Leon’s unconscious body, “That you’d reach all the way to hell to bring him back.”

I looked at him. He had a fever. His eyes were moving under his eyelids. Like he was dreaming. What the fuck have I done?

“He saved my life.” I said, still staring at him. “And I didn’t want to owe the bastard anything.”

A cheering sound reaching from the hallway made me look up. Morta was up in a second. I followed suit. Something exploded in front of us, and tremors spread through the floor and walls. The training room came alive with alive as students pulled themselves up.

“We’re out!” Someone shouted from the hallway.

My heart hammered.

Cheers and laughter overtook the building.

Morta and I left our unconscious friends on the floor and went to check it out. Ooze dropped from the windows at once, revealing the moonlit sky on the other side. Some students began to cry. Others dropped on the floor. Darth looked like he was going to pass out. Thar, too.

One by one, students began to run up the stairs, pushing through the crowd, desperate for fresh air. More teachers came through the hallway. They were the ones left outside. The ones that have been trying to break in. They were also tired, exhausted, but they handled it professionally.

“The wounded first!” A red-headed teacher shouted, and pushed the students running by to the left staircase lane. “Slowly! Don’t run!”

“Jade.” Eugene stood in front of me. “We should bring Amma out.”

“Yes, yes.” I glanced up the stairs, just when my father appeared on the top.

My heart stopped beating. Thar stopped moving. Darth, too. But my father didn’t even look at us. He helped the students up the stairs and led them out, shouting commands to the teachers’ every now and then. I knew it before Eugene confirmed it.

“Looks like he was in charge of the rescue mission.” He whispered in my ear. “I bet he was out the entire time, trying to help.”

“I knew he’d come out on top.” I stared at my father.

Like he sensed I was watching, he finally met my gaze, his hand on one student’s back, nudging him up. I held his stare, until his hands dropped by his sides and he faced me fully.

The left corner of his lips lifted up. Only slightly. Only for a second.

Then, he returned to shouting commands and telling students where to go.

“Come on.” Eugene touched my forearm. “Amma needs help.”

“Yes.” I tore my gaze off my father and returned with Eugene to the training room.

The wounded were being carried out, and quite a crowd gathered in the room, but even through it, I noticed no one was lying next to Amma.

Leon was gone.

I glanced around, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck me.” I walked through the training room, checking every face, conscious and unconscious.

“Maybe someone carried him out.” Eugene suggested.

“Get Amma out.” I told him.

Morta was already trying to pull her up.

No one carried him out. He walked out.

I opened up my senses, but couldn’t feel him. I was too tired to feel anything. Even the ooze and the magic used to take it off felt like a memory. I grunted and pinched the bridge of my nose. Deciding against finding him with magic, I walked out of the training room.

He was nowhere to be found.

Eugene and Morta carried Amma out, and soon after, the training room was almost empty. Teachers checked the rest of the rooms in the building, and I waited patiently. He had to be somewhere.

But he wasn’t.

When almost everyone was out, Thar walked over to me.

“Let’s go.” He said. “You need some food.”

His expression was hard and tense. He watched me with alert and anger.

I sighed, “I can’t find him anywhere.”

“That’s going to have to wait.” Thar said. “Your father requested to see us.”

I glanced up, “What?”

“Right now.”

“Shit.” A shudder went through my body. “What do we tell him?”

“We lie.” Thar met my gaze. “Wholly and thoroughly.”

“Got it.” I swallowed the sudden nervousness.

Thar and I walked out of the building, leaving it half-ruined and full of dead bodies. The moon was still high up in the sky, and the night seemed to stretch on forever. Too many things have happened. A bunch of people were in the backyard; parents, teachers, the police, the ambulance. Some higher officers arrived, too. I recognized them by their floor-length robes and all-knowing nods.

“I see we’ve made quite a spectacle.” I whispered to Thar.

“Seems so.”

Jade Montgomery.

I stopped, my heart skipping a beat, ice spreading through my veins. My senses opened up on instinct, but I couldn’t feel the demon anywhere.

“What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t feel anything. There was no demon. No ooze. No magic.

“Nothing.” I shook my head and continued down the road.

This was fun.

The demon’s voice was nothing but a wind whooshing through my head.

We should do it again sometimes.

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