CHAPTER 114: THE RETURN.

The rusted pickup’s engine ticked as it cooled, the sound unnaturally loud in the pre-dawn silence. Angela kept both hands on the steering wheel, her knuckles white, her injured arm throbbing. The corn farm stretched endlessly to their left, stalks rustling in the cold wind.

"You’re sure about this?" Angela asked, her voice cracking as she turned to face the five teenagers crammed in the truck. Her eyes found Bella’s, searching for certainty she knew her niece couldn’t possibly feel.

Bella sat in the passenger seat staring back at her. She reached across and gripped her aunt’s hand, squeezing once. "I’m sure, Aunt Angie. You have all the evidence, the USB drive, the journal, everything. If something happens to us, you’re the only one who can get it to Marcus and the Moonblood Council."

"If something happens to you—" Angela’s voice broke completely.

"It won’t." Bella’s lie was smooth, practiced. "We’ve been students there for weeks. We know the grounds, the schedules, the blind spots. We’ll slip back in before anyone notices we were gone."

In the truck bed, Rafe helped Killian down carefully. The fever had broken slightly over the past hour, but Killian’s skin was still clammy. Cassian jumped down beside them, his torn shirt hastily tucked in to hide the claw marks across his ribs. Luca landed last, silent as always, his gray eyes already scanning the treeline.

Angela climbed out of the cab, her legs unsteady. She pulled Bella into a fierce hug, her fingers digging into her niece’s shoulders as if she could somehow anchor her to safety. "Three weeks until your birthday," she whispered into Bella’s hair. "I’ll find Marcus before then. I’ll make sure they know everything, about Maren, about the rituals, about what they’re planning. I won’t let you face this alone."

Bella’s throat tightened. "I’m not alone. I have them." She gestured to the four boys.

Angela pulled back, cupping Bella’s face in both hands. Her eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted. "Your mother would be so proud of you. You know that, right? Carla would—" Her voice cracked again.

"I know." Bella blinked back tears. "Now go. Please. Before someone sees the truck."

Angela nodded, unable to speak. She climbed back into the cab, started the engine with shaking hands, and forced herself not to look in the rearview mirror as she drove away. The taillights disappeared around a bend, swallowed by darkness, and the five teenagers were alone.

"Two and a half miles to campus," Cassian said quietly, checking his watch. "Security patrol changes at 3am. We have exactly seventeen minutes to get past the main gates and into the tunnel entrance."

Killian swayed, catching himself on Rafe’s shoulder. "I can make it," he insisted before anyone could ask. "Just... maybe don’t make me run."

"We’re not running anywhere," Luca said, his voice low. "We move quietly. Running will get us caught."

They entered the forest in single file, Luca leading because his senses were the sharpest. Bella’s marks pulsed stronger with each step toward Whitethorn, responding to the school.

"Do you feel that?" she whispered to Rafe, who walked beside her.

"Feel what?"

"The pull. Like something’s... waiting for us."

Rafe’s jaw tightened. "Maren."

"Maybe. Or something worse." Bella rubbed her arms, trying to calm the restless energy beneath her skin. The white marks burned cold, the sensation of touching ice with bare fingers.

After ten minutes of careful navigation, the forest began to thin. Through the gaps in the trees, Whitethorn Academy emerged, the windows dark except for the lights on in the administrative building. The main gates loomed ahead,

"Security booth is manned," Luca reported, dropping back from his scouting position. "Can’t tell who’s inside, but there’s a light on. And there’s someone else, near the groundskeeper’s shed. He’s smoking. Standing right over where the tunnel entrance should be."

Cassian swore under his breath. "Can you tell if it’s a guard or a teacher?"

"Too far to see details. Male, probably. Tall. Could be one of the new faculty members they just hired."

Bella’s marks flared. "New faculty?"

"Yeah, three of them showed up last week," Rafe explained. "No one knows where they came from. They don’t teach regular classes, just... observe. It’s creepy."

"They’re enforcers," Bella said with certainty. "Maren’s people, embedded on campus. She’s been preparing for this."

Killian, despite his fever, managed a weak, fake grin. "Well, that’s not strange at all."

"We can’t wait," Cassian decided, checking his watch again. "Eleven minutes until the patrol change. If we’re not in our rooms before morning bed-check at six, someone will notice. We have to move now."

"Distraction," Rafe said immediately. "Cassian and I circle around to the equipment shed on the west side. We make noise, knock some stuff over. When the smoker goes to investigate, the rest of you get into the tunnel."

Bella wanted to argue, to insist they all stay together, but she knew Rafe was right. "Five minutes," she said. "If you’re not in the tunnel entrance in five minutes, we come looking for you."

Rafe nodded grimly. "We’ll be there in three."

He and Cassian surged forward, moving along the treeline toward the edge of campus. Bella, Luca, and Killian crouched behind a dense thicket of bushes, watching the figure near the groundskeeper’s shed. The orange glow of his cigarette bobbed as he moved, pacing slowly back and forth.

Time crawled. Bella counted their heartbeats, her own thundering, Killian’s rapid and thready, Luca’s slow and controlled. The cold seeped through her clothes, into her bones. Her marks pulsed and she had the unsettling sensation of being watched by unseen eyes.

Then, from the west side of campus, came the unmistakable crash of metal hitting concrete. A pause. Then another crash, louder this time, followed by the clatter of tools scattering across pavement.

The smoking figure’s head snapped toward the sound. He dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his boot, and started walking toward the equipment shed with purposeful strides. As he passed under a security light, Bella got a clear look at his face, his sharp features, cold eyes... he wasn’t entirely human.

"Enforcer," she breathed.

"Go," Luca hissed.

They sprinted across the open ground, keeping low. The distance to the groundskeeper’s shed felt like miles. Bella’s lungs burned, her legs screamed, but she didn’t slow. They reached the shed just as they heard shouting from the west side, Cassian and Rafe had been spotted.

"Here!" Killian dropped to his knees despite his fever, his fingers finding the edges of the rotted boards that concealed the tunnel entrance. "Help me!"

Luca and Bella grabbed the boards and pulled. The wood groaned, but it came free with a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet night. Below, there was a rectangular opening just wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

"Down," Bella ordered. "Now."

Killian went first, lowering himself into the hole with Luca’s help. Bella followed, her feet finding the iron steps of a ladder bolted to the tunnel wall. The smell hit her immediately, earth and old stone and something else that made her marks flare with recognition. Magic. Ancient magic.

Luca came last, pulling the boards back into place above them just as footsteps pounded past the shed. Through the gaps in the wood, Bella saw the enforcer return, another man with him, this one in a security uniform. They were arguing, gesturing toward the equipment shed where Cassian and Rafe had presumably escaped.

"...could’ve sworn I saw two of them..."

"...probably students sneaking back from town..."

"...should do a dorm check..."

The voices faded as they moved away. Bella released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Then she heard it, scraping sounds above them. Someone was climbing down.

Her marks blazed white, providing sudden illumination in the pitch darkness. Cassian and Rafe dropped into the tunnel one after another, both breathing hard and grinning wildly.

"That was too close," Rafe panted. "He almost saw us."

"But he didn’t," Cassian countered. "We’re clear."

The tunnel stretched before them. As Bella moved forward, the walls pulsed faintly in response to her presence.

"I hate these tunnels," Killian muttered, his voice echoing strangely. "They feel wrong. Like we’re walking through something’s digestive system."

"Thought it was only me that felt that way," Cassian replied.

They moved quickly, using Bella’s marks for light and Killian’s mental map for navigation. He’d spent weeks exploring these passages, documenting their layout, identifying which ones led where.

The main tunnel branched after fifty yards, left toward the girls’ dormitory, right toward the boys’.

"We split here," Bella said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Luca, come with me. We’ll take the girls’ side. You three take the boys’ entrance."

Cassian hesitated, his hand finding her shoulder. "If you run into trouble—"

"We won’t," Bella interrupted. "We can’t afford to. Go. Now. We’re running out of time."

Cassian nodded reluctantly. "6am bed-check. Be in your rooms by then."

They separated, Bella and Luca taking the left passage while Cassian, Rafe, and Killian disappeared down the right.

"How much farther?" Bella asked.

"Two minutes," Luca replied. "The passage opens into the basement laundry room. From there, it’s three flights of stairs to your floor."

They emerged exactly where Luca predicted, behind a row of washing machines in a dimly lit basement. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and somewhere water dripped steadily. The building was silent otherwise, wrapped in the heavy quiet of the hours before dawn.

They slipped up the back stairwell, avoiding the main hallways where dorm monitors might still be awake.

On the third-floor landing, Bella heard voices.

She grabbed Luca’s arm, yanking him sideways. They pressed against shelves barely breathing. Through the crack in the door, Bella saw two figures approaching, one she recognized immediately as the dorm housekeeper. The other woman was a stranger, equally tall, with sharp features and silver hair pulled into a tight bun.

"...the Koker girl’s room was empty during the 2am check," the stranger said, her voice clipped and professional. "She hasn’t returned."

The housekeeper’s response was ice. "Keep watching. When she does, I want to know immediately. Maren wants her movements tracked, every second, every interaction, every breath."

Bella’s blood ran cold. She was reporting directly to Maren. She wasn’t just complicit, she was an active participant in whatever they were planning.