"Where do you think you're going?" Caleb's voice chills me to the bone.
I freeze on the way to my room, spinning around on my heel. A false smile plays on my lips as I pretend that I wasn't doing something suspicious. After finishing Luke's new song, I had teleported back to the club. Apparently my disappearances have been noticed by more people than I thought.
"To my room," I reply with a sweet smile. "Is there a problem?"
"Yes," Caleb says and my breath is caught in my throat. Not in a good way clearly. "I need you to come with me."
"H-have I done something wrong?" I stammer out, blinking furiously from fear.
Stay calm, Addie, I tell myself. It's probably nothing and if you act weird you'll give yourself away.
"Have you?" Caleb asks, pausing as his crystal blue eyes search mine. After an excruciating few seconds, the magician spins and walks down the hall.
I exhale deeply.
He pauses at the end of the corridor. "Well? Are you coming?"
"Oh," I breathe. "You meant for me to follow you."
Caleb leads me into an area of the club I haven't been often. It's a floor lower than our main dance floor and stage. Goosebumps spread across my body and my hair stands on him as I follow him down into the bowels of building.
"Where are we going?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady and even as we recede deeper into the dark abyss.
Okay, so it's not a dark abyss, it's a room, but I feel like being dramatic.
I'm met with Jean and Willie my friend is sitting on a chair, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. Fear sets deeper in my body, permeating the organs it hadn't yet touched. My stomach begins cramping with anxiety as I'm led to a chair adjacent to his.
"What's happening?" I whisper to Willie, not bothering to hide my feelings.
"I don't know," he responds, brown eyes wide with panic. "Jean found me and said she wanted to talk. The next thing I know I'm down here and you're entering the room with Caleb."
"I have a bad feeling about all this," I mutter.
"Why are you asking Willie questions?" Caleb says with a frown. "After all, we're the ones with the answers."
The magician gestures between himself and the woman with an old cane.
"Fine," I answer, setting my jaw. "Why are we here?"
"I think it's time that you finally learned your history," Caleb replies with a smirk. "You've been doing research of your own, but the papers never seem to get it right, do they? The media likes to twist everything around. No truth in any of it."
"Why should we trust you?" Willie asks him defiantly. "You'll lie."
"Will I, Willie?" Caleb asks. "Or will I give you a more thorough version of the truth than anything you could have found?"
We're silent.
So he's found the magazines. Great. Maybe there's still a chance that he doesn't know about the excursions to Julie's house.
"It's been interesting watching you sneak away, thinking that no one would ever find out," Caleb tells me with a mocking pout. "Such carelessness...it's not like you, Addie. Then again, love can make you do strange things."
"How would you know?" I blurt.
"I was in love once," Caleb replies, eyes flitting over to the woman. "It was fleeting, unappealing. Love makes you weak Adelaide Claire Cooper. You're blindsided by the person's faults. It's easier to be manipulated."
"Is that what you did to her?" I ask, eyes cold.
"No, that's what I did to him," Jean cuts in. "As his assistant I had access to all of his materials. Everything. I think you can draw your own conclusions from that."
"Caleb died during a show," Willie reminds me as if I didn't already know. I think he said that because we are both trying to process how their could be someone worse than Caleb.
"Y-you murdered him?" I question in shock. I don't blame her, but was Caleb always this way? Or did Jean, the woman Willie and I thought could save us turn him into what he is?
"Aren't you a smart cookie," she comments smiling condescendingly. "To think that you thought that I would help you."
"You know?" I ask, my eyes widening. This has to be a nightmare. I pinch myself, confirming that this is real.
"Of course I know," she responds, blue eyes sparkling with delight. "I've known the whole time, dear. It's been fun watching you scramble about, though I am disappointed that you weren't better at covering your tracks. Hiding things under your mattress? Really? I didn't expect such a rookie. The maid found your things immediately."
My face burns with shame.
"What are you going to do to us?" Willie speaks up, agitated by our situation.
"Nothing," she says, pulling out a cigar and lighting it. Jean must have powers because I see no matches. She puffs it and holds it lazily between her fingers, teasing us. "We're going to let you continue your little charade."
"Then why bring us down here?" I ask her, confused. "Why not keep it a secret that you know everything?"
"We just want you to know who's really in control," Jean answers, tapping her cigar with her index finger. Ash rains down on us. "And tell a little tale."
"Please tell me you aren't about to sing some villainous song that makes the audience cringe," I mumble.
"My songs are wonderful!" Caleb replies, offended.
"But no, we aren't singing," Jean clarifies. "Covington, would you like to begin?"
"Sure," he says. "Adelaide, how much do you know about your father's grandparents?"
I furrow my eyebrows. "My grandfather was adopted. His parents were both dead by the time he was a year old."
"Mhmmm." Caleb waved his hand, prompting me to go on.
"Why is this important?" I ask impatiently. "Aren't you supposed to answer my questions?"
"I am," Caleb says. "I'm answering them with more questions."
He smirks and quirks an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes and glance over to Willie. He gives me a look as if to say you better not be thinking of something stupid. I shake my head lightly.
Then something hits me. "Did you kill them?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Jean replies with a chuckle. "But not how you're thinking."
"I'm not sure she's ready," Caleb says to her, widening his eyes.
"Ready for what?" I snap.
"We have to make sure it's the right time," Caleb continues. Jean cuts her eyes over at him, narrowing them into slits.
"Adelaide, have any unusual powers shown up?" Jean interrogates me, so close I choke from the smoke. "Let me remind you that we already know about some of them, so hiding the truth won't go well for you."
I keep the eye contact. I won't show how intimidated I am. She could be bluffing. Since I don't know her, I don't know her style.
My eyes flit over to Caleb involuntarily. He's readjusting his flashy jacket. How is he nervous?
I don't know, but it's definitely worrying.
Could she be bluffing? I don't want to give away everything, but it's taking a risk.
"Adelaide blew up a stage light at the Orpheum," Willie cuts in. My head snaps in his direction. What is he doing? "And she can conjure up her guitar or a microphone."
"That's all?" Jean pries for information.
"It's all I've seen," Willie says, holding his head steady as he meets her stare.
"Adelaide?" Her sharp eyes focus on me.
"That's it," I lie with a straight face.
The corners of her mouth quirk upwards. "If you say so."
"We've decided that we want you to continue meeting with those boys until May 23rd," Caleb tells me. "You have until then."
"Why that date specifically?" I ask.
"You know why," he replies.
It's the one year anniversary of my death. The one year anniversary of me running away.
"How do I know that this isn't a trap?" I question, narrowing my eyes at them. "I can't trust you."
"We've known about this for weeks and haven't done anything to hurt you yet," Jean says with an uncanny smile. "Now we're giving you permission to break the rules. You can take Willie too. He wasn't very good at covering for you. That's more your fault though because you can't hide your tracks."
"What are we supposed to do?" I ask. "Act like everything is normal?"
"Exactly," she drawls, sucking in one last puff of her thick cigar before setting it down on the ashtray.
"What if we say no?" Willie pipes up.
"Remember I own your soul and can still hurt your talented little friends," Caleb tells him with a smirk.
"Why are you so set on making our lives miserable?" I blurt, my throat constricting with emotion. All this time I thought I was doing something to protect them. What I did was lead the lion straight to them.
I guess I can't entirely blame myself because Caleb knew where they were before.
"You're the favorite," Jean tells me with another overly happy smile.
"But why?" I scream, feeling like my chest is going to burst. Ghosts can't have heart attacks, so it's a good thing that I'm not alive.
"You haven't figured it out?" Jean tuts in disapproval, shaking her head at me.
"Jeannie, this is getting annoying," Caleb says impatiently. "I think I'm going to tell her."
"Fine." She rolls her eyes. "Take away the element of surprise."
"Adelaide, you're the favorite because you're my flesh and blood," Caleb reveals to me. My blood runs cold. "We're your great-grandparents."
"You're lying!" I shout, leaping up from my chair, utterly disgusted. I can't believe that I'm related to them. It's repulsive.
"But I'm not," Caleb reiterates as Jean shoves me back into my chair with an invisible force. It's like something is pressing down on my chest holding me in place. The life force is being choked out of me.
"Now for the trick of the night. Can you escape your entrapment?" Jean says, referencing how magicians would tie themselves up and put themselves in dangerous positions to escape from for entertainment.
Maybe that's how she has her powers as a magician's assistant.
I struggle, my body thrashing from side to side against invisible ropes. Willie makes a move to help me and he is forcefully thrown back into his chair, hands flying to his throat as he begins choking.
"Is this really necessary?" Caleb asks her in a mildly disappointed tone, like our pain annoys him. Jean rolls her eyes again and snaps her fingers, releasing us.
I fall forward, facing-planting into the ground. Willie does the same. We hadn't expected her to release us so we had still been fighting her forces.
"Why are you even working together?" Willie chokes out. "She murdered you."
"And it was the best thing that ever happened to me!" Caleb exclaims, putting his arms out as he speaks in a showman's voice. "Now I have real magic, real power!"
"All because of little ol' me," Jean adds with a giggle.
"You would murder your boyfriend?" I ask, looking at Caleb. "I don't know what to think of this."
"Of course I would murder my boyfriend," Jean cackles. "I murdered my great-granddaughters."
My jaw drops and bile rises to my throat I feel like puking. I know I'm one of them because I died from the stamp, but I didn't have any cousins. That means...
"Yes, dearie. I killed Lila Cooper," Jean announces with a devilish smile.
That's when I pounce.
Do you think that Jean and Caleb are telling the truth? What do you think Adelaide is going to do to them? The drama is really coming now...stay tuned for more chapters!
xoxo,
Lynn