Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(10)

“Miss Raelynn Lawson!” His big voice boomed, and he picked me up for a tight squeeze as Inaya laughed. “It’s been so long, I swear you’ve grown.”

“Oh, ha-ha, very funny!” I smiled as he set me down. Trent, Inaya’s fiancé, had graduated two years ago from Abelaum University and — from what Inaya had told me — was already doing well for himself at an investment firm in Seattle. “It’s the boots, I wore them specifically so I could reach your waistline.”

Trent chuckled and reached over to give Inaya a quick kiss on the forehead. Inaya motioned to the man and woman still seated beside us.

“Rae, this is Jeremiah and Victoria Hadleigh.” They were obviously twins. Light brown hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin and freckled noses. They looked like they would have been the popular ones in high school. Victoria’s hair was perfectly straight, her black nails long and coffin-shaped, her lips glossed pale nude. Her brother seemed like a jock: muscular, tall, square-jawed, with a cocky smile that managed not to come off as annoying.

“Their dad pretty much owns the school, so if you have any complaints, just go straight to them,” Inaya said, which got a groan out of Victoria, and a shake of the head from Jeremiah.

"No, no, no," Jeremiah said. "We don't own the school."

"Technically, Dad only owns three buildings," Victoria said, taking a drag from a slim silver vape she pulled from within her black raincoat. "And the only building that really matters is Hadleigh Library.” She motioned behind her, toward the large structure that occupied the entire east side of the quad. She gave me a wink. “If you have any book requests, you can totally bring that to us."

“That’s awesome, thank you!” I made a mental note of that, as having a library’s worth of knowledge at my fingertips was extremely helpful for investigations. Not everything could be found on the internet, especially when it came to particularly old or rare texts. The library was lined with trees, and a massive arch of stained-glass windows crowned its entrance. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Thanks.” Victoria shrugged, as if having your father’s library complimented was something she heard every day. “But enough about us. What about you, Miss California? What’s your sign, what do you like, what do you do?”

“Oh, uh, Sagittarius,” I cleared my throat, fiddling with the knot in my bag’s strap. “I’m a Radio-TV-Film major, I like photography, uh…”

“Film, huh?” said Jeremiah. “Need any actors for upcoming projects?”

I laughed nervously, but Inaya spared me from answering as she said, “Tell them about your YouTube channel! Your investigations!”

“Investigations?” Victoria rested her chin on her palm. “Are you, like, a detective?”

I smiled tightly, bracing for the incoming weird looks. “Well, kind of. I do vlogs, talk about local legends, creepy stories...I do paranormal investigations.”

“She’s a ghost hunter,” Inaya said.

I was relieved to see both Jeremiah and Victoria look intrigued, instead of repulsed. "Oh, yeah?" Jeremiah leaned forward on the bench. "Have you caught stuff on camera? Ghosts?”

"I mean, I've caught some weird voices. Orbs, shadows." I shrugged, and plopped down on the bench beside Inaya. “I’m still hoping for that big sighting: a full body apparition, or, shit, I’d take some vaguely human-shaped mist.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place for spooky shit.” Victoria narrowed her eyes as she looked at me, her nails tapping on her vape. “You were born around here, right? Like, your family is from here?”

I nodded. “Yep. My dad’s side, the Lawsons. They’d lived here for, hell, probably a century.”

“Just like our family.” Victoria smiled, but the expression seemed a little too tight to be real. Weird. “Then you probably already have an idea of just how interesting this place can be. Ghosts, poltergeists, demons, cryptids" — she glanced to the side, behind me, toward Calgary Hall — “even murders now, apparently."

The five of us glanced back. Calgary Hall would have looked so normal if it wasn’t for all that caution tape, and the painfully hot asshole standing guard in front of it. I hurriedly turned back around.

“Rumor is they’re just keeping the building closed because they can’t get all the bloodstains out of the stone,” Victoria said. “Some freshmen found the body and called the cops. He was a sophomore — ”

“Junior,” Jeremiah corrected. “Marcus was a Junior.”

“Okay, yeah, Junior, whatever," Victoria waved him off. "A guy named Marcus Kynes. He was stabbed eight times — "

"Nine times," Jeremiah interjected.

"Ugh, God, Jerry, would you let me say it? He was stabbed nine times. There was blood everywhere, the kid's body was just destroyed. Someone even got a video."

"Of the murder?" I gasped.

"Oh, no. No one knows who did it...or at least, they’re not giving names yet." She smirked. "No, they got a video of the body when it was found, before the cops showed up. It was so gross.”

“I have it saved on my phone if you want to see it,” said Jeremiah, pulling out the device. “It’s crazy how much blood there is in people.”