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  SEE ALL EVIL

  Academy for the Wicked

  Book One

  Majanka Verstraete

  SEE ALL EVIL

  Copyright: Majanka Verstraete

  Published: 1st of July 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

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  Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.majankaverstraete.com or @iheartreads.

  Chapter One

  In the nightmare, I was in the red room again. I called it the ‘red room’ because its walls were drenched in the color from top to bottom. A canvas of blood, some of it still dripping from the ceiling. In the middle of the blood-engulfed room stood a throne made entirely of human body parts: torsos, legs, arms, heads. It was so grotesque that the first time I’d had this nightmare, I’d promptly woken up and threw up all over my bedsheets. But now, after suffering from the same nightmare for years, I’d gotten used to that horrible sight of something so mismatched it shouldn’t even exist. I barely felt nauseated anymore during the nightmare, or afterward.

  On the throne sat ‘the woman’. I didn’t know her name, and it probably didn’t matter either. She was a woman, but at the same time, she wasn’t. Her body appeared female, but her face was horrible: her mouth was gigantic, easily taking up half her face, and opened wide to show off sharp, shark-like teeth. She didn’t have a nose, and her eyes were two empty sockets gauging blood.

  Like this blood-soaked room, she was a creature of nightmares, a being that shouldn’t exist. And the worst part about her, even more discomforting than her appearance, was her voice. Every word she uttered sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

  “It’sssss coming,” she said, slurring the ‘s’. “You’re not ready for thsssss.”

  “What’s coming?” I asked. Even though she scared me to death, I tried not to show it, tried to keep my cool. If I pretended not to be afraid, then I felt more in control. Besides, no matter how horrific the woman looked, she was just a figment of my imagination. Whatever she could do to me here in the red room, in the real world, she didn’t even exist.

  “The invitaaaaation,” the woman said while a maggot crawled out of one of her empty eyesockets. Sometimes, I called her ‘the queen of maggots’ because of this—like Frankenstein’s monster, she was a maggot-infested corpse brought to life. Unlike the monster Mary Shelley invented, mine wasn’t created by a doctor toying with the boundaries of death, but by an overactive imagination.

  “The invitation to what?” This was the first time the woman had mentioned something about an invitation, and it took me aback a little. For years, she hadn’t uttered a word, just started at me from atop her throne of limbs. Only in the last few months, had she started to speak, but she’d never made it beyond repeating that ‘it was coming’, whatever ‘it’ was. Maybe tonight, this nightmare would start to make sense after all.

  “The invitation to your dessssstiny,” the qeen of maggots slurred. “But you’re not ready.” She shook her head, which somehow made her look even more frightening. “You’re not ready, and you’ll get hurt.” A dry, humorless laugh escaped from her throat.

  In response, goosebumps erputed all over my arms. “What do you—”

  I couldn’t even finish my sentence because the alarm blared, disrupting the nightmare.

  Seconds later, I opened my eyes in the real world, where rooms made of blood and thrones of body parts did not exist, except perhaps in a serial killer’s fantasy. The walls of my room were blue, the only chair in my room was made of wood rather than flesh.

  I sighed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Despite having gone to bed at nine, I felt as if I’d barely slept at all. That was usually the case whenever I had the nightmare, when I woke up, I felt absolutely drained.

  The nightmare had followed me for years now. At first, I woke up at the sight of the red room alone. Then, as my senses grew accustomed to that sight, I saw the second monstrosity in the red room: the throne of flesh. A few more versions of the nightmare later, and I’d gotten used of that monstrosity and moved on to the next: the woman.

  But she’d never said as much to me as she had tonight. An invitation was coming. An invitation to destiny, whatever that meant.

  She had also warned me that I wasn’t ready. Maybe she was just playing games, taunting me… Or maybe she was telling the truth.

  She could be, as my mother always tried to convince me, a part of my subconscious, a manifestation of my own doubts, insecurities and fears.

  If Mom is right, is her message even real then, or just a figment of my imagination too?

  I pondered the question while I got up and wobbled to my closet to grab some clothes. It wasn’t like I had much planned for today. Although it was my eighteenth birthday party, I didn’t have many plans; it was just a weekday and my friends and I had already decided to go out and celebrate over the weekend. My plans could be summed up in two bullet points: first, get through three shifts at my summer job in our local fast food bar, Joe’s Diner—which was, ironically, not owned by a guy named Joe—and secondly, eat pizza with Mom tonight when she came home from work while the two of us watching some romcoms together, our favorite genre.

  So, what could ‘the invitation’ possibly be?

  I pulled a shirt over my head in my favorite color, black, and put on a pair of ripped jeans, all the while contemplating if the nightmare message was real or not, and if it was real, what it could possibly mean. I glanced at the mirror and quickly pulled my messy, waist-length blonde hair into a ponytail. There, at least I looked semi-presentable right now.

  My phone beeped, and a text message from my best friend Cassie popped up. Happy Birthday, D.! You feeling old yet?? I already booked a spot for you in the nursing home. Hahaha, kidding! LOVE YOU SO MUCH. I’ll drop by at Joe’s around 3pm. Xoxo

  I chuckled at Cassie’s joke—she was a year older than me, so in an ideal world, she’d be holding a spot for me in the nursing home months before I ever got there. Still, I was glad she’d be dropping by at work; Joe’s Diner was always quiet between 2 and 4pm.

  I grabbed my leather jacket and shrugged it on. After glancing at my mirror image one last time, I rushed out of my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me. Taking two stairs at a time, I raced downstairs into the kitchen, and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw my mom standing in the kitchen. Wasn’t she supposed to be at work?

  She stood with her back toward me, and she didn’t move when I came in. Had she decided to take a day off as a surprise for me? Was she feeling ill?

  I frowned, distinctly remembering she told me yesterday how sorry she was that she had to work, but that she’d make it up to me with pizza.

  “Mom?” My voice came out as a squeak. “Is everything okay?”

  She flinched at hearing my voice, but she didn’t turn around.

  I inched closer toward her, growing worried. Something about this, about her being here, about the jerky way she moved, didn’t feel right at all. Shivers ran down my spine. “Mom?” I tried again.

  She straightened her shoulders, but she still didn’t turn toward me.

  I was
only a few feet away from her now, but all my senses screamed at me not to move closer, to just stay away. What the hell was going on?

  “Mom, you’re scaring me.” I reached out for her, my hand almost touching her shoulder—

  And then she spun around, lightning fast.

  For a second, I feared I was back in the nightmare. Mom didn’t look like herself at all. Her eyes weren’t their normal brown color; the irises had all but disappeared, and white orbs gazed at me. Her face was ashen-pale, her lips almost blue.

  I was too scared to scream.

  Mom’s nails dug into the skin of my upper arms, and with formidable strength, she pulled me closer until my face was inches away from hers. Those eyes….

  “You, Devina Ashworth,” Mom said in a high-pitched, screeching sound that didn’t sound like her own voice at all, “are hereby invited to the Academy for the Wicked. Your test will begin at 4pm sharp today. Don’t be late.”

  My mouth dropped to the floor, and I could barely progress what the Mom-that-wasn’t-my-Mom was saying. Academy for the Wicked? What the hell was that? And why was I invited to it?

  The invitation. The woman from the nightmare.

  But what worried me the most was what was happening to Mom. Had someone or something taken control of her? Was she hallucinating? Had she been drugged?

  And the most worrying question of all: was this person even my Mom?

  Replica-Mom blinked slowly, and when she opened her eyes again, the white orbs had turned back into her regular, brown eyes.

  “Devina?” Mom touched her head and wobbled a little.

  I grabbed her arms to support her.

  “Why am I… Why are you up?”

  “Come on, sit down.” I was shaking too, but I tried to focus on Mom. Despite her eyes having returned to their normal state, she was still as pale as a ghost.

  She sat down without protesting. “I don’t feel very well. Am I ill?” She put a hand on her forehead, feeling her temperature. “What time is it?”

  “It’s seven am. That’s why I’m awake, I have to be at Joe’s in half an hour.” I kept holding on to her, rubbing her arms. I was afraid that if I let her go, even for just a moment, she would turn back into the horrible doppelganger I’d seen seconds ago.

  “Seven?” Mom frowned. “But I’m supposed to be at work…”

  “It’s okay. I’ll call Frank, don’t worry about it.” Frank was my Mom’s boss at the hairdresser’s she worked at and unlike Alfred, the owner of Joe’s Diner, he was actually an upstanding guy who had the best interests of his employees in mind.

  “I don’t remember… Dev, I don’t even remember waking up.” Mom looked so fragile, so small in that moment, that I couldn’t help but wrap my arms around her, despite the lingering fear that she would turn back into whatever it was that had seemed to… possess… her seconds ago.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I hugged her and rubbed her back. “It’s okay.”

  But was it? The nightmare woman’s message had turned out to be true; I had received an invitation that I probably wasn’t ready for at all, and delivered in a way that had scared me half to death.

  If I didn’t know better, I would guess I was still dreaming, and that I hadn’t managed to wake up from the nightmare yet.

  Besides, what the hell was the Academy of the Wicked, and why was I, of all people, invited to it?

  And more importantly, what the hell had just possessed my mother?

  Chapter Two

  Although I wanted to stay with Mom, I had no choice but to get to work today. Alfred, the owner of Joe’s Diner, had equal amounts of love for ironic statements as he felt hatred for people who called in sick at the very last moment. I tried to tell him my Mom wasn’t feeling well, but before I scarcely made it mid-way through my first sentence, he already threatened to fire me. Since I desperately needed this summer job—my funds were so low that I probably couldn’t even afford an ice cream cone—and Mom insisted I go and that she’d be fine, I headed to the diner anyway.

  Frank, Mom’s boss, completely understood she wasn’t feeling well and agreed to let her stay at home all day. I liked Frank. He was a hard worker, but a reasonable man.

  Alfred was neither of those things, I realized for the billionth time while I contemplated how difficult it would be to find a different summer job. Any job would be better than this. In the soaring heat, because Alfred refused to put on the air-conditioning although it was working perfectly fine and had cost him a good chunk of money to install, I had to rush from table to table to get through the breakfast rush hour. All the while, Alfred sipped from a cup of coffee and discussed the weather with one of the regulars, without a care in the world. But whenever I raced past them, trying to grab something from the counter, take an order from a customer, or clean up a table, Alfred barked at me to hurry up and that I shouldn’t slack off.

  I should’ve been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for my patience. My feet were sore, my back hurt, I was still agonizing over what had happened with my Mom this morning, and while I tried to focus on the customers and their orders, my mind kept wandering back to the ‘Academy for the Wicked’, wondering what the heck it was. I did all that without messing up a single order, and that on my own freaking birthday. But when morning rush was over, Alfred couldn’t even give me a simple ‘thank you’; he just snapped at me that I would have to handle lunch by myself as he was heading out for a business meeting.

  A ‘business meeting’ meant he would hang out at the local pub and drink himself into oblivion. Handling lunch by myself was no biggie as Alfred never lifted a finger to help anyway. In fact, I enjoyed lunch hour a lot more—it was a bit calmer than during breakfast, and with Alfred being gone, at least I didn’t have to worry about his snarky comments every time I passed by.

  All through lunch hour, I’d managed to push the ‘Academy for the Wicked’ to the back of my mind, but when Cassie showed up, I practically jumped on her to tell her.

  “Happy birthday!” She shouted at me from halfway across the diner. God, I was glad that Alfred had left hours ago to set himself a new drinking record. If he was still lingering around, Cassie’s excited scream would’ve resulted in me having to listen to one of Alfred’s long and insanely boring, not to mention hypocritical, sermons about work ethic.

  Cassie practically flew toward me and wrapped me in a hug.

  “Thanks,” I said as she let go of me. “I’m starting to think I’m ready for retirement. Today was hell.” With a sigh, I gestured for her to sit down. “Milkshake?”

  “Of course,” Cassie replied as she took off her jacket and sat down. My best friend and I were two opposites of the same coin, but for all our similarities we also had our fair share of differences. For starters, I usually dressed in dark colors, even in the heat of summer. Cassie on the other hand, looked like a Barbie doll. Long, straight blonde hair that seemed to glow in the sunlight, a short, pink dress that made her look like a goddess, and classy high heels. Being able to walk on high heels without looking like a goose was one of the few skills of hers that I envied; I usually kept to sneakers for fear of breaking one or both of my legs.

  I put the banana milkshake, Cassie’s favorite, down in front of her and slumped down on the seat opposite hers. I’d poured myself a milkshake too—on the house, because as long as Alfred wasn’t here, he wouldn’t notice. Besides, he underpaid me any way, so I figured he might as well buy me a milkshake.

  “So, what’s up?” Cassie asked while she took a sip off her drink. “You didn’t sound too happy for someone who is supposed to celebrate her eighteenth birthday?”

  “This morning the weirdest thing happened. Like insanely weird.” I leaned closer to her so the other customers wouldn’t overhear. Telling my best friend that my Mom seemed possessed this morning was one thing, but I didn’t want the whole town to know. News travelled fast in town, and gossip spread like wildfire.

  “When I woke up, Mom was still home, while she should’ve been at work. The
moment I saw her, I realized something was wrong with her. Very wrong. Then, she turned toward me and her eyes… They were just blank, with no irises. Like in a freaking horror movie.”

  Cassie stared at me, unblinking, the color slowly draining from her skin. “What happened next?”

  “She told me the strangest thing. Something about me being invited to the ‘Academy for the Wicked’, whatever the heck that is.” I shook my head. “And the worst part was, this wasn’t a nightmare or anything. I was wide awake the whole time.”

  My best friend looked down at her milkshake glass as if it was the most interesting object in the entire world.

  “Cass? You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?” I tried to follow her movement, force her to look at me. “Earth to Cass?” I waved my hand in front of her.

  “Sorry,” she said when she noticed my waving. “I’m just… I don’t understand.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is there something you haven’t told me, Dev?”

  Her question took me aback a little. “What do you mean?” I didn’t really understand why me keeping something from her—not that I was, I told her everything—would have anything to do with the horror show that occurred in my kitchen this morning.

  Cass stared straight into my eyes. “I mean, about yourself?” The gaze in her eyes became darker. “Some dark part of yourself you’ve been hiding from me?”

  “I’ve never hidden anything from you. Never.” Frowning, I took a sip of my milkshake, feeling a little awkward at my best friend’s questions. “You know that, Cass. The darkest part of me I can think about are the nightmares, and I’ve told you all about those.”

  “Hmm.” Cassie grabbed the pink-and-white straw and stirred it around in her glass, lost in thought.

  “Why are you acting this weird? I tell you about this crazy-scary stuff that happened to me, and all you can talk about is me hiding stuff from you?” A hint of anger slipped into my voice.