Noble Blood
Summary: A seemingly flawless young woman, a disturbing secret, and a locked-up blonde. After disowning himself from his family, Ezra Fitz takes a tutoring position at a wealthy home of an only mother and her beautiful, outwardly perfect daughter. But what he doesn't know might kill him.
Prologue: That Summer Day
Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Aria watched the water dripping from the leaky ceiling fall and splash to the ground. Plink. Plink. Plink.
She was biting her lip, but realized she'd chapped them if she continued. Shivering from the room's chilly atmosphere—and from a shrill scream that erupted from a nearby hallway—Aria slipped off her lacy gloves and stared longingly down at her recently cleaned, polished, and trimmed fingernails. As usual, Lacey did an amazing job, despite Aria's protests that she could do it herself. "No offense, Miss," Lacey had clucked, "but if we allowed you to dress and polish as you pleased, with the dirt under your nails and your hair flowing free and your cheeks and lips colorless, any stranger would think you were a boy."
"Would not," Aria had jokingly snapped. "I'd still wear a dress, but I'd burn that horrible corset."
Now Aria couldn't resist the temptation anymore and chomped on what had been so precisely filed and buffered.
"Aria?" A grave nurse with dark circles under her eyes came out and waved Aria in. "She's ready to see you."
Prying her fingers away from her mouth, Aria stood up and smoothed down her dress, her heart racing. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, and folded her gloves in her hands. Her fingers were numb from the unheated place, but she was trembling too much to put her gloves back on.
As they neared her cell, Aria could hear her: that alluring, almost normal, humming. But a closer listen revealed the barely-there, maniacal giggles after each phrase. When the nurse led her into the room, there she was, crouched in the corner and brushing a doll's nest of hair. Her long, tangled mass of locks covered her face, but Aria pictured a sinister smirk on her lips and shivered.
"Hello, Aria," the lunatic spoke calmly. "Long time, no see. You left me here, and now you never visit." She finally parted her wall of hair and gazed at Aria piercingly. If it wasn't for her hospital apparel, ratty hair, and scratched face, she would have almost appeared normal. She gestured to the single piece of furniture in the room that the nurse had dragged in. "Please, sit."
For a few fleeting seconds Aria just glared at the patient's eyes and was uncomfortable by the lack of crazy in them. Stiffly and reluctantly she bent her knees and sat down. The disheveled girl in front of her continued tending to the doll.
"It's funny," she remarked, then giggled childishly before continuing, "I can't even remember the time anymore. What date is it?"
Aria's nose crinkled and she glanced up at the nurse, who didn't even seem bothered. She reverted her gaze to the mental patient. "June seventeenth."
"Summer!" the girl exclaimed, setting aside her doll and clapping her hands together. "I've forgotten how much I love summer! But this place doesn't have windows." She shook her head disapprovingly and took out something from her pocket. "Tsk, tsk, tsk."
It was a locket. Aria curiously studied it and wondered why the nurse allowed her to have anything that could strangle someone. But then she noticed that the chain had been removed. Still, Aria thought. She could dent someone's skull with it.
The locket clicked open. "Isn't this a lovely picture?" she asked politely as she handed it to Aria to see. "It's my favorite of us five."
Swallowing the growing lump in her throat, Aria reached for it and almost dropped it when her rosy hand came in contact with the girl's icy skin. Her pulse pounded in her body, and she brought it closer to her face and went cold when she saw it.
It was, indeed, a picture of all five of them. Five ladies of noble birth who'd been friends since who knew how long. They were all free to live their lives—except one of them was locked up.
"I miss those days." The rugged girl sighed. "When we used to be friends. But you're the only one who visits me, Aria." Her bottom lip came forward in a pout. "Why is that?"
Aria avoided the girl's scarily penetrating eyes and instead found a new interest in her lap. "Unfinished business," she stated, then looked back up.
"But all of you have unfinished business with me. So why you?"
Aria clamped her lips firmly and felt her blood begin to boil. "You know why."
"Oh—!" she exclaimed and scampered forward, putting her hands over Aria's face. The motion was so quick, Aria had no time to react, and she bit back a scream, not wanting to start a commotion. The nurse gave the patient a stern, serious look and Aria breathed in relief when she backed off and sat on the ground she had originally been perched on. She put a finger to her cracked lips instead. "That's our secret. Nurse Bessie doesn't have to know." And she coolly picked up the doll and smoothed out the wrinkles in its tattered dress.
"Miss Aria, you are a killer," she unexpectedly droned in monotone, making Aria's eyes grow wide. But then she gave Aria a sweet, innocent smile and winked. "I'm joking."
Aria let out a pent-up breath and leaned back in the seat, despite the difficulty with the corset. She had come here to see a person who had once been her friend, but she had no idea why. Right now, it seemed like Aria was as crazy as the patients in this asylum. She and her friends told each other to forget about their lunatic of a friend the moment she was locked up. But it was hard to forget after everything she'd done. And Aria would never forgive her for it, and if everyone knew the story, they wouldn't blame her for holding the grudge.
"You know, old friend," the girl chirped and positioned her doll so that it was sitting up, its single eye staring, unblinking, at Aria. "I really enjoyed its blood running down my fingers." To emphasize her point, she spread open her fingers and studied them like they were dripping with blood now. "And the feeling of its bones snapping between my grip was ecstatic."
Those words caused Aria to harden into a steaming, burning statue. She clenched her fists in her lap and held back the urge to slap her ex-friend silly, beat her until she surrendered, but knowing this girl she knew she'd never give up on a fight, physical or verbal. "No one will forgive you. Everyone already knows you're a servant of Satan," Aria hissed coldly through her teeth.
The girl smirked wickedly. The once-innocent demeanor she held when Aria first came here was no longer there. "And what about your mistake?" she sneered. "I apologized for my mistakes. Miss Aria, when will you ever apologize for yours?"
Aria stood up so quickly, the chair fell back with the force. "We're not sorry," she bellowed, her fists clamped so hard they were shaking. "We thought you were dead… And I would like you a lot better that way." Turning around, she crisply added, "Maybe then you'll stay out of our lives, but knowing you, your ghost will haunt us until we die. But maybe after that you'll make your home in hell." With that, Aria strode away, but tripped when the maniac, aroused by her quickly escalating fury, grasped Aria's skirt.
"You buried me!" she screamed, and the nurse ripped Aria's dress in the process of removing the girl clinging to her "old friend." And she kept yelling that over and over—"You buried me, you buried me!"—until it was like a chant in Aria's ears and a nurse forcefully led her away.
"I'll kill you!" Alison shouted shrilly. Aria paused and whirled around, genuine fear striking her heart, for never had Alison ever threatened her life. "I'm going to get out of here and kill you, the same way I did—"
But her voice was muffled as the nurse kicked a baffled Aria out of Radley Sanitarium. For a moment she stood there, staring up at the dreary place as her heart leapt up and down in her throat, but eventually she unfroze and picked up her skirts, graciously accepting the hand of her horseman as he helped her into the carriage.
As Radley disappeared out of sight, Aria relaxed into the cushion of the back seat, her dominant right hand fisted at her chest. Her fingers grazed the warmed metal object clenched in her fist. Tremulously she opened it, and the rusty locket stared back at her.
And there was the picture of Alison, blonde and made-up and beautiful, standing between four other girls with each of their faces scratched out.