Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I wake in the morning to find Tina levitating a few inches above her bed, reading. I think Vee might have turned her head a little, like the plant is reading over her shoulder. Hmmm, if vamps don’t sleep they have a whole eight extra hours to study. How will I ever keep up with them?

I realize I am thoroughly screwed.

Great start to the day.

I also realize that, despite the venom of her words, she was right about one thing she said last night. I can’t go googly-eyed every time something weird happens. Weird s**t is my new normal.

I turn my shocked wide-open mouth into a yawn and sit up to stretch. Tina thumps down on her bed, shoots me a look promising retribution, and then quickly gets to her feet. Like, she doesn’t just get up, she literally goes from horizontal to vertical like an old-timey Dracula movie.

“I’m going to use the bathroom. I have a daily routine that I’m not interrupting for you. If you can’t hold it maybe we can put some newspaper in the corner for next time.” With an evil laugh she disappears into the bathroom. Instead of thinking about how badly I need to pee, I get dressed. I’m more than a little disconcerted that the sexy Catholic school girl look kind of works for me. I check myself out in the mirror, testing my wings while Tina spends FOREVER in the bathroom. Does a vampire even use the bathroom? I snicker at the thought.

I decide to distract myself with trying to get my wings under control.

That’s because another thing Tina said last night has been bothering me. If everyone already thinks I’m a joke, I can’t have my wings popping in and out all through class.

Now I take a deep breath and push. My wings pop out of my uniform and I’m surprised to see they’re an iridescent blue.

“Are they supposed to change colors?” I ask my reflection.

Tina finally comes out of our bathroom.

“Are you a show girl or something? Planning to hit the Vegas strip?” she says, eyeing my wings.

“They’re blue,” I say.

“Oh, good job on color identification,” she says. “We can bump you right up out of the toddler classes now.”

“Bite me,” I say, then quickly follow that up with, “Wait, no don’t.”

I’m alarmed to see that Tina’s fangs have come out, but she covers them with her lip. “Don’t invite me. Seriously,” she says. “I’m not getting kicked out over your trashy mood-winged ass.”

“Mood? Is that what it is?” I turn checking out my wings from behind. They’re a pretty sort of blue right now, a little metallic sheen to them.

“Or maybe they just trying to compensate for that lame uniform,” Tina says with a little laugh.

“Um, you have to wear the same uniform.”

She holds out her arms, displaying her super punk look. Ripped black tights paired with big black stomper boots. Safety pins are fastened down the length of her skirt and her white shirt is unbuttoned revealing an old Metallica t-shirt that hangs off one bony shoulder.

I hate to admit it, but she looks super-hot.

“Aren’t there uniform regulations?” I ask, eyeing my own perfectly preppy uniform in the mirror.

“Vamps don’t follow regulations, Swamper.” She stops in front of the mirror and smooths back a few stray hairs. I can’t resist peeking to see if there’s a reflection there. Catching my eye in the mirror she smirks, letting me know that she knows exactly what I’m doing.

“Swamper?” I ask. I can tell by the tone that what she just called me is not good, but I have no idea what it means.

“Yeah,” she checks her reflection one more time. “You’re a total Swamper. You might have made it through the gates physically, but mentally you’re still out in that swamp. You don’t belong here, period.”

She does one last adjustment, pinching a lock of hair between her fingers and pulling downwards. It turns green under her touch, an eye-catching little highlight. Tina catches me watching and drops the strand fast. She clears her throat and shrugs into a backpack, finally turning to look at me.

“That blue looks pretty hopeful. Optimistic, even,” Tina says. “That’s gonna change fast.”

On that note, she leaves, not offering to show me around campus or help me find my first class. Which, printed at the top of my schedule, appears to be something called, “Killing with Your Bare Hands.”

Since I’m coming in almost halfway through the year I must be really far behind. Some of the shine comes off my wings, telling me they are definitely mood related. I tuck them back inside my skin as my stomach rumbles, reminding me I don’t know where the cafeteria is, either.

Luckily, I don’t need to worry about finding my way around campus. Cassie is parked outside my door, greeting me with a huge smile and an offer to take me to the dining hall for a quick breakfast, followed by Killing with Your Bare Hands, and then my next class, and the one after that.

“We have the same schedule,” she tells me, practically glowing. “Well, except for remedial flying, obviously. I can’t fly.”

“Me neither,” I mutter.

“You’ll be with me practically all day, every day!” Cassie says, spinning.

“Hooray,” I say, half-meaning it. Her enthusiasm is exhausting, and it’s not even nine a.m. She’s obviously not the coolest kid on campus. Not that I was ever into chasing after popularity. I used to be happy with my middle of the pack social group. I would’ve said we were pretty welcoming to everyone. That is, until they dropped me after the supposed gonorrhea incident. It sucks to be at the bottom of the food chain.

The way Cassie waves to other students, calling out their names while they nod back coolly or ignore her entirely, tells me it’s even worse than I thought. Cassie isn’t just uncool. She’s social kryptonite. At my old school she’d be the girl your mom made you hang out with because she felt sorry for her. On the other hand, she hasn’t threatened to kill me yet, which was Tina’s way of saying hello.

I glance at my schedule again, as my stomach growls. Nobody even asked if I was hungry when I showed up yesterday.

“I wonder what’s for breakfast?” I say aloud, and Cassie’s eyes immediately roll back into her head, the whites glowing and her face going slack.

“Seven grain waffles. Steak and eggs, extra rare,” she intones in a deeply creepy voice. “Blood and yogurt parfaits.”

Her eyes roll forward once more and she gives me a cheery smile. “Oops! Sorry. I know my prophecies are annoying. They’re always about, like, if it’ll rain on Wednesday or who has a foot fungus. Nobody really listens to me anymore.”

She says it like it’s funny, and not incredibly depressing.

It does end up being helpful, though, to know to avoid the parfaits as we go through the breakfast line. I might’ve thought it was some sort of strawberry syrup without the forewarning.

Killing With Your Bare Hands is in a room that is half classroom, half gym. Cassie and I take a seat near the back while the other students seem to already have their cliques. Of course, it is halfway through the term. Tina is surrounded by a whole gaggle of girls with resting b***h face.

The class is taught by an extremely tall, very hot, very shirtless man who introduces himself as Kratos.

I turn to Cassie and jerk my head in the teacher’s direction. “Mr. Kratos?”

“Drop the Mr. He’s just Kratos.”

“Okay, but Kratos…he’s a god, right?”

“Demi-god, technically,” she whispers back. “Of war.” Her eyes widen dramatically, like she finds this both scary and exciting.

I guess that also sums up how I feel about this dude—er, god. I can’t seem to rip my gaze away from his bare torso. Golden skin covers bulging muscles. So. Many. Muscles. He is definitely a badass. He has it written all over himself. Like literally. It’s tattooed across his back.

He sidles past my desk, giving me a little smirk to let me know he saw me checking him out. Then he tells us to open our books to page three hundred and five. It’s a chapter titled, “They’re Not Actually Dead Until They Piss Themselves.”

“Alright, who wants to walk us through strangulation?” Kratos asks.

Almost everyone immediately raises their hands. Great, so not only is this the most difficult course, but it’s full of overeager super achievers. Kratos skims over the extended arms and then does the classic teacher thing of picking a guy at the back who seems more interested in studying the ceiling.

“Val,” Kratos nods to him. “Please come to the front of the classroom.”

The boy stands and for the first time I miss my inhaler. This school is overrun with extremely good-looking people, but there’s something about Val that’s more than just pretty. He walks to the front, all liquid and smooth, like he’s not made out of flesh and bone. I realize pretty quickly he might not be. I have to remember I’m not in high school anymore—I’m at Mount Olympus Academy. He’s got his uniform a little bit punked out, like my roommate Tina, but he’s wearing a t-shirt with a cute bunny rabbit under it, which feels very not-vampire to me.

“What is he?” I whisper to Cassie.

“And for your victim,” a hand settles onto my shoulder, heavy and squeezing more than necessary. “The new girl, who likes to talk during class.”

Everyone giggles. Even Cassie, although I’m starting to realize it’s her auto-response to everything. Kratos propels me to the front of the class, while I fight the urge to adjust the back of my skirt and make sure I didn’t tuck it into my underwear when I used the bathroom.

“Hi,” I say to Val when I get up to him, and he nods, using the motion to both acknowledge me and toss a shiny black curl out of his eyes.

“Hey,” he responds, his voice low and slightly rumbly. The last thing I need is some dumb crush—especially after my last one ended so badly. And yet with just that one word I can feel the fascination forming. My eyes latch onto his shirt, which is a sunny yellow. This close, I can read the words printed above the trembling rabbit, which say, Inside I’m just a scared wittle bunny wabbit.

“Your shirt is great,” I say, nervously.

“I know,” he agrees in a way that is both dickish and inexplicably attractive. I frown as the shivers travel down my spine. I refuse to fall under this guy’s spell. And that means no more sweet little Edie. I’m in the assassination class now. I need to be a badass.

“Not that you care, but I’m Edie.” Okay, that was more passive aggressive than badass. I’ll have to keep working on it.

“No,” Val replies with another hair flip. “You’re dead.”

And then I’m in the air—not because my wings are out, but because Val’s got my neck in one hand.