Chapter 15
1655 Words
Chapter 15
The mood in the cafeteria the next day is weird. I mean, weirder than normal. Which is pretty freaking strange.
The vamps are all talking snidely behind their hands and making faces over at a table of shifters—Greg and his friends. I spot Fern the medic at another table with her witch friends. I wave and she waves back.
“What’s going on?” I asked Cassie as I slide into the seat across from her. She always knows the latest gossip.
Her eyes go wide. “Haven’t you heard?! Apparently one of the bat boys got kicked out of school because he kept shifting and flying in front of the girls’ assassination class dormitory bathroom windows. The vamps are seriously pissed.”
“A bat? Really? Who saw this? Who saw him leave?”
Cassie shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s not really the interesting part of the story.”
“Cassie.” I lean forward and lower my voice to make sure no one else overhears. “Last night, we heard Hermes mention a bat boy having an accident that involved him being set on fire. They wanted to keep it a secret. Don’t you think pretending he got kicked out would be a good way to do that?”
“Oh no,” she shakes her head. “They would never do that.”
I pause, trying to remember exactly what we heard. “I don’t know.” But if someone was injured maybe Fern knows.
“Right. So I’m sure it’s fine.” Cassie smiles brightly and I can tell this is a topic she doesn’t want to discuss. Which is not something that happens often. I drop it for now.
“Okay, then, let’s talk about tonight. How much sneaking is required for us to get into the archives?”
“Who’s sneaking?” Greg asks, thumping his lunch tray beside me. He lowers himself onto the bench, sitting close enough that his thigh presses tightly against my own.
I dig my elbow in his ribs. “We’ve got a whole table here. You don’t have to sit on top of me.” I don’t really want him here, but then I remember that the rest of the school is currently ignoring him too, by direction of the vamps, so I ease up, removing my elbow.
Greg shifts away from me, but not far. “You can sit here,” I tell him. “But I’m not granting you access to my vagina.”
Greg makes a face. “Do you have to use the v-word? It’s kinda…” Noticing the look on my face, he has enough brains in his head not to continue along that road of thought. “I mean, yeah, I do want your…vagina…” He nearly chokes on the word. “But I’ve decided it’s more than that. I also want your heart now, too.” He grins at me like a puppy that has successfully performed a trick and now expects a treat.
I shake my head. “Greg, I feel like someone has been giving you purposely terrible advice.”
“No way!” Judging by the way he clutches his heart, I’ve mortally offended him. “My bros got my back.” Greg gestures to the table two down from ours, where the rest of the pariahs are sitting. They are watching us with undisguised interest.
Cassie grins and waves enthusiastically. “Oh hi!” She pauses and then adds in a slightly higher, strained voice, “Hi Darcy!”
Oh boy. Cassie has a crush on one of those little goonies.
I think about how she helped me out last night. And how she’s gonna do it again tonight—at much greater risk to herself and her mother—even though she hasn’t mentioned either of those things once. Plus, those guys don’t have a chance with the vamps giving them the stink eye.
It’s horribly awfully depressingly clear what I need to do.
“Greg, there’s lots of room here. Why don’t your friends join us?”
Greg looks from me to his friends and then back to me. “Oh, I don’t know. They’ll cramp my style.”
“Go get them, Greg. Now.”
Greg goes.
“Oh my!” Cassie squeals, her hands fluttering around her face like two butterflies in their final death throes. “Do you think they’ll come over? Oh look, they’re getting up. All of them. Even Darcy.”
“And he’s special why?” I ask, fully expecting Cassie to spill everything at the slightest prompting. But apparently there are some cards even she holds close to her chest. Even if the poor girl doesn’t realize they’re backwards so everyone can see them.
“Oh no,” she says. “He’s just a merman shifter. He stays during summer holidays and we’ve bumped into each other at the lagoon a few times. It’s where the merfolk hang out.” Her face goes bright red and I wonder exactly how much bumping went on at the lagoon.
After lots of rearranging and scooching we’re all seated together at the now snug table. Greg is unfortunately beside me once more. And Cassie…well, she looks like she could die happy.
I expect this to be the longest most painful meal of my life, but amazingly end up enjoying myself. The guys are dweebs extraordinaire, but it’s actually refreshing after all the ultra-handsome alpha dudes that seem to make up most of the male population here. Just when I decide that it might be nice to make this a regular thing, Greg turns to me and, pulling a crushed flower from his pocket, holds it out to me.
“Edie, would you consider being my date for Persephone’s Spring Fling?”
“No,” I say immediately. His face falls like I kicked his puppy. Guilt tugs at me. I hate to crush him in front of all his friends. “I mean, I don’t even know what that is.”
Cassie rushes to fill me in. “It’s a dance. Persephone returns to the campus every year in the spring. She’s the goddess of the underworld, you know. But Hades—her husband—he can’t come with her because he’s stuck in hell, and stuff. But she comes back to hang out with her mom, and there are refreshments and everything at the dance…although really you shouldn’t eat anything there. That can be dangerous.”
“You want to talk about dangerous?” Darcy breaks in and Cassie turns to him with shining eyes. “Being a single male at Persephone’s party. I was this close last year to becoming her summer boy toy.” Darcy is cute, in a surfer dude kind of way. He has tanned skin and shaggy sun-kissed blonde hair.
“Oh no.” Cassie reaches out and pats Darcy’s arm. “She takes a boy every year,” Cassie explains, turning back to me. “I mean, we get them back in the fall, but they’re just really dehydrated.”
“Wow, the people in charge around here are a little predatory. Don’t you think?” I say.
They all look back at me blankly. “Hermes flirted with me. Blatantly. Everyone knows Kratos is a little handsier than necessary when demonstrating a new move. And now we’ve got this Persephone chick terrifying all the boys.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re terrified,” Greg says, puffing out his bony little chest.
“No, we definitely are,” Darcy says. “And I get what you’re saying about the staff, but it’s just sorta a different world here…”
“Not that different, unfortunately,” I mutter.
Greg pokes me with his elbow. “You’re being kind of a downer, Edie. Are you getting close to your breeding time of the month?”
I turn toward Greg and let out an exasperated little snort. We both jump when a hot puff of smoke comes from my nose.
Greg gulps. “I actually think that’s kinda hot.” He giggles. “Get it? Hot?”
Cassie must have a vision of me murdering Greg right here on the lunch table, because she leans toward Darcy and says in a too-loud voice, “You know, if you think it would help, I’d go to the dance with you.” She smiles at Greg and me. “It could be a double date!”
Whoa. This is moving too fast.
“Or,” I offer, “we can all ditch. That’s what my friends and I did for the homecoming dance last year. We stayed in and watched horror movies and got take-out. It was the best homecoming ever.”
They all stare at me like I have two heads.
“Nobody skips the Spring Fling,” Cassie tells me.
Greg nods in agreement. “Attendance is mandatory.”
“Really? I guess if it’s a requirement…”
“Yay!” Cassie throws her hands up in the air. “Double dates.” She reaches across the table to squeeze my hands. “I think this makes us sister wives. Right?”
Not for the first time I wonder who exactly is feeding Cassie’s knowledge about the real world. “That’s not what sister wives means.”
“Sister friends then!?”
Just this once, I decide to let it go. “Yeah,” I agree, squeezing back. “Sister friends.”
“Edie,” Darcy leans in, interrupting our sweet and slightly awkward moment. “Next time Cassie comes to the lagoon you should go with her. Maybe a nice relaxing soak will help you shift.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I tell him, touched he thought of me. I kinda get why Cassie is into him.
The bell chimes and we ditch our lunch trays. As we leave the dining hall I catch up to Fern.
“Hey, Edie. How’s it going?” She looks genuinely pleased to see me. “I meant to check in with you but school has been crazy,” she tells me.
“Oh, don’t worry. Look,” I pull her to the side. “There’s a lot of gossip flying around about this bat shifter.”
Her whole body stiffens and her face falls. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“I know what happened,” I tell her, bluffing. “He didn’t leave. He was injured.”
She lets out a sigh and nods slightly. “They told us not to tell anyone. How do you know?”
“Mr. Zee.” It’s not a lie. I did learn it from him.
“It’s such a shame,” she confides, lowering her voice. “There are so few bat shifters left and to have one just die unexpectedly…”
“Die?” I ask.
She nods. “His burns were horrible. We tried to save him but…”
“I’m sure you did all you could,” I tell her, my mind racing. The bell rings again and Fern says she has to dash. I should really run too, but I’m lost in thought.
A student died and the Academy is trying to cover it up. Why?
- Writer
