Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

“Maybe she doesn’t like roast,” Pandora said. “Maybe she’s vegetarian.”

“Good point, girl!”

Once the roast stopped hitting me in the face, things got worse. A flurry of potatoes and steamed vegetables hit my mouth, cheeks, forehead, jaw, and dripped down my chest. The dining hall roared with laughter. I felt a tear escape my tightly shut eyes, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t wipe it off either, since I couldn’t move my arms. I did my best to breathe in and out evenly and focus on holding in the rest of the tears. I wasn’t going to break down in front of them. I wasn’t.

Something warm, wet, and slightly creamy hit me in the right cheek and dripped down the side of my face, staining my uniform. It felt like goo, and it smelled like tomatoes. Crap. Tomato soup. I had tomato soup on my face!

“I would think that’s enough, Lorna,” a low, gentle voice said. “You’ve made your point.”

I didn’t recognize it, but it sure as hell wasn’t Sariel or Paz. GC was still laughing his head off, and for a moment, I’d hoped it would be Klaus who had come over to rescue me, but Klaus didn’t sound that grave and calm, yet indisputably confident. The food attack stopped, and I dared to open my eyes. Francis was looking straight at me, and there was something in his mossy green eyes. Compassion? Pitty? Before I could make up my mind, he averted his gaze and poured some sparkling water into his tall glass.

Surprisingly, everyone at the table settled down. Lorna sent me one last bitchy look, then turned back to her food and to her favorite activity: pestering Sariel. Pandora leaned in and whispered something in Paz’s ear, but Paz didn’t laugh, nor showed much interest in what she was saying. GC finally removed his arm from around my shoulders, and that was when I realized I could move again.

“Here, normie, let me help you clean up.”

He started rubbing the soup off my cheek with a white, cotton napkin, but I pulled away and snatched the napkin from him.

“I don’t need your help,” I snapped. I shot to my feet and ran out of there before anyone else at the VDC table decided I needed another lesson.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A maid was kind enough to help me find my room. The VDC dormitories were in the north tower. There were four towers marking the four corners of the rectangle that was the Academy building, and now I knew they all had dormitories, on each level. The maid told me the VDC was in the north one, while the MDC occupied the south tower, the RDC the west tower, and the NDC the east tower. Great. So, Klaus was, basica

lly, in the tower across the court. As I followed the maid down the winding corridor, I felt so alone. I was the first student to retire to the dormitory, so at least I could enjoy some peace for a while. If no one saw what room I got in, then maybe I could sneak out in the morning, too, and they’d never know which one was mine.

All the rooms seemed huge and luxurious. I managed a sneak peek into one of them when two maids opened the door and wheeled out a cart filled with bed sheets, pillows, and cleaning supplies. It looked more like an apartment than a room! I glimpsed an open space kitchen with a bar and a fridge, a long leather couch, and a TV that was bigger than my room back home. The maids closed the door quickly, sending me a curious glance.

Wow! If I get a room like that just for myself, then I might have a chance to survive. It doesn’t matter how much they bully me. If I can just retreat in my own suite, read and binge-watch my favorite shows, then I’m good. I can to this.

“This way,” the maid said when she noticed I’d stopped in the middle of the corridor.

I followed her quickly. We went past the last room, and then down another corridor that was darker and narrower. The doors here seemed to be closer together.

“This is it.”

She pushed a door open, and I stepped inside. I murmured a “thank you”, and she disappeared down the hall. To say that I was disappointed would have been a massive understatement. My room was nothing like the ones I’d walked by. It was considerably smaller, with only a four-poster bed in the middle, a desk by the window, and an oldish armchair and a coffee table in the other corner. There was a mini fridge under the desk, and when I checked, it was stocked with a bottle of water, a soda, and some peanuts. I had never stayed in a hotel but was pretty sure that was what a hotel room must have looked like. A three-star hotel room. There was a small bathroom, too, with only a shower cabin. My shoulders slumped. Back home, I had an old bathtub, and it was my favorite thing in the world. Now, I lived at an expensive Academy, and I didn’t even get that small luxury? This sucks. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t that bad. At least, the whole room was mine, and the space was more than enough for me. I didn’t have a huge TV, but a laptop was waiting for me on the desk and, frankly, I didn’t mind watching my shows on a laptop. Whatever. I hadn’t been born in luxury, so this was actually nice, if I thought about it. Now I wished I hadn’t seen that other room.

My suitcase was waiting for me on the bed, and when I checked it, I was happy to see no one had gone through my things. I stripped out of the dirty uniform, threw it in the laundry basket, then took a shower, and crashed as soon as I was done. The bed was comfortable, the sheets smelled divine, and I could easily tell the mattress was new. Who needed a whole apartment and a huge TV when I could just have a good night’s sleep? That was all I needed, really, to feel human again.

Human…

I drifted off in minutes, silently praying for a slumber without dreams. But that was too much to hope for.

A pair of green eyes. I couldn’t identify them, I couldn’t tell whom they belonged to. I’d seen so many faces that day, met so many people, had been mocked by so many students, that I just couldn’t place those eyes now. Familiar, yes, yet too elusive. It was as if the name was on the tip of my tongue. The eyes turned brighter and brighter, like two guiding lights in the dark, and then more of the owner’s face came into view. High forehead, sharp cheekbones, straight, slightly upturned nose, a freckle or two here and there… God, I knew him! I knew him! His name was etched into my brain, I was sure of it, but my brain was simply too tired to cooperate.

His eyes turned from green to a dark shade of yellow, and the pupils narrowed and narrowed until they became long, sharp slits. His handsome face morphed into a snake-like shape, and I still couldn’t remember his name. When his jaw elongated and two fangs emerged from underneath his upper lip, I startled in my sleep and jumped wide awake.

Light was pouring through the curtains. It must have been morning. I’d been so exhausted that I’d slept like a log, yet now felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I threw a glance at my phone – I’d changed the card after I’d run away from home, – and saw I’d woken up before my alarm. Looking down at the bed, I noticed the sheets were a mess. I must have tossed and turned more than I remember. Absentmindedly, I scratched an itch on my thigh. I plopped down on the pillow and closed my eyes, since I had another half an hour to snooze before the alarm went off. I shifted uncomfortably and reached out to scratch at my arm. My knee itched, too, then my ankle, my neck, my lower back. I tossed in bed, scratched where I could reach, then let out an exasperated sigh and threw the sheets off of me.

All my cognitive functions froze for a moment. Just one moment. Then I jumped out of the bed, screaming and clawing at my pajamas and my hair, trying to get rid of the tiny, black and brown things that had clung to me while I was asleep.

Cockroaches.

Fucking cockroaches on my pillow, under my pajamas, in my hair, everywhere in my bed.

“Fuck! Shit! What the fuck?! How sick do you have to be to…”

I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran into the bathroom, stripping down and throwing my pajamas and my panties on the floor. There was a knock on the door, but I barely registered it. They were back, right? They had put cockroaches in my bed, and now they were back to enjoy the show. I ignored the persistent knocking and ran my fingers through my hair and all over my body, checking myself in the mirror. The knocking stopped at some point, and I thought they’d left. When I was sure that nothing was crawling all over me, I turned to go back into the room and take care of the disaster that was my bed. My heart jumped in my throat when I almost bumped into Klaus, who was standing in the doorway, staring at me like I was a madwoman.