Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

“Wise words coming from a bully.”

“I’ve done nothing to you.”

“You laughed at me.”

He grinned. “Well, it was funny. Come on, if you saw someone on YouTube being repeatedly smacked in the face with a steak, wouldn’t you laugh?”

“This is not YouTube. And no, not when that person is me.”

He waved me off, as if I was just making too much of a fuss over something harmless. “Meh. you’re no fun.” He started walking away with my food. “Just so you know, my girlfriend is cheating on me, and I wanted some company,” he threw over his shoulder. “If I go in there, the guys will just piss me off more, and I don’t need that right now. You can still join me if you want.”

My arms fell at my sides, my shoulders slumping. Seriously?! Pandora was cheating on him? On the great, mighty Pazuzu, the demon who could bring a swarm of locusts over the Academy if he felt like it? Okay, how did I know about that, and I didn’t know who Nergal was?

“Okay, okay. Wait up.” I ran after him and let him choose a place to eat, all the while keeping my guard up. If he was going to pull me around a corner, I was more than ready to kick him in the nuts. “She’s cheating on you? Aren’t you guys supposed to get married?”

“Word travels fast, huh?”

He chose a stone table guarded by two basswood trees and sat across from me. I was glad I didn’t have to share a bench with him. Every time I got too close to one of these jerks, no matter how badly they treated me, my body still betrayed me.

“Yeah well, it’s a long story. We’ve been engaged since before we were born.”

“Isn’t that incest?” I asked with my mouth full of mashed potatoes. Oh, it felt so good to finally eat. Wait. Maybe I should skip the chit-chat and eat faster, just in case Lorna comes looking for me with a bag full or worms, or something.

He looked at me like I’d just said the most stupid thing in the world. “And your point is…?”

“Sorry. Incest is frowned upon in my world.”

“In your world, many things are frowned upon. Depending on the culture, some are more ridiculous than others.”

“Okay, so tell me about it.”

“What? About Pandora cheating on me?”

“Yeah. It might make you feel better.”

His green eyes filled with mirth as he threw his head back and laughed heartily. I froze, mouth stuffed with mashed potatoes and chicken strips. What was so funny? I was genuinely trying to help him by lending a non-judgemental ear.

“Her cheating on me isn’t what’s bothering me,” he finally said after he’d had a good laugh. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “What’s bothering me is that I’ve already fucked all the girls here, and now I have no one to help me get back at her.”

“But don’t you… love each other?”

“Love? What we have is not love, dearie. Competition. Now, that’s something a healthy relationship is based on. If she cheats on me, I cheat on her. If I cheat on her, she finds some poor fellow to fuck. It goes on and on, and it’s fun, too. But this time, the whole thing is a bummer. She started it, she got herself two idiots from the Neutral Death Cabal, and I’m already bored of the sad pussy the Academy has chosen as its next Grim Reapers. Yeah, right. I’m starting to think you’re the only girl who’s going to make a decent Grim Reaper this generation. That, or I cannot imagine why else you ended up in the Violent Death Cabal.”

I swallowed heavily, and a piece of chicken got stuck, for a second, in my throat. I gulped down some water. Okay, so that’s why Paz was being nice to me. I was the only girl at school he hadn’t put his dick in. Marvelous! I started cleaning up, my appetite suddenly gone.

“How did you even sleep with all the girls, already? It’s the first day!”

He laughed that joyful, charming laugh of his. “The supernatural community is small, dearie. You’re the first exciting thing that has happened in a while.”

“Dearie… Are you going to call me that now?”

“What? You don’t like it?” He wiggled his brows at me. “Dearie, dearie, dearie.”

I rolled my eyes and headed back to the dining hall. Lunch break was over. I had to run up to my room to get my scythe for the next class.

“Stick with me in PE,” he said, running after me. “You were a good listener today, so how about I make sure no one decapitates you. By accident, of course.”

I didn’t like it, but I felt like I had to say yes, this time. It didn’t mean anything. Just that I valued my life.