Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

“Your wish is my command, normie goddess.” He kissed me before sprinting to the library, where I knew there was a huge collection of board games and card games.

Anyway, wish or no wish, I hoped he was going to take it seriously and hurry up, because even though I was his girlfriend now and everyone knew, that didn’t mean I was safe when he wasn’t around. I hunched over the table and took out my phone. Since I’d arrived at the Academy, I hadn’t used it much. I had no friends here, so who would I message? There was Patty, but she was too busy to stay on her phone. Her hands were usually elbow-deep in water or dough, anyway. She couldn’t even reach for her phone. And I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from back home. The past was in the past, and even though I missed my mom and some of my friends from school, it was better this way. I didn’t want to be found. I didn’t want to risk my past sneaking into my present and ruining my future. Not even for a short conversation with my mom. She was better off without me.

I opened an old game and started playing to pass the time, and also to show anyone who might have thought of disturbing me that I was busy. I should have gone with GC. Was I really this terrified of being alone with the other students? The VDC wasn’t even around. They were busy yelling at the RDC team that the game sucked balls and they wanted to play baseball. The NDC weren’t that bad, and the MDC knew I was Klaus’s friend. Still. I felt exposed. And Sariel didn’t seem to be on the field with the others. Where was he? What if he came out of nowhere and pulled some sick prank on me again? What he’d done the night before hadn’t been a prank, though, so he’d moved past that, which made him even more dangerous. And where was Lorna? I dragged in a breath and tried to calm down. GC must have reached the library by now, and it wouldn’t take him long to grab a pack of cards and run back to me. I just had to hold it together until he was here, by my side.

God, this is all kinds of fucked up! What am I now? Dependent?

“Where’s lover boy? Are you alone?”

I almost jumped out of my skin. Pazuzu. I’d recognize his voice anywhere. I looked up and had to shield my eyes from the sun. The weather was unusually nice for the end of September.

“What do you want?”

Interesting, but his hair was so dark that it seemed like the light bounced right off of it. His emerald green eyes were fixed on me, and his brows were slightly furrowed. Now what?! Why can’t the Mighty Jerks just give me a motherfucking break? He shrugged and sat down in GC’s place.

“Did you sleep with him last night? Because he saved you?”

“What the hell, Paz? No! And, anyway, even if I did, it’s none of your business.”

“I’m sorry about what happened. I had no idea. Francis and I… we saw you jump, we went closer to the edge to watch you swim to the surface, and it just never happened. We didn’t see Lorna come out of the trees. Sariel didn’t say a thing. We didn’t even know she was there. We were waiting for you, you were taking forever, and then GC came out of nowhere, fucking jumped off the cliff and shifted in the air, right before he hit the water.”

“Mhm. And you want me to believe you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Sure.”

He leaned over the table, his hands so close to mine that I instinctively pulled back.

“I swear to God, Mila. It’s true.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know, Paz, maybe if you swore to Satan, who’s actually your father… Swearing on your enemy’s name doesn’t strike me as…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Mila, God and Satan aren’t enemies. You know so little about our world.”

“Well, it is my world, too, so get used to it. You guys wanted to get rid of me last night. Didn’t happen. I’m not going anywhere. So, go on. Do your worst. Try to kill me again. I’ll survive.”

“I didn’t…” He clenched his jaw, pursed his lips, and tried again. “You have to believe me, Mila. I had no idea what was happening. I thought… I thought you were taking longer to come up, I thought you… maybe you’d lied and didn’t actually know how to swim. I was getting ready to jump after you.”

“Were you?” I hoped the sarcasm in my voice was evident.

“Yes! Of course! God, I don’t want you to die, Mila.”

“Okay, stop saying my name like that. It’s disconcerting.” Normally, I would have liked it. He’d been the first of the Mighty Jerk Cabal to call me by my name, and it’d had an effect on me then. But now I knew better. “Since I came here, you made fun of me, you never stopped Sariel from doing his worst, you cheered him on, actually. You told me to my face that you wanted to fuck me to get back at Pandora. And now that I’m with GC, what? What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” he said in a quiet voice. “I just…” he ran his hand through his raven-black hair, and that threw me aback a little. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was truly distressed. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay, what?”

“I broke up with Pandora. Just now. Fuck our engagement. It was a sham anyway. I broke it.”

I took in a big breath and released it slowly. What was this supposed to mean? Why was he telling me this? What did I care if he was engaged or not?

“Good for you,” I said, finally. “Whatever you think is best.”

“I just wanted you to know.”

I shrugged. “Why? It doesn’t concern me.”