bsp; 14
Once the parent-teacher conferences were finally done, along with the staff meeting that followed them, Olive was finally able to head back to her classroom to grab her things before she headed home for the night. She felt tired and cranky and like her feet had become the size of two watermelons. What she wouldn’t give for a foot massage right about now. She was imagining settling in on the sofa with Levon later when she rounded the corner and stopped short.
Shattered glass twinkled on the floor beneath the overhead lights and her heart plummeted. A quick glance through the door showed broken chairs and overturned tables. This wasn’t her classroom. This was a crime scene.
Olive leaned against the doorframe, careful not to step on the sharp glass, and gripped the wall, too shocked to give over to the tremors that seemed to be starting just below the surface.
Her classroom was trashed. And at the center of it all, her microscope—the one the school had dedicated to her, attaching a little plaque with her name when she’d come back as a teacher—was smashed to pieces, its jagged remains scattered dangerously over every square inch of the lab. She couldn’t even begin to fathom this senseless violence.
Maybe not senseless, a small voice warned as she picked her way to the center of the debris. Maybe it was calculated.
Clearly this had taken place during the staff meeting—or had it taken place because of her time at the staff meeting? Whoever did this, had they known she would be only steps away from discovering what they had done? Or was this a warning to keep her mouth shut?
A conspicuous piece of paper taped to the chalkboard answered that question for her.
Next time, it’s you.
Her hand quaked as she ripped it off the wall and stared down at the rest of the scrawled words. Stay out of Reaper business or get Reaped. Did she recognize that handwriting? Olive’s vision blurred and she fought the urge to cradle her stomach, her child, protectively; there was nothing immediate to fear here. Only the immediate job of cleaning it all up before someone else stumbled upon it.
Olive began to gather the broken pieces of her microscope. It was too damaged to repair, but she had to at least try and keep it together—
A shard of glass bit into her skin and she cried out, then quickly silenced herself. Stupid. Trying to pick up glass like that. She must be in shock. She had to go and find a dust pan, and—
“Olive?”
She froze, watching the bright red blood stream down her hand, and turned. Levon stood in the doorway. For a moment, she almost didn’t recognize him. He wore the nondescript blue-gray uniform of the school’s maintenance workers, and a snug-fitting cap with the bill pulled down to conceal half his face. She offered a wobbly smile; she was afraid she didn’t have much else to offer in that moment.
He was at her side in an instant and pulling her into his arms.
“Levon.” She breathed his name shakily. “You can’t be in here. If whoever did this sees you—”
“—they’ll think you’re cozy with the school janitor. If they’ve been watching you, they probably think that already—I drive you to and from school every day.” Levon took her injured hand in his and inspected it. He surprised her by pulling a clean handkerchief from his uniform’s pocket and pressing it into the palm of her hand. “Here. Clench this over the cut and keep it elevated to slow the blood flow. I’ll get started on cleaning this mess up.”
“Who could have done this?” Olive wondered as she perched herself on her desk. It felt nice to have Levon take over. It felt nice to have someone ride to her rescue like that... even though she knew she shouldn’t make too much of it. Levon was just that kind of guy. She couldn’t let herself get used to this white knight treatment, but she might as well surrender to it while he was still here...
Levon worked silently to clear away the worst of the room’s damage. She knew he was thinking about what to say; mulling the evidence over, and processing how best to move forward. God, she admired the hell out of him. She was just opening her mouth to tell him as much when he returned to her side, carrying a first aid kit he had located in one of the lab’s back rooms. He had locked all the doors and assured their privacy the moment he answered her cry.
“Let me see,” he ordered quietly. Olive held her hand out obediently. Now that the bleeding had stopped and she had cleared most of the blood away, Levon could see the damage. He muttered to himself as he disinfected the wound and bandaged it for her. “Might make grading papers hard, but you won’t need stitches,” he said.
“Levon.” She wanted his attention drawn back to her original question, and she wasn’t going to repeat herself.
“Did they leave a note?”
Olive withdrew the folded piece of paper and passed it to him. She watched him study it. “I’ll have to turn this in as evidence down at the station,” he said. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”
Olive shook her head. If there was a twinge of familiarity to the letters, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. Not now. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to.
But she knew something would have to be done. She dreaded what came next. As she focused on Levon’s hardening expression, she saw her white knight transform into a dragon who would sooner raze a village than let what he protected be threatened again.
On the ride home, she came clean with him. “Levon, there’s something I have to tell you.” She glanced sidelong at his fists, clenched over the steering wheel for the entirety of their drive, and wished she had the courage to reach out and take one of them in her own hand. “I told some of the parents about the gang activity in town. I... may have mentioned that the activity could be filtering into the school.”
Levon did not reply. His breathing did not change. But the hands on the steering wheel didn’t loosen, and Olive still didn’t reach for them. “Why did you do that?” When he finally formed the question, he asked it quietly. To Olive, it felt like the calm before the storm.
They pulled up outside Levon’s house—or rather, the rental they had come to share. Levon cut the engine, but didn’t move. Neither did she. Eventually, she settled her hand on her stomach, and summoned the truth. “Because those are people’s babies, Levon. I get it now—the sense of responsibility that comes with being a parent. I see it more clearly than I ever did when I was just a teacher living a simple, single life. And now that I get it, how can I ever go back? How can I ever see anyone’s child endangered ever again?”
“You can because you have to,” Levon ground out. “Olive, I don’t like this any more than you do, but there are protocols we have to follow. And if you’re worried about child endangerment, then I’m begging you...”
The hand nearest to her lifted off the steering wheel and reached out to her. He wanted to touch her stomach, she realized, but something held him back. She took his hand and pulled it the rest of the way to her. Levon released a shuddering breath.