Finally, Sawyer sets me down. “Come on, let’s go.”
As we walk toward the residence wing, I start to feel watched. I’d forgotten my brief interaction with Bennett until I spot him, standing at the end of another hall, watching us with an unreadable expression.
I nearly stop in my tracks to stare back, but by the time I’m sure what I’ve seen, Bennett is already gone.
The next morning is probably the worst I’ve ever had at Saint M; courtesy of Piers, Owen, and Bennett.
Professor Davies makes us do the intermediate obstacle course, the one used for the entry trials. After weeks spent on the earlier course this one should be easy, but Piers and Owen break the mechanism in a rotating platform while I’m on it, causing me to overbalance and fall several stories. I would have died if it wasn’t over a pool of water.
Somehow, by the time I’ve pulled myself dripping, out of the pool, they’ve convinced Professor Davies the incident was my fault. On top of getting chewed out and forced to run sprints, they get good marks while I get a zero for being “careless”. I don’t discover until washing up in the bathroom later, but I also inherited a new gash on my forehead from smacking the edge of the platform on my way down.
Knuckles on the door to the bathroom announces Erin is ready to head to our next class. I dab the tip of a brown paper towel into the cut and wince. This is going to take a minute, so I promise her I’ll catch up later. I’d rather deal with this alone. I don’t need Erin fussing over me even more than she already has been lately.
I’m not even halfway to creature studies when Owen and Bennett take advantage of the fact that I’m away from Sawyer and Erin and throw me into an abandoned classroom. I don’t know what they push against the door, but it’s so heavy it makes an awful scraping noise against the tile. The old stone walls and doors as thick as the trees they were made from make for few opportunities to be found out. It takes me half an hour of banging against the door and screaming to get rescued by a passing third-year, who just thinks it’s hilarious.
He’s tall and lanky—scrawny, almost, for a monster hunter. His laugh when he spots me, knuckles bruised and hair a wild tangle, is more akin to a bird than a human.
“What are you laughing about?” I snap, grabbing my things and readying to flee towards the second half of class.
“Nothing, just your face,” the boy says. “What’d you do in there? Wrestle an agropelter?”
“I’ll show you wrestle—Professor!”
Professor Helsing appears in the now open doorway beside this third-year I was about to threaten.
“Black!” he barks, sending the other boy blanching and scurrying out of sight. “Get to class. Now.”
But he doesn’t let me go on my own.
He walks with me, snarling the entire time, and then barges into the classroom with me and practically shoves me into the seat directly in front of Sawyer. It slides back and nearly tips me back into his lap, but Helsing is practically still foaming at the mouth up front.
“You!” His words are few, but laced with venom. “You’re just like them. If you don’t clean up your act, you’re going to end up just like Samson and Riley. You hear me?”
I nod, but he just throws up his arms and storms to the other side of the classroom.
Waldman just stands, shocked as the rest of us, one hand pressed to her chest while the rest of her is pressed flat up against the wall.
Meanwhile, Piers and Owen watch me with smug grins, and Bennett stares impassively.
Professor Helsing’s voice echoes all the way out into the hallway, where I spot several students shooting us curious looks as they dart by. “Reckless!” he shouts. “Self-absorbed! You’ll end up dead and maimed, just like them!”
I’m biting my lip, trying hard to hold back tears and anger alike. The entire class is watching. I meet Erin’s eyes. She’s pale, her lower lip trembling.
“Professor Helsing,” Waldman says finally, interrupting his tirade. “I think that’s enough. I knew Avery’s parents, and that’s not what they were like.”
He looks at her in surprise, like he’s forgotten she’s there. His hair has flopped all over to one side, and a muscle bulges in the side of his neck where it pulses with purple, agitated blood.
“They were!” Helsing snaps. “Reckless, stubborn, their entire lives! Remember when Samson insisted he could fight that manticore on his own? Remember when Riley left her team to hunt down that chimera? Both stupid, irresponsible—”
I can’t stop myself. I hear the shout coming from my mouth before I’m even aware I’m the one doing it.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
Helsing falls silent, shocked, and looks at me.
“I get it. You hate my parents and you hate me. I was locked in a classroom, by the way—that’s why I was late to class. Leave me the hell alone, please.” I turn my face to stare stiffly forward at the whiteboard in front of class. Sawyer immediately reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off and just stare forward, unseeing.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Helsing leaves the room without another word. The final punctuation is the slamming door behind him.