He glances up. His eyes meet mine. “Avery Black.”
Owen and Bennett both look up, looking first at me, then Piers, who awkwardly sets the name down on Professor Helsing’s desk before grabbing his books to sit beside me.
I don’t pay attention as everyone else picks their partners. I’m staring at Piers, who refuses to look at me.
If I didn’t know that Helsing couldn’t give a rat’s ass who my partner is, I’d think he did this on purpose.
Once everyone has been paired up, Helsing clears his throat and starts writing things on the board. “All right. You’ll pick your country from this list. You’ll be presenting these, by the way,” he adds, scowling at the class as they groan again. “And you’ll have to work with each other outside of class to do these. I’ll give you today to work on it, but we can’t spend every class doing this. And once you’ve figured out the native language of the country you pick, you’ll have to learn a few phrases in it. Can it!” he snaps as the class groans again.
He whips around to face us. “These are skills you’ll have to learn! Once you get out of here and start actually hunting monsters, you’ll be up shit creek without a paddle if you can’t do this.”
It’s quite simple really. Pick a monster, pick a town.
“You learn some native phrases. You figure out how you’ll get there, how you’ll kill it, how you’ll hide the evidence, and how you’ll get back.”
For this assignment, he lets us assume we’re licensed monster hunters on an official hunt. At least we have that. It means we won’t have to figure out a way to smuggle our weapons, or find a place to buy them once we’re there, since hunters on official business could carry weapons into the very halls of The Vatican if they wanted to.
Class ends, and Piers and I stand up simultaneously. He turns to me for the first time since class started.
“So, uh … I guess we should plan to meet up.”
Now that he’s not supposed to be bullying me, it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with me.
“Are you mad that you can’t terrorize me during this project?” I ask with a smirk.
He looks away. “Couldn’t have done that anyway,” he mutters. “It’s my grade as much as yours.”
I nod. “Smart. Wanna meet in the library in an hour?”
He looks around. Owen’s talking to his new partner—they’re obviously planning when they’re going to meet up. Bennett is staring impassively at Sawyer, who’s trying desperately to get Bennett to respond to a question he’s asking.
“Yeah,” he says. “An hour is fine.”
He goes to walk away, but I grab his arm. “Piers.”
He looks at me.
“Look, we can work together. This won’t be weird, all right? Like you said, this is my grade as much as yours. I want to do well on this project.”
He mumbles and glances off toward Owen and Bennett, who seem to be detaching from their partners and heading out. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever. See you in an hour.”
I let him walk away and gather my things to meet up with Sawyer and Erin outside the classroom.
“Funny you got stuck with Piers,” Sawyer says, grinning. He reaches out and touches my elbow. I blush. “Y’know—now that you’ve brought back that finger and he can’t do shit to you.”
“Speaking of … you didn’t tell us the whole story,” Erin says shyly. She hugs her books to her chest. “What happened with you and Professor Helsing?”
“Not here,” I say quickly. “Let’s head back to our dorm. There is something I wanna talk to you guys about.”
We head off. I want to tell them what Helsing said about my parents’ cabin. A cabin I didn’t know about. A cabin I want to go to. And what he said about Professor Waldman.
And how he wants me to talk to Mason Dagher, that he might be the key to learning how my parents died.
Chapter Fifteen
Erin is perched on her bed while Sawyer paces by the dresser.
“He said you should talk to Mason Dagher?” Sawyer asks finally, turning.