Our first class we have to practice a simple bandaging technique, and Owen does everything he can to make it difficult for me. I just have to grit my teeth and do the best I can. It’s needless to say that Professor Helsing is not pleased with my work.

He doesn’t say anything until the following class on Thursday, when Bennett keeps tightening the lids to all the jars in our food kits so when it comes to me I can’t get it opened. I can only handle so much snide chuckling at my expense before I just take the jar in two hands and smash the container open—sending splatters of olive juice all over the nearby desks.

Helsing just glowers at me darkly and dismisses the class. “Just like your parents,” he says, shaking his head. At least Sawyer, who in his misguided obsession with hunters ends up talking about my parents often, is always positive. He’s infatuated with them, but Helsing; any time he brings them up, he wrinkles his nose like he can smell them and doesn’t like their scent. I’m starting to recognize a similar expression whenever he talks to me.

It’s infuriating.

Sawyer keeps looking at me in our next class, creature handling, and I know he can tell something’s wrong. Helsing’s comment threw me off, and it takes everything in me not to knock Owen on his ass when he throws one last spitball my way.

Creature handling may be physically demanding, but it’s looking like one of my favorite classes. We actually get to see and interact with friendlier monsters like some of the pixie species Waldman went on about. Professor Jaxton, a soft-spoken man with several scars from his ongoing work with the creatures, tells us on our way out of class that next semester we’ll get our own creature to look after.

“They’re not pets,” he reminds us, but I can’t help being excited. Maybe they aren’t pets to him.

“Earth to Avery.”

Sawyer’s grinning at me in that doe-eyed way he does.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “Just thinking.”

“Dangerous,” he jokes, then steps to the side and watches as Owen walks by with the other boys, their voices making the hair on my arms stand on end. He sees this too and moves to block my view of them. “I was thinking of going for a walk around the school, exploring a little bit. You up for it?”

We invite Erin to come along, but true to form, she claims to have work to do back at the room. I don’t mind. We walk her back to drop off our things, and then head off on our own. I glance back once, and Sawyer reassures me she’ll be fine.

“She wouldn’t be here if she couldn’t take care of herself,” he reminds me. “When it comes down to it, I have a feeling she’ll surprise you.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I’m not convinced.

I don’t like leaving Erin alone. She’s been seen hanging out with me, and if Piers, Owen, or Bennett catch her on her own … I shudder. I don’t want to put her through that. Erin can barely make it through PW without vomiting on her own. I’m not sure she’d survive that sort of torment.

Sawyer and I leave the residence wing on our own and head down a few hallways we haven’t seen before. I keep asking him what things are, and where they head, and he has to remind me that he barely knows more than I do. There was a brief tour of the school before the trials, but most of it is still a labyrinth to the both of us; a surprisingly boring labyrinth that’s mostly mop closets, classrooms, and offices. For a long time, the most interesting thing we find is a giant bat skeleton hanging by fishing line in one of the closets.

Nestled somewhere behind the front desk, out of the way of the classrooms and dining halls, is another hallway. It’s finally here, on the first floor of the main building, that we pause.

Unlike all the others, this hallway is lavish. There are ornate columns spaced along the walls and only two doorways, one of which, to our surprise, has Professor Waldman standing outside it.

She sees us right after we see her. She looks startled for a moment, then smiles and calls out to us.

“Hey, you two! What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Exploring the school,” Sawyer says, at the same time. He shoves his hands in his pockets and shifts his weight lazily to the next foot.

I glance at him. I guess he’s just more easygoing about telling people his business.

“Well if you’re exploring, come take a look at this,” Waldman says, beckoning us over.

Sawyer heads right over, but I follow reluctantly. The very last thing I want is to get stuck in another conversation with our creature studies professor. She’s taken a liking to me, something that Piers and the others have taken note of. If Waldman asks me one more time to pass something around class for her … I might sit back down with a knife stuck firmly between my shoulder blades.

Waldman is friendly, to be sure, but there’s something strange about her that I can’t quite place.

Kind of like the door we now stop in front of.

Long glass cases line either side of the hall, showcasing prizes from hunts and photographs of past students. A couple quick glances at them, and I know my parents won’t be present in any of them. They’re too new, too glossy and brightly colored.

But there are no cases anywhere near this door. The hallway across and to either side is conspicuously empty aside from the one darkly colored door. Nowhere to hide.

It’s made of a reinforced steel fashioned to look like wood, but the metallic clink of a clip from my backpack against the door reveals its secret. In the very middle of the door is a tiny viewing window, a circle of thick glass through which to peer inside.

Tags: Eden Beck The Monster Within Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net