I pat Erin’s shoulder. “You all right?”
“Yeah, oh yeah,” Erin says. “She was just sort of weird, that’s all.”
“How so?” I ask. I think I catch Sawyer glancing at that unmistakable way Luiza’s hips move when she walks, and I feel a pang of jealousy that prompts my next words. “I don’t trust her. Something isn’t right.”
Erin looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I look back to her quickly and change the subject. “Never mind. Let’s get some food. I’m famished.”
We’re on our way to do just that when a loud bong! sounds from overhead. Confused, all three of us stop, and the dining hall falls silent around us.
“Attention. This is Headmaster Novac,” the PA system booms out over head. I’ve never heard it used before. It seems out of place in these old brick walls. “A monster—an al—has been spotted in the village. All first-year students are instructed to stay inside the school. Any upperclassmen who wish to hunt the monster may congregate in the entrance hall. Again, all first-year students—stay inside the school.” Bong!
There’s a prolonged period of silence, and then several upperclassmen simply walk out of the dining hall. I see Luiza among them, reaching up to tug her snake-hat off and comb her fingers through her short hair. I glance at Erin to see that her eyes are following Luiza, too.
An al. I’ve never heard of it. From the looks on the faces around me, whatever it is, isn’t particularly friendly.
“I guess the plan is still to grab something to eat, then,” Sawyer says. He starts off toward the food and Erin and I follow.
I stick close to her side, my voice low. “This thing, what is it?”
“It’s nothing we have to worry about,” she whispers back. “The teachers will deal with it.”
Other bodies press close behind us in line, their words echoing my thoughts.
“I wish we could go hunt that thing,” says a familiar voice behind me. I know before I look that it’s Piers. He’s dressed as a vampire, complete with white face paint and fake blood dripping down the side of his mouth.
“Do you think any first-years would be able to do it?” Owen asks, reaching over him to grab at some food. I don’t know what he’s supposed to be. He just has a kid’s birthday party hat perched on his blonde curls. Beside him, Bennett shrugs, but as he does so, he meets my eyes. He’s shirtless and wearing torn pants, with some sort of horns made out of plastic cups protruding from his head.
Something about how stupid they all look in their costumes, standing here talking about how they could easily go out and hunt that thing on their own—it makes something primal in me snap. Not in an angry way. In a weird, macho, dick-measuring way that even I don’t understand as the next words tumble out of my lips.
“I could,” I say before I realize what I’m doing. “Don’t know about you three.”
“Avery,” Sawyer whispers, a warning in his tone.
Piers grins at me. “You think you could?”
“Yeah,” I say, my indignation growing. “I’m sure I could.”
“Tell you what, Black.” Piers sets down his plate of food. “You go down to the village and get something off that monster. What
did he say it was?”
“An al,” Bennett replies, almost mechanically. He’s looking at me again, and unless I’m mistaken, he’s worried. Bennett my tormenter, is worried about me.
Piers, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is relishing in the idea of my demise.
“Right. That thing that steals babies. Tell you what. You go get something off that al, and I and my boys will lay off you for a while.”
I realize that it’s gotten quieter around us. Some other first-year students are listening, their eyes on me. I look around at them, then back at Piers and Owen, who are smirking at me.
I deliberately don’t look at Erin or Sawyer.
“Fine,” I say. I grab an orange-iced cupcake off the table. “I’ll do it.”
“Avery, don’t!” Erin pleads, her voice strained. “Als are dangerous!”
I ignore her and step toward Piers. “You have to promise you’ll lay off. At least until after winter break.”