I bit my tongue. That was a dumb thing to ask. Biba sighed.

“I needed to study this morning, and this place is quiet and private.”

“Can I—?”

“Get in.”

She waved me into the room. As I suspected, it was a glorified storage unit with boxes, bags, and piles of clothes all around—nothing on the walls. Surprisingly, though, there were rumpled sheets on the bed. She had been sleeping there.

It’d be pathetic to admit the lift that realization gave me. For all I knew, she’d only slept one night alone. Hell, maybe she was lending her bed to a friend. Regardless, it was reassuring that she might be hiding something from Zephyr.

I sat on the bed, and Biba settled into her desk chair. She took a long sip from a steaming, oversized mug of tea.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“We’re talking,” she answered icily.

“The village police are planning to arrest you, Biba.”

“I know.” She wasn’t betraying anything with her tone.

“So that’s what Amelia called you to her office for? The first night after classes started?”

“She and Dean Schmidt,” she sighed like this conversation was exhausting. “I’m under house arrest until the matter is resolved.”

“What reason could the police have to suspect you?”

Besides lying to their faces, I thought.

“They know about the snooping we were doing. They know I was supposed to meet Gail the night she was killed. Oh, yeah, and some asshole at this school is telling them I killed her.”

“This is screwed up, Biba. We need to do something.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“You can’t just sit there and let somebody frame you for your best friend’s murder.”

She stood up abruptly, sending the chair toppling behind her. It was jarring, the sudden shift—her eyes were wide with anger, her knuckles white with clenched fists.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” she snapped. “I mean, Jesus Christ, dude—what do you think I’ve been doing all these months? It was obvious that Soglio guy wanted me in jail for Gail. He’d have arrested me the first time we met if he could have. I’ve been tearing my fucking hair out, trying to figure out how to prove my innocence without endangering you . . . or myself.”

“I don’t want you to protect me. I want to help you.”

“Forget it. The more you and I try to do the right thing, the worse things get. Zephyr is taking care of this. I’m laying low until things are under control.”

Just like that, my blood rose again. Zephyr was taking care of it? What the hell did that mean? But before I could open my mouth, she cut me off.

“I’m finally taking your advice, Theo. I’m doing nothing and staying out of trouble. Maybe you should do the same.”

She sat back down and returned to her reading. She didn’t even need to tell me to close the door on my way out. I did that on my own.

I had no intention of laying low, not while the sword was hovering over Biba’s neck. I didn’t care about the ramifications if my involvement with Biba and Gail came out. I could protect myself. After all, I’d already been assaulted twice since Biba arrived and lived to tell the tale.

I was nearly sprinting as I made my way from Biba’s room to Amelia’s office. She would be in, even though it was Saturday. Stormcloud Academy was her life; she didn’t take days off.

I stepped through the anteroom outside her office and flung open the door. I was already uttering the first syllable of my introduction when I realized she wasn’t alone.

Seated in a chair in front of her desk was the tall, bulging frame and blond crew-cut of Arvo Hurley.

Tags: Nicole Casey Stormcloud Academy Dark
Source: readsnovelonline.net