by Bob Dattolo
Seriously, what the hell is going on there…I just don’t get it. She reeks of terror every time she sees me. People have got to be giving her oceans of shit, except I can’t find any rumors of that happening.
I managed maybe an hour between both days with Cleo, Cesar, and Stacey. We’re still planning on going in together, so let’s hope we can do it and they don’t get upset about the other two groups. Assuming they still stick with me. They say they will, so more hope there.
Beyond that, I spent most of two hours giving Levi the promised full body massage. I’ve never done that before where I wasn’t being forced, so it was kinda cool. I even bought some massage oil for it. Thank God there were videos online that could watch for how to do it properly. I did it a ton for Reggie and some of his friends, but I wanted to be able to do it correctly. And not end up with a happy ending or seven.
I’m seriously not ready for that. Thankfully, even though he was completely naked, he didn’t get hard and distract things. Some points for being a dragon making it not a thing.
Eva and Tiffany have been weird since everything happened, yet it played in with the rest of the class. Not everyone is believing the rumors, so that’s a plus. It just feels like it’s more than should.
Or else it’s another façade. Given the nature of this place, it very well could be, and I’ve kept myself isolated and lonely for no damn reason. I’m not sure which way I hope that falls. Did I stay alone for no reason? Or did staying alone help? Hurt? All in all, I’d just rather be a normal student here and have minimal rumors about me. Things about the challenges I’ve been in? That makes sense. Things about why I’m a freak? That makes sense. Even things about me being able to do spells outside of normal affinities…
Huh, that’s something else that I missed. The dragons in my dragon class saw me manipulate metal. As did others in the trial. Among other things. Yet there aren’t any rumors out there about that. I think that’s further evidence that the person responsible is a mage of some sort. I don’t get why things haven’t spread that way, but they don’t seem to have done that. At least not and made it back to me.
Dammit, Tuesday. The last day of school. The trial starts tomorrow at 7am. That means I have a little over 27 hours to live if I’m gonna die tomorrow. That’s a freaking sucky thought. It really is. No wonder third-year students have a thousand-yard stare. Too much staring probable death in the face for normal living.
Seriously, did my parents have that? I’d think I’d at least remember thinking about that, yet I never did that I know of. Maybe I just didn’t think about it a lot? Maybe…maybe it was just how they were to me and I overlooked it? That’s a possibility.
No one was awake in the hallway when I got back. It’s a bit before 4am now, and I just don’t know what to do.
Movement in the room make me pause at the door, shocked to find Tiffany there in bed holding Eva. The dragon gives me a look before going back to holding my roomie. “Where were you?” It comes across as accusatory, just not like you’d normally think.
“Good morning.” I kept my voice low as I crossed to my comfy chair and sat. “What’re you two doing up so early?”
Eva huddled down more as Tiffany pulled her into her side, “Just…trouble sleeping.” Her nervousness is evident in her voice, way more than in her scent.
Instead of answering immediately, I hopped up and grabbed the essential oils, “Sweet basil, lavender, and jasmine. They’re each supposed to help calm you down and ease anxiety, maybe the combination will help?” I turned it on and let it do its thing. The room started smelling really nice soon enough, letting me sit down again.
Shockingly enough, both of the girls began loosening up within about five minutes. It really does help, so that’s cool.
“Where were you? You never said.” I can’t tell if she’s asking for a specific reason. Or possibly blaming me for something.
“I got like an hour and a half of sleep. I’ve been up since 1:45. I went for a walk. Got a snack.” I played with the hem of my shirt, staring down, “It’s so weird being here. It really is. I don’t remember being told a ton about the academy growing up. I know there were some things, just…maybe I lost it from the spell? I can’t even tell. Then I spent the next nine years never once thinking about this place and what everyone goes through. I can’t really tell if that’s a blessing or a curse. I would have had more time to get ready to come, yet I would have had the reality of this nightmare hanging over my head. I don’t know which is better. At all.”
She snorted quietly, “Yeah, well…I can’t really say. I’ve known about this place since I was little. It’s been on the horizon my entire fucking life. Always there. Always waiting. Like a buzzard over a dead body. I’ve trained since I first got my magic to make it through this and survive. Then…we come here. The reality sets in. Tuesday. The trial is tomorrow. Any or all of us could die. Someone kills us. We do something stupid in the trial and it kills us.”
“Yeah.”
Eva sniffled, getting me to realize that she had been crying and I missed it, “It’s so hard.” She sniffled again, “I know how strong I am. I’m way up there in my power, I really am. Yet I see you dragons and how you handle things. I swear you guys have it better and worse at the same time."
"How do you mean?" I left my shirt alone and tried to focus on her.
“It’s like…I grew up in my family, just like you guys did. Except that’s it for us. We’re just us. Not us and our dragon. I know people don’t seem to understand that, but my parents, my family, knew about it. How you have the other part of you and what that means. How it changes your view on things. It allows you to handle some things easier. Yet it’s gotta add things to the complexity side that I just don’t get.”
I shrugged, “Well, don’t go by me. Being integrated changes all of that for me.”
Tiffany gave me a small glare, “I can’t believe you’re integrated. That’s fucked, it really is.”
“Sorry. I was trying not to be rape tortured to death, so it just kinda happened.”
“Still…that part’s not lucky, but I’d give almost anything to be integrated. It’s hard being split. She has ideas on things but so do I. Do they match? I don’t know. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. It’s a freaking nightmare sometimes because we can get caught up in mental gymnastics, trying to figure out how the other part of us thinks. They’re us, so we don’t want to piss ourselves off. It’s just that they’re not us enough that sometimes they want to do things differently. And we don’t understand why. Just like they don’t always understand us.” She shrugged, “So I can see the plus, in that we have a different mindset on things, but the minus is pretty sucky sometimes.”
Eva leaned into her shoulder, “I can see that. Yet I guess it doesn’t really matter, right? Trial is tomorrow. We either live or we die. Maybe we’ll be alive after six hours. Maybe we’ll be cooling somewhere in the trial. Maybe we’ll be losing our power when the time runs out. All of our lives come down to that thing. The pressure…”
She didn’t start crying again, but I could tell it’s a near thing.
“I won’t ask you guys your plans for tomorrow, but you’re set with Brody? Everything okay there?”
Tiffany squinted at me a little, “It’s…okay. He can tell something changed in us.”
“Oookay? Like what?”
She gestured at me, “We didn’t tell him about what happened after the challenges. We didn’t want…we didn’t want it to spread. He thinks we’re holding back on something. Like we’re going to double cross him.”
“I won’t say it, but I’ve been told that everyone has plans on how to handle everyone.”
She grimaced, “True. We just hope we don’t have to use them. Usually.”
“This place, man, what a night…JESUSCHRISTWHATTHEFUCK!” I shot out of the chair and ended up against the wall by the door. I didn’t even realize Tiffany and Eva had shrieked as well. I heard others down the hallway doing the same thing.
Eva joined her, pulling open one of the dresser drawers that was partially open. “Fucking hell, everything…it’s all shredded.”
My heart dropped as I looked to her closet, “Oh my…oh my fucking God, your closet door is open?!?” They both looked at me as if I’m insane, “This is exactly what happened to me last year. Everything on my desk got shredded again and again. Laptop after laptop. Everything in my dresser. Everything in my closet got shredded twice. It’s why I have my spells in place protecting everything. Specifically because of that!” They looked at my line of grimoires, all looking perfect.
“I don’t get it; my closet is fine. It’s protected.” Eva headed towards the door.
“It’s protected when the door’s closed. Like I keep mine closed unless I’m actively in it.”
Her door swung open, revealing a room full of confetti and she dropped to her knees. “What the fuck? Who did this?”
Angry voices all along the hallway gets Tiffany to look at me, “You hear them. This is happening in other rooms too?”
“That’s what it sounds like.” I opened our door to find people in the hallway, “What the hell, were you all hit too?”
Samantha growled as she glared around the space, “Who the fuck needs to die for this?” She caught my eye, “Did this happen to you again?”
“Not to me so far. Eva got hit. What about…fuck, what about Tiffany?”
“Fucking shredded. Our closet doors were closed, thank fucking God, but everything else?”
Tiffany joined me in the doorway, “My stuff?”
“Desk and dressers are fucked. Big time.”
As you can imagine, that started a general hunt to find out who all was hit. Within a half hour, the entire class was in the caf staring around at everyone. “Who the fuck did it!” Nick’s a pretty powerful ice mage, and he looks pissed. “Every fucking thing I have here is destroyed! Who did it!”
Jason flared light above his head, “You damn well know no one’s gonna admit to it. We don’t even know if it was one of us, everyone was hit!”
Nolan’s another fire mage, he stood and hit the table, “The fuck you say, not all of us were hit!”
“Who wasn’t hit then, Nolan?” Tiffany sounds annoyed. I know they hate each other, I just never understood why.
“Fuck you, Tiffany. You damn well know who wasn’t hit. It wasn’t hit! Her stuff is sitting pretty in her room. I heard it from I don’t even know how many people!” His finger points directly at me. I was afraid of someone picking up on that. Literally everyone apparently has at least their dressers and desks fucked. I’m the only one that didn’t have it happen in our class.
Tiffany laughed at him, “You’re so fucking stupid. We were talking when everything went to hell. She had this happen to her last year.”
“Likely story. Why wouldn’t it have happened again this year?!?”
He shut up when I raised my hand, “I had it happen again and again last year. I have spells on everything to protect it all. Everything that I own is protected now to stop that from happening.”
He snorted, “Right, so you decide to fuck the rest of us by wrecking our stuff? Is that how you work?”
Are you kidding me, “Because I protected myself, that means I did it to someone else?”
“Seems pretty fucking obvious to me!” A girl stood up, an iron mage that I don’t think I’ve ever heard speak before, “You went through it, so now you make us suffer? You talk a big game, but you’re just as big a bitch as everyone else here!”
“Are you mental? How does that make any sense? Because I had it happen obviously means I caused it?”
“It’s pretty fucking coincidental that your stuff is protected and ours is shredded shit!” Fire flared across her face.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. Kaylee’s stuff was wrecked last year too!”
Kaylee cowered in her chair, “Don’t bring me into this. Even I’ve heard the rumors!”
Levi laughed when I looked at him, “I heard it late yesterday. How you were gonna fuck with everyone’s head this morning to mess them up for the trial.”
“Of all the stupid fucking…why would I do that?”
“Because you’re a psycho? We’ve all heard the rumors! We’ve seen you killing people left and right like it’s not even a thing for you!”
“You know what? Fuck you, Nolan. So I’m supposed to let people kill me just so you don’t get your fucking panties in a knot? I didn’t do shit to anyone’s stuff! I was talking to Tiffany and Eva when it happened! Every damn dragon near our room heard it!”
“Seems like a pretty good coincidence.” Destiny’s another air mage, rooming with Angelica. “I saw you head out this morning. You were gone for more than an hour. You come back and, what, start talking to your roommate? It’s like you were setting it up to make sure you had someone that could corroborate your story.” She turned to Tiffany and Eva, “Do you know for a fact where she went or what she was doing?”
Tiffany shrugged, “No? She smelled honest, though. We were in the middle of talking when Eva’s stuff shredded. She didn’t have any magic going at all.”
“Nice coincidence. You head out where no one can see you and set up a time delayed spell and then head back to talk to people. People you hardly ever talk to?! No, it can’t be you at all even though we’ve all heard how you were gonna fuck with us this morning!”
I buried my growl before it started, “I see. So you all heard how I had this big plan going, huh?”
A chorus of yes’s hit me, with my hidden allies watching everyone and not really adding to things.
“I see. Then let me ask this, who all did you hear it from?”
“Why the fuck does it matter? You did this to us, we oughta cave in your fucking skull for this!” Nolan glared at me, magic working hard.
“Nolan? You come at me and I’ll crush you and leave you alive to go to the trial. I didn’t do this. Now fucking tell me who did you all hear it from? I want to know. Why? Why is it important? Because who the fuck do I talk to in any given day or even week?”
Kaylee spoke up again, “People have seen you flying off to meet with others. That’s who you could have spoken with.”
What the fuck? “I fly off to meet people? When?”
“I saw it, you were gone Friday into Saturday. I don’t know who you met with, though.” Destiny again.
“Uh-huh, right. I’ll tell you who I was meeting with. Alicia, she owns a bookstore in town. That’s who I was meeting with. Not someone from our class since most of you are suckers for the freaking rumors about me.”
More magic from Nolan, “Fuck you, dead girl, you shredded everything!”
“Who told you I was gonna do it, Nolan? Who?”
He growled, nearly getting a smile from me. Mages just can’t growl all that well. “I heard it from Brody.
“Right. Brody?”
“I heard it from Max.”
We started a round robin of hunting, only to end up in a circle. “None of you see it? Really? Literally none of you heard it from me. You all heard it from someone else. It had to start somewhere, yet it didn’t start with me. I had nothing to do with it.”
Nolan’s hands came up, “You did this to us!”
“I’ll say it again, Nolan, no I didn’t.”
“None of your stuff got fucked!” Spit flew from his mouth. At least 20 others stand, magic moving around them. “You think you’re lord of the fucking school. I’m sick of this. Hearing about you every damn day. How you’re gonna kill us one by one. In groups. All of that. I think it’s time for you to pay for what you did. Everything…fucking gone.”
I stood, bristling with my own magic that they don’t know is running, “You know what? I’m kinda sick of this shit. I rea
lly am. You wanna throw down? Come at me. You all think I’m some sort of Machiavellian wizard. If I do one thing, I want to kill people. If I do the opposite, I want to kill people. Rumors about everything I could possibly do. What are the rumors last night? I was gonna fuck with everyone’s head before the trial, is that right?”
“Yeah.” Levi answered me.
“Right. Only one rumor?”
“Yeah.” Short and sweet.
“And none of you picked up on how weird that is? Every rumor has me coming and going, but this one rumor is pretty freaking specific. Almost as if the person that set it up is the one that cast the spell. Not me.”
“You just yammer and yammer and yammer…” More magic.
Slow nod from me as I look around. I can’t easily tell who believes me, although some do.
“You know what? Fine. You’re pissed that my stuff wasn’t fucked, is that it?”
Destiny’s magic is also moving, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You guys are pissed that everyone’s dresser, desk, and some closets were fucked but mine weren’t? That’s supposed to be some sort of proof that I caused this?”
“It is proof!”
“It is? Fine. Come with me.” Most of them didn’t want to follow me, but some did. We ended up in my room, where I opened my door, “Take it all but the grimoires. Don’t touch those.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Samantha looks horrified.
“Take it all. I’m proving a point.” No one moved until I pushed them into it, and we ended up outside near the caf with the entire class there staring at a huge pile of my belongings.
I held up my laptop, “This is a pile of everything I own that’s on my desk, in my dressers, and in my closet except for my grimoires and paperwork from school in protected folders. This is all of it.” I threw my laptop onto the pile. “You assholes think me protecting my stuff is a sign that I fucked with yours? Then fine. Destroy my stuff.”
Angelica raised her hands, “What the fuck, Maddie?!? Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m sick of this shit!” My voice pushed people back from me, “For more than a fucking year some asshole here has been spreading rumors about me. Every fucking day it’s one thing or another or even more. I can’t have friends. I can’t have allies. I can’t even go out and speak to people not tied to the school! So you assholes think me takings steps to protect my stuff from the same asshole that destroyed my stuff last year means I did it to you? Then destroy it. I didn’t fuck up your stuff. I never once thought to do it. I never even gave the spells to the people that I at least somewhat trust here to protect their stuff because I never thought someone would do something like this!”
