by E Hall
I kick it, sending it flying across the room.
The guy snorts as though my behavior only strengthens his case.
I clench my fists because I know exactly how this works. Cooperate, they might help you. Act out, you’re on your own.
Just then a woman breezes in. She’s tall, has short hair, and sharp cheekbones. She wears a police officer uniform and her badge reads Heather Bond. She hauls me to my feet.
“What do you think you’re doing, Bond?” the interrogator asks.
“Bringing her to the reform school.”
“On whose orders?” he demands.
She exhales sharply through her nose and furnishes a piece of paper. Again, my name is printed across the top. “Arshad, she’s underage and hasn’t finished high school yet. Law says she goes to reform school.”
“I forgot you’re one of those soft-hearted sympathizers,” says the cop named Arshad.
“I’m just doing my job,” Heather replies.
I recently had my eighteenth birthday, but I keep my mouth shut because reform school sounds a heck of a lot better than Riker’s.
Arshad crosses a pair of stubby arms in front of his chest. “It’s only a matter of time before she’s back here. I’m watching you, Vladikoff. You too, Bond.”
When we’re down the hall and out of earshot, she whispers in my ear, “Consider yourself lucky, but in two weeks, when the paperwork is reviewed, your luck is likely to run out.”
I remain silent as a van takes us to the other side of the island. I glance over my shoulder at the high-security prison with its barbed wire and magically enhanced security to keep criminals inside. The stench of demons becomes overwhelming.
Heather seems completely unaffected. She must be a nat. However, considering she’s the one that’s facilitating my stay at the reform school rather than the prison, I’ll consider her an ally, for now.
I try not to fidget. Being surrounded by so much power, even though it’s suppressed, makes my own squeeze against my insides with an almost violent urge for release.
Something falls from my pocket. The necklace from Ivan. It’s a simple silver chain with a snowflake pendant. A distant memory floats vaguely in my mind but then just as quickly evaporates into the things I’ve forced myself to forget.
Seated next to me, Officer Heather Bond spots the necklace. Her eyes widen, but she quickly irons out her expression. She picks it up before clasping it around my neck. “You probably don’t want to lose that.”
The gates to the school open to reveal marble and brick exteriors—this used to be a magical academy, but the supernatural has since been deemed a menace and needs to be managed.
For a moment, I imagine austere professors monitoring the halls. Polished wood echoing history. Uniforms complete with pleated skirts and knee socks. Students in pairs, laughing and whispering secrets to each other.
Instead, shadows cross the barred windows and a sense of emptiness fills me at the stone etching of the original name of the school: Amsterdam Island Academy. There’s also a crest with a golden-winged bird. It carries something in its beak. When I gaze at the wooden sign posted in front of the building, Riker’s Reform School, I feel more like a caged bird.
“You just barely escaped Riker’s Supernatural Prison aka RIP. Good luck at the Reformatory School also known as RIP Jr.”
Heather leaves me in a room with several other people around my age, each wearing variations of a scowl that matches my own. Some chatter, but mostly we remain quiet, attention fixed on a place that isn’t here.
Shortly after, a woman enters. A severe gray bob frames her face. She adjusts the jacket of her blue and grey herringbone suit and clears her throat. “Good morning.” The room abruptly goes quiet as she commands our attention in a strident voice. “I am Headmistress Jurik. I welcome you all to what promises to be a season where you will have the opportunity to learn, grow, and leave here with a new appreciation for freedom and the responsibility it comes with.”
There are a few snickers from the others.
Her expression doesn’t waver. “Think of this as the last stop before prison. This used to be an academy for gifted supernaturals so for that reason, we’ll call you students. But if you misbehave, you’ll be better suited to inmate or prisoner.”
No one utters a peep.
I’m going to review the rules and then invite each of our new students to make their pledges.”
I have no idea what this means but think vaguely about fraternities and sororities. I may have broken a few rules back home, but whatever kind of reform school this is, I’m underqualified.
The headmistress directs our attention to a stark list of rules on the wall.
1. No physical contact with other students, correctional assistants, faculty, or staff.
2. No fighting.
3. Do not attempt to leave the premises.
4. Open flame is not permitted.
5. Punctual attendance required at all classes and meals.
6. Electronic devices are prohibited.
7. You are not allowed in the dorms of the opposite gender.
“No excuses. No exceptions.”
A low murmur ripples through the room.
“Our purpose is to prepare you to reintegrate with the natural mortal world. If you break rules, we will lengthen your sentence accordingly until you’re of age to go to RIP. If you follow the rules, look forward to release. Is that understood?”
Several people, including myself, nod.
“You’ll learn about both the natural and supernatural worlds, borrowing from the time the school was an academy. We believe the more you understand your kind, the better able you will be to control yourselves.”
As though rebelling against the comment, the energy that I’ve struggled to control surges but remains just below the surface, and mercifully, out of reach.
Headmistress Jurik reads from a sheaf of paper—we’re to acknowledge our wrongdoing and pledge to reform. In turn, everyone plants their palm on a stone printed with a symbol. She says it’s a rune of truth.
The students who go ahead of me are either fae or vampires and their crimes range from vandalism and theft to assault. One tried to glamour the president—whatever that means. When it’s my turn, I hope it reveals the fact that I didn’t murder two natural mortals.
Instead, when my palm presses against the stone, my heart skids like it’s sliding across ice. My crowded thoughts freeze.
“Welcome, Lea Vladikoff. Frost Fae,” Headmistress Jurik says. “Murderer of two natural mortals.”
The blood drains from my face. If it could pool around my feet or freeze like my mind, it would. She meets my eyes. I look into two slate-colored pools of water in the twilight, almost as if they contain everyone’s secrets. I want to still the tremors that thump their way through my arms and legs, leaving me shaking.
The only rule I follow is to forget what I am. Now, everyone knows. Frost Fae.
As the last student plants his hand on the stone, the door opens and a familiar figure steps through. Instead of a scowl, he looks stunned.
The police officer calls to the Headmistress. “One more for you, Headmistress. This one is Tyrren Santos. Vampire. Involved in the Nefral Weapons Trade.” The cop grunts.
My stomach cartwheels, landing on dread. What is my best friend doing at reform school?
Chapter 6
Tyrren
What isn’t depicted in books and movies, is that when a person becomes a vampire, their mind is still their own.
Although my thoughts were blurry at first, my conscience is fully intact. In other words, I still know that biting people and sucking their blood is bad. Bottom line. However, it’s almost impossible to control those urges. Fortunately, my jiu-jitsu self-discipline training is coming in handy.
I’d managed to resist the pull and hunger as I roamed around Brooklyn, looking for Ivan and Lea. For hours, I searched, desperate to find them, to feed, to wake up and realize this was a n
ightmare.
Down by the dockyard, I heard a scuffle, someone whimpering. A guy had been stabbed and was barely hanging onto life. It was wrong, wholly and entirely. But I did it. I drank. I had to. I could no longer resist. Regret, shame, and the deepest sense of loathing I’ve ever known will exist within me for all eternity.
Then I went home. That’s when the trouble really began.
The last five hours feel like more like a decade. I was at home, staring at a box of cereal, willing it to satisfy me when my brother barged in, using up the rest of the milk. I hadn’t seen him in a week.
He laid into me about how if I’d just be normal—work at a pizza shop or get a tattoo or something, instead of being a blacksmith’s apprentice—the girls would be chasing me.
He didn’t notice the blood staining my shirt or what was sure to be the deranged look on my face.
At this point, the girls should run away from me, but even before, I had no interest in girls chasing me. None, except the one I can’t have. The one that sits in a chair across the room at Riker’s Reform School. Her eyes are wide.
If I were human, my stomach would knot with fear. Instead, my jaw twitches and my muscles coil. I’m a monster who operates with physical instinct and a leftover conscience that’s weak in the face of the beast within. Yet the desire to protect Lea overwhelms me.
Her mouth opens and closes like she’s going to say something, but nothing comes out.
I’m instructed to place my hand on a stone etched with a symbol. It’s cold, unyielding.
The headmistress arches one severe eyebrow as though she sees my thoughts. “Welcome, Tyrren Santos. Vampire. Nefral Weapons Trade criminal.”
Nothing about why I’m here makes sense. I was arrested for being involved in the Nefral Weapons Trade, whatever that is. My brother is happy to call me a dork, but I just happen to be really good at forging swords. Apparently, too good because the most recent one I made was confiscated by the police when I was arrested. The one that Lea used to slay the demons. The one that no one ever came to claim from the garage. Huxley had been out of state at a trade show and I figured I’d ask him when he got back. The police didn’t mention the guy down by the docks. If anything, sucking his blood is why I belong here.
Even though vampires don’t have powers other than super strength and the ability to mesmerize our prey, Magical Management has jurisdiction over us. Mercifully, the officers saw to it that I was fed.
My record says that I’m underage. For that reason, I was spared from RIP and sent here—a place for supernatural juvenile delinquents. Until recently, I ticked none of those boxes. I was held back a year when I moved to the US from Brazil and started school late—the secret Lea and I shared, the one we bonded over—meaning I’m eighteen like her.
I sigh as the guys and girls are divided into lines. I try to catch Lea’s eye, but she’s marched out of the room and disappears down a long corridor. Through the barred windows, clouds gather. If my mother were alive, she’d freak out right now.
Cruel irony that I am now the same kind of monster that killed her and Dad.
As for my brothers, Lyle is an actual felon. The middle one, Kylen, is a player—hence the teasing about girls. Mom could always rely on me, the baby, to be the good son. The three of us are nearly identical—tall, well-built and athletic, and with thick, dark hair that I’ve heard girls love (at least according to Kylen). He’d say my good looks are wasted on dorkdom. Whatever.
A CA, a correctional assistant, guides me to my new room. In short order, I get a bed, desk, and dresser. The uniforms consists of blue pants and an orange, black, and white striped dress shirt. It’s a cross between prep school garb and prison clothes. At least I don’t have to wear a jumpsuit.
My roommate is a small, gangly kid named Aaron (it’s printed on the door) and by way of greeting, he tosses a shoe in the air that nearly hits me in the head as he searches for something in the mess by his bed.
My reflexes are lightning-fast and I catch it. “Hello to you too,” I mutter.
He whirls around and stares at me with lavender eyes. “Hi. Looking for a textbook.” He returns to his task, tearing the room apart. He picks up the other sneaker, hucking it at me.
I catch it easily. “Not cool. I have two brothers and won’t tolerate inconsolable rages or jerks, got it?”
Aaron looks up, wearing an impish grin. It occurs to me that something, likely a crime of some sort, landed him here.
I chuck the shoe back at him.
He doesn’t give me an apology but understanding passes between us. I stay out of his way, he stays out of mine, and neither one of us will kill the other while he sleeps.
With that, I drop into the chair and let out a loud grumble. Why am I here? Not the big existential question, but why am I literally in this jail, er, reform school. My thoughts race through the morning: I went to the forge, Huxley wasn’t there yet. I stoked the fire, threw some logs on, and ran the bellows, preparing for the day. Tried to be normal. Tried to distract myself from the thirst.
Someone came by to commission a piece for a door. The smell of blood was heavy in the air. I fought against attacking the guy.
Then the police barged in, arrested me, and now I’m here.
Aaron exits but leaves the door open. Other students, as we’re called, pass by. Some alone. Others in groups. I hear Lea’s name and my gaze flashes up.
A girl with a button nose and sapphire eyes leans against the doorjamb. A few other girls stand at her flanks. “New here?” she asks. They’re definitely vampires. Probably studied under the females that intercepted me in the city.
I nod.
“Aren’t you going to ask my name?” she says.
I wasn’t. I stall, clearing my throat.
“I’m Jasmin.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and flits her long eyelashes. “It’s nice to meet you, Tyrren.”
My name is also on the door. She’s a girl in the boys’ dorm, meaning she dismisses the rules and probably rules the school. I’m quiet again, not interested. My brother isn’t wrong about me being a dork. The moment becomes awkward.
She bites her lip. “If you want to make the right kinds of friends while you’re here, come find me,” she says and slinks away.
The misty drizzle outside does nothing to wash away the tension caused by coming here. It tugs at the set of my jaw and the back of my neck.
It was no secret that Huxley, the blacksmith, dealt with some odd characters, but he wasn’t a criminal involved in a weapons ring and neither am I. The last thing I have on my mind is making friends or meeting girls.
Well, except one girl who is already my friend and happens to be here as well. Since it appears we can move about freely, I get to my feet, prepared to find Lea.
The campus is fenced-in and relatively quiet. The buildings consist of an incongruous mixture of neoclassical architecture and cellblocks. Ivy creeps up the sides of the back of a brick building. The archways and pathways look like a boarding school or college, but none of the students are permitted to leave. The new and old doesn’t make sense. Being here doesn’t make sense.
I reach what must be the girls’ dorm. Like mine, it’s also cinderblock. Yellow light from the windows glows against the cloudy sky. The door is locked and footsteps patter up the path behind me.
Jasmin and her girl posse approach. “I knew it wouldn’t take you long to come looking for me.”
How to handle this politely? I’m dealing with vampires, after all. “I came to visit my friend Lea.”
Jasmin’s face darkens and her eyes harden into a glare. “You just made your first mistake.” With that, she storms inside.
A hand lands hard on my shoulder. “Officially, guys aren’t allowed in there. But there are ways.” Another vampire winks and then extends a hand to shake. “I’m Cole. Singer for the band Reckless Hunger.”
A guy with long black hair stands on my other side.
“This is Felix. He plays bass.”
> Tattoos form a full sleeve on Felix’s skinny arm.
A tall girl with bleached, messy hair struts out of the dorm. She slides her arms around Felix’s neck. They kiss. I look away, craning to see if I can spot Lea. She must be in the dorm somewhere.
“Hungry?” Felix asks the female.
She nods. “Always.”
I can hardly conceal the lift of my eyebrows.
“Don’t mind Felix and Nina,” Cole says. “But if you need to feed, the dispensary is down that way.” He gestures to a squat cement building.
Felix and Nina saunter away. In the distance, a break in the clouds reveals the setting sun, a bloody shade of red spilling over the horizon.
A couple of fae hurry past us. They both have lavender eyes like the girl who was being attacked the night Lea and I encountered the demons. My gaze trails them until they’re out of sight. Until I smelled fae, or whatever it is I do with my senses, I didn’t know they were real.
Cole directs me away from the dorm. “Let me explain something to you. Here at RIP Jr, there are two groups. Vampires and fae. Even though the faculty is trying to integrate us, make no mistake, there are clear divisions. They don’t mess with us. We let them live. Simple as that. But you know, it’s in our nature to get hungry...and sometimes for more than blood. Try to stay out of trouble, but I won’t blame you if you find yourself in it.”
With a glance back at Lea’s dorm, the door opens. Mysterious blue eyes the color of the sky just before nightfall, silky black hair, and a grin salted with uncertainty and peppered with daring meets my gaze. This surreal reality vanishes along with the rest of the delinquents at this place.
Without a word, I rush toward Lea.
Before I realize what’s happening her arms wrap around me in an unexpected hug. A megawatt jolt rushes through me at her touch. We’re the kind of friends who can be smooshed together in the subway or absently find a leg or arm leaning against the other while watching a movie without thinking a thing about it. This is next level. If I had a heart, it would be thundering. I inhale her citrus spice scent and something else. Fae blood, confirming her supernatural origin. But she doesn’t have lavender eyes like many others.
