Where Monsters Hide: An Academy Bully Romance (The Monster Within Book 1)

by Eden Beck

  Sawyer holds up his hands in a sign of surrender.

  “Yelling at each other isn’t going to help us figure it out.” I yawn and get to my feet, stepping over Sawyer’s legs to get to my bed. Cleaver hops up with me as I lay down. “Do you think there’s anything left for breakfast?”

  “I’ll go get you guys some coffee,” Sawyer says, standing up. As he leaves, I’m struck with the memory of my Saturdays with Owen before Christmas break. I close my eyes and turn my head so that Erin can’t see my face.

  I really thought I was getting close to him. Piers, too. Even Bennett. We usually sat in companionable silence, but sometimes, that’s the best. All of that’s gone now. I lift my hand and wiggle my fingers a little.

  Things are worse than ever.

  And come Monday, things aren’t much better.

  The obstacle course isn’t my friend. Not now that my hand is royally fucked up.

  I manage the first lap through it without too much trouble. After a full week of this, I’ve figured out ways of doing things that don’t rely much on my left hand. Now, if the boys would just leave me alone, I could probably work through this.

  But I know that isn’t going to happen as soon as I spot Piers right ahead of me on the climbing ropes. He glances down at me with a savage grin just as I look up. No, I think as his foot dislodges from the rope. Please.

  His foot slides quickly down and smashes into the fingers of my right hand, my only good hand. I cry out, lose my grip and subsequently my balance. I fall back and slam hard into the ground.

  “BLACK!” shouts Davies’ voice. Piers slides down the rope.

  I groan and try to roll over, but everything hurts; my hand, my back, my head.

  “Dagher, what happened?” Davies snaps as she jogs up.

  “I’m so sorry, Professor!” Piers says, sounding distressed. But he glances at me, and I see a smirk flicker across his face. “My foot slipped, and I—it was an accident!”

  Davies looks down at me, and a look of her own flickers across her face. “She needs to go to the infirmary.”

  “No,” I groan. “I’m fine.”

  I try to get up, but Owen leans closer, pretending to try to get a better look at my right hand. He grinds the fingers of my left hand—the bitten hand—into the dirt with the toe of his shoe while he does it.

  I can’t help by cry out, and that does it.

  “You most certainly are not,” Davies says. “Dagher, help me.”

  Together, they scoop me up. Piers holds me princess-style, one arm under my back, the other under my legs. His thick shirt is damp with sweat. If I wasn’t so utterly furious with him, I’d lament the days when they used to practice without one.

  “Take her to the infirmary,” she snaps. “Do you need help carrying her?”

  “I’ve got it, Professor. It’s my fault, anyway.” And he starts off toward the school.

  “You’re an asshole,” I groan as we walk. He grins down at me. His face is very close.

  “Yeah? And you’re a cheater. How’s your hand?”

  I don’t reply. We head to the infirmary in silence.

  The school has a lot of nurses, but it’s the head nurse who receives me. “Put her over here,” she commands Piers, and he carefully lays me on a cot. “What happened?”

  “My foot slipped on a climbing rope, and I—I kicked her off. I didn’t mean to!” Again, I see him smirk at me when the nurse isn’t looking.

  The nurse begins examining me, touching different parts until she gets to my left hand. I try to pull it away, but she catches me by the wrist. I wince.

  “Is this hand injured?”

  “No,” I say.

  At the same time Piers says, “Yeah.”

  She pulls off my fingerless glove to look at my bandages. “What’s this?” She starts unwinding them.

  “No!” I cry, starting to panic. I try to pull away, but my back and head hurt too much. “Please. I’m fine, it’s no big deal.”

  She tugs the bandages off and gasps. My hand is swollen and bruised. The gash hasn’t fully healed, and it’s starting to bleed again.

  “This is old, by at least a week. Why didn’t you come in for this earlier?” she demands.

  I glance at Piers. His eyes flash. Don’t, I think, but his mouth is already moving.

  “We’re taking care of creatures this semester in creature handling,” he says.

  “No,” I gasp.

  “I’m a couple chambers down from her. I think it was her kelpie.” The nurse purses her lips. Piers grins down at me. I close my eyes.

  “I’ll have to report this,” I hear the nurse say as if from far away. “Go back to class.” Piers leaves, and the nurse continues examining me. I fight tears.

  I know what happens next.

  After all this, after everything, Aurora is going to die.

  Chapter Twenty

  It’s been a week. Whatever medicine they’ve given me is working, but it’s slow going.

  I open and close my hand. It feels fine now. My ribs are a little bruised, but they’re feeling better. I glance at the bedside table. The homework that Erin has been bringing to me sits there, long since finished. I hate being laid up in the infirmary. I miss Erin and even Sawyer, but I have a couple more days of this.

  But Aurora … she only has a couple more days of life.

  Just as I suspected, a short investigation found Aurora guilty and sentenced her to be put down. None of my protests had any effect … Piers made sure of that. If his story is to be believed, Aurora attacked me—viciously and unprovoked.

  It is, of course, the exact opposite of what happened. What happened was planned, and implemented, by none other than Piers himself.

  I can’t sleep because of it. Every time I close my eyes, I see my monster getting slaughtered.

  So, it’s nighttime, and once again, I’m unable to sleep. I wait until I’m alone, and then I sit up and look carefully around. This is it, my last chance. I have to go see her one last time.

  I gingerly ease out of bed, careful not to jar my ribs too much. The halls are dark and every noise I make sounds a million times louder in the silence.

  The doors to the Menagerie are locked. Of course they are. They wouldn’t want students sneaking in there at night. It’s no matter, I use Sawyer’s paperclip trick to get in.

  I make my way to W2, patting my pockets to make sure I remembered the bits of hamburger I filched from dinner. She deserves a good last meal.

  When I get there, the door to the chamber has caution tape all over it, barring entry to anyone who might be curious to see the creature scheduled to be put down. The sight makes me grit my teeth. She’s not dangerous. She made a mistake, and it wasn’t even her fault.

  Thankfully, the door behind the tape still unlocks with its old key, and I’m able to shoulder through it. Inside, it looks the same. Aurora is sleeping on her rock, but she perks up when she hears me come through. She squeals and dives into the lake, popping up onto the shore, placing her hooves on dry land with her tail splashing happily in the water.

  “Hey, girl,” I say, walking up to her. She nuzzles into my pockets and finds the hamburger while I stroke her seaweed mane. Her scales have gotten dirty and her mane is tangled. Barnacles scrape at the inside of her ankles, leaving scarred patches of skin and scales.

  She’s beginning to look like a wild beast again.

  I press one of my hands to the wide, flat breadth of her snout. “This is gonna be the last time we see each other, Aurora.”

  She looks at me. I wonder if she can understand. I stroke her face.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to her. “I tried to protect you. It’s not your fault.” I lean my forehead against hers. “It’s not your fault,” I say again. Whether or not she understands my words, she can tell I’m sad. She nuzzles me and nickers softly.

  I stay by her side until morning classes are about to start. This is it, her last night, and I won’t let her spend it alone.

&n
bsp; Valentine’s Day rolls around, and it’s down to creature handling I go. It’s my first day back from the infirmary. Erin gently sets a hand on my shoulder. Sawyer watches me with a sympathetic expression.

  They’re putting Aurora down today. And they’re doing it in front of us.

  Doesn’t seem very festive … but I guess, to anyone else, Aurora is just another vicious monster.

  The main chamber of the Menagerie is where all the new students met before the last trial, before I fought the ogre with Piers, Owen, Bennett, and Erin. I feel a numb sense of nostalgia as I sit next to Sawyer on a bench in the back of that same room.

  Professor Jaxton, our creature handling teacher, walks up to the dais. A few staff members follow, their hands clutching the chains that bind Aurora’s hooves and tail, forcing her to move with unnatural, shuffling motions.

  They have her wearing a muzzle. It digs into the scales on her face, making her eyes loll in pain and fear. My heart drops, and I feel the tears come.

  “When we put down a creature here at Saint Marcellus,” Professor Jaxton begins as behind him the staff members drag my poor kelpie onto the dais, “we use an injection. In the old days, we used to decapitate them, but this way is rather painless.”

  Aurora is shrieking and struggling. I raise my hand.

  “Yes, Miss Black?” The professor sounds surprise.

  I get to my feet. “Sir, is it possible—can I sit with her while you—?” I can’t continue. My throat closes, choking off my voice.

  “I’m afraid not,” he replies. “While painless, the injection causes the creatures to convulse violently. There’s too much danger that you’d be injured again.”

  I sit down heavily. Sawyer grabs my hand in both of his and squeezes it.

  Aurora heard my voice. She’s struggling more now, straining to see me, shrieking louder through her muzzle. Professor Jaxton is trying to talk, but her cries echo around the chamber, drowning him out.

  Finally, he gives up, shakes his head, and pulls a syringe out of his pocket.

  Erin reaches over and grabs my other hand. I can’t look away as the professor walks over to the thrashing kelpie onstage. The staff members are doing their best to hold her down, but she’s putting up a fight, even bound as she is.

  “Cover your eyes,” Erin whispers to me, but I shake my head. This is my fault, and I’ve got to watch it.

  The man near Aurora’s head holds her down so that the professor can plunge the needle directly into her neck. Jaxton pushes the liquid out of the syringe, and Aurora thrashes even more violently.

  Her tail whips out of its bindings and she jerks away from Jaxton, who loses his grip on the now-empty syringe. With the needle still in her neck, Aurora flops and convulses, her cries becoming louder and louder until—she stops. She slumps, unmoving. Her eyes are still open.

  She looks scared.

  Finally, I tear my hands away from Erin and Sawyer and bury my face in them. My shoulders shake with sobs. I hear some rustling, the clinking of chains.

  “They’re carrying her out,” Erin says in my ear, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed.

  After a long time, I hear Professor Jaxton’s voice as if from far away: “Everyone can go about your duties as usual. Miss Black, due to your injuries, I won’t be assigning you another creature. You may go back to your dorm and rest.”

  I hear the other students stand up, buzzing with conversation, nowhere near as affected as I am. I sit up. The low light in the chamber dazzles me after the darkness of my own hands. Erin and Sawyer haven’t moved. They’re still here, still with me.

  “I can’t believe they would do this,” I whisper. “I can’t believe they would go this far.” I lurch to my feet and stumble out of the chamber, out of the Menagerie, leaving my confused friends behind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The door to my dorm opens. I look up, expecting to see Erin, but it’s Sawyer who walks through, carrying a cup. He shuts the door behind him.

  “Brought you something,” he says softly.

  I lay my head back down on my pillow. “It’s too late in the day for coffee.”

  “It’s tea,” he replies. He crosses into my field of vision and grabs my desk chair, dragging it to sit nearer to the bed. “My mom used to make it for me when I was upset.”

  Reluctantly, I sit up and accept the cup from him. It looks much darker than the tea I’m used to. When I take a sip, I scrunch up my face. It’s bitter.

  He laughs a little. “Sorry. I’m not very good at making tea … but I brought some sugar packets.”

  After almost all the sugar packets are depleted, the tea is finally just barely palatable. I take a couple sips and then go to set it down on the dresser, but Sawyer is staring at me so eagerly I drink it all down just to get him to stop.

  And it does make me feel a little better. Within a few minutes, I start to feel … lighter.

  Sawyer shifts so he’s crouched in front of me, looking up into my face. “Um, before you left,” Sawyer says. “You said something.”

  I nod, but my head feels strange. Very clear, very light.

  “You said, ‘I can’t believe they would go this far’. Who did you mean?”

  “Piers, Owen, and Bennett,” I reply immediately. My head swims.

  Sawyer is staring at me with an almost alarming intensity. Something about it seems … off … but I can’t place it.

  “What did they do?” Sawyer asks.

  The answer pops into my head, and I don’t want to say it, but the words leave my mouth unbidden, as though I’m not controlling myself. “They sprayed something on my glove. Aurora didn’t like it. She bit me and tore up my glove.”

  “Why didn’t you think they would go so far as to get your creature executed?”

  The question sounds robotic, premeditated, even. It’s wrong. This isn’t normal, but then, why do I feel so compelled to answer him?

  “I thought the days of them hurting me were behind us. I connected with them before Christmas break.”

  “You connected with them?”

  “Yes.” The answer comes fast and sharp. No hesitation.

  “And you’re hurt they went this far to hurt you? Why?”

  “I have feelings for them,” I reply. My head is buzzing. “They’re good people deep down. I want to see that good in them.” Stars are exploding in my head. I’m fighting to regain control I wasn’t even aware I lost until just now.

  I look up into Sawyer’s eyes. He’s hovering over me, glaring down at me with that same terrifying intensity. I remember the tea. There must have been something in the tea.

  “You,” I mumble, as Sawyer drops my hands and gets angrily to his feet. “You drugged me.”

  “Devil’s breath,” Sawyer replies. “Got some from your backpack the other day.” He sounds angry. His voice is loud, echoing in my brain. I squeeze my eyes shut. “What the fuck, Avery? You have feelings for those douchebags?”

  “You drugged me,” I say, rubbing my eyes. My brain is getting heavier. My limbs are starting to feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. “How can you be mad at me? You drugged me!”

  “Just to get the truth out of you, because you never tell me the full truth!” he shouts, and I wince. “How could you have feelings for them? What about me?”

  “I didn’t even know I had feelings for them!” I yell back. All this noise is hurting my head.

  “And what about me?” he repeats. “What about that night in the cabin? Didn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “We’re not a couple, Sawyer.” My head finally clears, and I shoot to my feet. Sawyer takes a step back. “I told you that, and you agreed!”

  “I just thought—whatever, Avery. You’re a real bitch.” He strides to the door.

  “And you’re an asshole!” I shout. “You drugged me with shit you stole from my parents.”

  “It doesn’t even last that long, even less for you” he snaps back at me, referencing my higher tolerance than most. He has a han
d on the doorknob. “Get over it.” He wrenches open the door.

  “Well guess what else doesn’t last that long?” I yell at him, pointing at his hips.

  His face contorts in rage and he storms out, slamming the door behind him.

  Whether it’s the lingering effects of the devil’s breath or the pure anger I’m feeling, I feel antsy. I can’t stay here.

  I throw on my hoodie and scribble a quick note to Erin so she won’t worry. I leave the dorm and walk quickly out of the residence wing, to the entrance hall, and out the double doors into the courtyard, not breaking stride as I reach the gate. My ribs ache just a little, but I’ll be fine.

  Or I will be soon … once I find that tavern I saw down in the village.

  It’s freezing on the trek down, if not well below. My feet are numb by the time I find it. I push my way into the door and stomp my feet on the mat, shaking residual snow off my shoes and pants.

  The inside is every bit as warm and inviting as it was cold and inhospitable outside. I head past the full tables to an empty seat at the bar, plopping down some Romanian money on the counter.

  The bartender asks me what I want in Romanian, and I just point to something on the menu behind him. My lessons in the language only go so far, and though I can’t speak it well enough to actually order anything, I’m proud to understand a bit of what he says.

  He nods and pours me some clear liquid in a glass, which he slams down on the counter with gusto. I nod back at him, lift it to my lips, and take a sip. It tastes somehow sour and sweet at the same time, and it burns like fire all the way down.

  After my first drink, I make the sensible decision and point to the beers on tap instead. I sit and watch the people at the other tables. I have little idea what anyone is saying, but they look like they’re having fun. One table keeps ordering shots, getting louder with each round.

  I’m surprised by how many young people there are in this town. Usually the old villages like this end up dying out as the people my age move to bigger cities.

  One of those young men has been glancing my way, and I know the meaning of the gleam in his eye. At first, I pay him no attention, but as the few beers become many, I catch myself looking his way as well.