by Demi Dumond
I heard myself scream as the fireballs lit them up. I knew it wouldn’t hold them off for long. They were too big and there were too many of them.
I turned and followed the last of the students up the stairs while I still could.
“You’re welcome!” I screamed to my fellow students as I made it to the top and slammed the door shut. I had to admit, it was a hell of a party.
24
Keira
The next day passed slowly. Most of the students were hung over, and the professors seemed to know. They made life miserable for us.
I sat there taking notes and listening to the teacher drone on and on, yet I felt a million miles away, lost in my thoughts about Ian and Rafe.
There was also the comforting humming of the ring, which I looked at often. I was never without it.
All of a sudden, I was pulled out of my internal thoughts in the middle of class by a scream. The scream was outside and sounded far away, but it caught everybody’s attention.
There was a window to my left that ran the length of the wall on that side of the classroom. I knew that window looked out at the forest.
The other students looked worried and whispered. I could tell they were on edge. Was it a group of students outside playing hooky and screaming from regular horsing around? Or was it something worse?
The next scream was closer and answered my question. It was a blood curdling noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I ran with a surge of other students to the window.
“Back in your seats,” the teacher said, but she could barely be heard over the sound of running footsteps and the curtains being moved out of the way.
I shoved my way through to the window so I could see. Down below, a student was screaming and running fast through the woods toward the academy, approaching the tree line.
The student was easy to see because the purple and gold of his uniform stood out among the green trees and grass. The building rumbled as another earthquake hit.
I grabbed onto the windowsill and looked up as dust and paint chips fell from the ceiling. What the hell? I thought Malachai said that the forest was safe during the day.
Then, still screaming, he broke through the tree line out of the forest and into the courtyard. I followed his trajectory with my eyes, backward into the forest to try to identify what he was running from. I heard a collective gasp from the crowd.
Then I saw it. Even though I heard the rest of them gasp, I still couldn’t stifle one of my own. Something was chasing the student, something big. The rumbling and shaking of the building got worse as the monster came barreling toward the student and the building.
From what I could see, the monster was huge. It was a greenish color and moving fast despite its clumsy gait. The creature’s footsteps were what was causing the building to shake.
My eyes went back to the student. It looked like he was going to make it into the building before the monster caught up with him. I breathed a sigh of relief. The beast roared in frustration. It was not quite free of the woods.
Then the student fell down, tripping into the grass of the courtyard and rolling over a couple of times.
“Get up, get up, get up,” I found myself saying as I watched him get to one knee in an attempt to get back on his feet so he could keep running.
Then my eyes went back to the monster. To my horror, it leaped into the air and over the giant trees. Then it spread its wings, picking up speed and releasing a burst of flames toward the building.
We all ducked as the flames hit the side of the building. We could see the flash of light and feel the heat through the wall. When the orange burst subsided, we all stood back up again to see what was happening.
The student had gotten up and was running fast, but the monster landed next to him with an earth-shaking thud that made the lights inside the building flicker.
It also knocked the running student back to the earth. The monster, which I got a very good look at now that it was right below me in the courtyard, appeared to be a dragon. A real-life, motherfucking, fire-breathing dragon.
As my deepest fears washed over me, I realized that I now believed in both dungeons and dragons. The thought, the insanity of it all would have had me in loud, manic, hysterical laughter if not for what happened next.
The monster took two clumsy steps toward the terrified, screaming student. Then it opened its mouth, leaned down, and chomped.
There was a crunching sound and a muffled scream. I stood there not believing what I was seeing, but I couldn’t look away.
When the creature flew away a moment later, there was a piece of a blazer, several body parts, and a pool of blood on the lawn.
There was a long moment of silence between all of the students standing at the window. No longer able to fight back the urge to vomit, I ran to the nearest bathroom.
25
Keira
The rest of the day went by in a haze. The classes were subdued, the teachers morose, and the students quiet. It was safe to say nothing got done after the incident with the dragon.
Oh, scratch that, some things got done. I got four threatening letters in my backpack and two more placed on my desk in different classes. The stares were constant and getting more malevolent by the moment.
It was hard to deal with. I didn’t like the idea of a fucking dragon preying on students any more than anybody else. That courtyard had been my happy place, my refuge. And now it was starting to feel as dangerous as the rest of this place.
The lunch bell rang. I went outside. I felt awful about what had happened earlier, and I wasn’t about to go beyond the courtyard, but I needed the fresh air. As bad as the outside of the school was, the inside was starting to feel claustrophobic as well.
Luckily, the mage area was on the opposite side of the courtyard from the earlier incident. The incident fell squarely into shifter territory and I could see them milling around or pacing back and forth in their area. I felt bad for them.
I went to the mage area and sat down in the grass with my back against the academy wall, since all of the stone benches were taken. Also, there was a good view of the forest and if there was the slightest roar or rumble, I was out of there.
I heard footsteps and looked up to see Malachai looming over me. He was, apparently one of the few students in the academy powerful enough to cross the species lines and not take any shit for it.
“Sorry,” I said to him, “you’ve already reached your passive-aggressive quota for the semester. Not interested anymore.” He was as beautiful as they come, and I couldn’t deny my attraction. But emotionally, he was a handful.
He responded by grinning down at me, his gold hair shining in the sun. “I’m sorry about before. It’s just that I don’t wish my kind of dark magic on anyone, it makes me feel like an outsider. And what happened here earlier has everybody on edge. Are you okay?”
He knelt next to me and stared into my eyes. It was like cheating. As much of an asshole as Malachai could be, something about him still felt like home.
“Let me make it up to you and buy you dinner, okay?” he said, lips curled into a smirk. “You can’t just sit here and go hungry.”
“Dinner is included in my academic plan,” I replied.
“I know.” He was golden muscles and flowing blond hair, and he was at the moment completely irresistible. I needed some company after the events of the day.
We grabbed sandwiches and went back outside to eat them. It was getting to be late afternoon of a beautiful sunny day. On instinct, I listened as soon as I went out the door, straining my ears for any sign of trouble.
But right now, the birds were singing, and students were chattering. That made me breathe a little easier.
Malachai ate a bite of his sandwich. “Great job with that spell in Kiln’s class this week,” he said. “That was amazing. You’ve made a lot of progress.”
“Thanks.” I wondered if he was really praising me or accusing me of something. His dominant facial
expressions were an impertinent smile and impassive observation, so I could never be sure. I got the feeling he knew a lot more than he ever let on.
The two of us sat and ate and kept an eye on the woods. For a moment, everything was okay. Then the moment was over.
All of a sudden, Malachai jumped up and threw his sandwich down. “Shit!”
I got up too, and followed his gaze, but all I saw was a student near the front gate of the academy. “What is it?”
Without answering, Malachai sprinted toward the front gate. “Jack! Don’t do it,” Malachai waved his arms.
I followed, having no idea what the hell was going on. Unlike Malachai, I took my sandwich with me. There were no signs of monsters that I could see, and there was no screaming. Just the one kid at the gate. Had Malachai lost it?
The student at the gate was a skinny, dark-haired boy who turned when he heard Malachai’s shouts. It seemed to startle him. He hurried up and grabbed the gate before Malachai could stop him.
When the kid touched the gate, several things happened. First, I heard a loud noise. It sounded to me like a cross between fabric ripping and a bug zapper. It was an awful sound, and it rubbed my soul the wrong way like nails on a chalkboard. I stopped and dropped to my knees, covering my ears.
There was a zap and then a pop. Then the kid flew backward ten feet or so and landed on his back in the grass. The entire front of his body was smoking, and he was seizing on the ground. I ran to catch up and see if there was something I could do to help.
Malachai got to him first and started CPR. “One, two, three, four, breath,” he muttered. “Damn it, Jack, I told you not to do it. Why didn’t you listen to me?”
“What just happened?” I asked, wondering why Malachai was yelling at the poor guy.
“I told you, the magical perimeter. It keeps the general public out without harm, but it also keeps us in.” He seemed to have more to say on the subject, but his voice trailed off as he continued chest compressions. “Somebody get a doctor!”
I heard the door to the academy open and close as somebody ran inside to get a doctor. I covered my face with my hand, hoping that Jack would be okay. Then I remembered the night that I arrived at the academy and the tattoo that the Headmaster had put on my ankle.
He said that it would keep me inside Academy grounds, he never said that if I tried to escape it would kill me. That seemed like pertinent information for new students.
“If he knew it was dangerous, why did he do it? Why didn’t he listen to you?” I asked Malachai.
“Because of the attacks. Students are afraid because of the prophecy thing. And now the dragon.”
I took a few steps back, feeling terrible. What didn’t make sense to me was why the administration didn’t just take care of these monsters in the forest themselves?
Why let all these prophecy rumors swirl while doing nothing about rampaging monsters on school property and letting me take the blame? Frankly, it was starting to piss me off.
Malachai glanced up at me. “It’s not your fault, Keira.” Then he went back to work on Jack. The door to the academy burst open and a medical team came out.
A moment later, they pushed Malachai out of the way so that they could take over.
Malachai put an arm around me as the team brought Jack inside. It made me feel safe. “Malachai?”
“Yes?”
“If it’s not my fault, then why does everybody blame me?” I asked.
He just shook his head.
A student came running up behind us. She had long curly brown hair and wore a beanie with a crest on it. “Are you Keira?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The headmaster would like to see you in his office right now.”
I knew this wasn’t going to be good.
26
Keira
I knocked on the Headmaster’s door and waited a moment, hoping he was too busy to see me. In fact, maybe he’d want me to come back later. I wanted to be literally anywhere but here.
“Come in,” he said. “And close the door.”
Once I settled into my chair across from him, I waited for the other shoe to drop. If he thought that my time here at Blood Moon Academy had not taught me to function while someone in the room was hostile to me, he was wrong. I crossed my arms.
The headmaster stared down at a stack of papers he was skimming through. His glasses hung at an angle not quite lining up with his eyes, which bothered me as much today as it had before.
In his hand was the fountain pen. The sharp, pointed nib glinted in the light and I imagined it was a decent weapon in a pinch. I waited for him to finish.
After a moment, he threw the pen down dramatically, took the glasses off his face and held them in his hand. Then he looked up at me.
“Ms. Rose do you have any idea when the last time a student tried to breach the front gate of Blood Moon Academy?”
“Oh, I know this one,” I said, my sarcasm taking over because I was on edge. “Today. Poor Jack, I hope he’s okay.”
“I mean before today,” he said. “It has literally been more than a century.”
A century? I stared at the Headmaster more intently. Just how old was this guy?
He ignored me and continued. “Let me assure you, escape is not only impertinent, it is absolutely impossible.”
Escape? What the hell was he talking about? I was more worried about Jack. Why the hell were there magical electric fences keeping students in? As usual, when important conversations were happening, I felt like I had missed something.
“Is Jack going to be okay?” I asked. “And why would the students want to escape?”
“Because of you,” he shouted.
I remembered that Malachai said that the students were scared. This was, of course, about that stupid prophecy. Kiln had been worried from the very beginning, but he’s the one who let me in anyway.
“Is this about that prophecy or whatever? Just tell them it’s not me. And up your security or whatever.”
The Headmaster stood to full height. Then he crossed to loom over me. “I’ve already maxed out security. Yes, it’s about the prophecy. I didn’t believe it myself at first, but I can no longer deny the reality of the situation. This prophecy leads right back to you. And let me tell you, if one more student tries to escape, I will throw you in the dungeon.”
I sat there and blinked. Did he really say he was going to throw me into a dungeon? Was he kidding? He wasn’t smiling, and he didn’t seem like the kidding type. I was actually speechless.
“Believe me,” he said. “The dungeon is real, and it’s much, much older than the last escape attempt. I will not hesitate to let you rot in there like in times of old.”
I searched his face, growing more terrified by the moment. Rotting in a dungeon in a spooky old academy was not what I had in mind when I got here. But then again, neither was being held against my will or eaten by monsters.
I thought about how happy the rest of the students would be if I were thrown into a dungeon and forgotten about. My anger rose, along with my fear. Why the hell was he threatening me? “How am I supposed to keep other kids from trying to escape? That sounds like your job, not mine.”
The headmaster went back to his desk and sat down again before fixing me with a stare. “The students obviously think you are behind this string of attacks. You will have to convince them otherwise.”
He cleared his throat. “And, please don’t take this as an idle threat. I will do whatever it takes to restore order. You are dismissed, Ms. Rose.”
27
Keira
Once I got out into the hallway and away from the headmaster, I stopped to process what had just happened.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What am I going to do? I’m trapped here. The students hate me, and I’m going to get thrown into a dungeon.
Of course, I hadn’t seen the dungeon, but I had no reason to believe it wasn’t there, especially with all of the other weird shit that was going on.
It didn’t matter that none of this was my fault, I knew the Headmaster was going to find a way to get rid of me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I hyperventilated by myself in the hallway between the administration offices and the classrooms for a few minutes. I had to think of a plan.
Jack’s escape attempt had gone badly. That kind of news spread like wildfire here. That ought to discourage any other attempts, at least for now.
If I could just prove to these people that the prophecy had nothing to do with me, then maybe they’d hate me a little less. Then they wouldn’t be able to blame me for whatever the hell was going on with these stupid attacks.
If I could get the other students to move on from the prophecy thing, maybe we could set up student neighborhood magical watch groups or something to take care of each other since the headmaster wasn’t motivated to help. I had to do something, for my own safety and for everybody else’s.
I heard footsteps and turned to see the very last person I expected striding down the hallway toward me.
It was Rafe. And holy shit. He was all sweaty and not wearing a shirt. He had obviously been working out. Between the sweat-glistened six pack abs, the bulging biceps, and the anaconda in his athletic shorts, there was nowhere for my eyes to go without biting my bottom lip and holding my breath.
I watched him approach, expecting more hostility. But he must have realized that I wasn’t curled up in the hallway by myself freaking out for the fun of it. He stopped, and his brown eyes looked at me with concern. I know, because I forced my eyes up to his in order to avoid looking at the rest of him.
