Fear University

by Meg Collett

“Keep the whip tight!” Luke shouted. “We’ll get to you. It’s okay.”

  Was he talking to me? I spat blood onto the ground. I knew it was going to be okay, because I’d made it so. I jerked the whip one more time. With the slack, I tied it around the bars, looping the leather around and around until I tied it off in a knot that didn’t give the ’swang any slack. From behind me, he whimpered, the sound so sad and awful that a shard of guilt tore through me.

  I’m sorry, I said to him, finishing off the knot that would keep him in place. I didn’t want it to end like this.

  “Someone get a medic!”

  “Ollie, you’re okay! Don’t touch it. Don’t go near it!”

  I ignored Luke. The ’swang thrashed against the concrete. Suffering. I spun around, searching for a knife. One lay on the other side of the cage. I limped over, right leg dragging, and grabbed it. The ’swang didn’t move as I crossed to him. His eyes rolled up to me and registered the knife in my hand.

  “Ollie, no!”

  Just end it, he said. His voice was broken.

  I’m sorry.

  Me too.

  I stabbed the knife into his eye.

  Only when he was still beneath me did I look up at the glass. The glass didn’t clear and Dean didn’t speak again. But the cage doors unlocked with sharp beeps and Luke, Hatter, and too many guards to count rushed in.

  I fell to my knees, a sob lodged in my throat as I blacked out.

  N I N E T E E N

  I woke in the ward the next morning. Sunny lay in the cot next to me. Beside her, still gripping her hand, Hatter sat on a stool, slumped over and snoring.

  Slowly, with as little growling as possible so I didn’t wake them, I eased off the cot. My ribs were wrapped so tightly I barely managed to breathe, much less pull myself into a sitting position. With a deep breath, I used my free arm to jerk myself up as I swung my legs over the edge. The floor of the ward tilted and spun, but I’d managed it.

  I knew I was too injured to be moving, but I did it anyway to prove to myself that I still could. Sitting at the edge of the cot, my body flushed with searing heat and then freezing cold. I shook with chills even as sweat rolled down my forehead. If I kept my eyes up and away from the tight sling around my shoulder to brace my shattered collar bone, the wide swath of bandages beneath my sports bra to support my broken ribs, the way my right leg scraped across the floor, and the stitched-up seeping claw marks across my neck and jaw, I could convince myself I was fine. That I was still invincible.

  I felt fine. Felt invincible. If I just didn’t look down.

  “He’s meeting with Dean,” Hatter said quietly, surprising me. I glanced back at him. He hadn’t moved from Sunny’s side, but he must have heard me trying to get up. It didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t offered to help. Apparently, I was still on his shit list.

  He turned away from me, ending the conversation. The only sound as I left came from my foot dragging as I hobbled across the ward.

  The stairs proved harder than I thought, and by the time I’d made it up them, my vision slanted sharply off-kilter and my body hummed with a pulsing pressure that made my ears pop. The two more flights of stairs to Dean’s office were too much to consider. A few students clustered in the main entry as I limped through, their conversations hushing as I appeared, their eyes hovering on the thick bandage on my face. Keeping my head down, I shoved out of the main door and trudged toward the barracks.

  Eventually I made it. Though I was practically dragging myself as I collapsed face-first onto Luke’s bed. It sent a rattling in my ribs that set my teeth on edge and twisted my stomach. I groaned.

  Bright side: at least the ’swang hadn’t bitten me. That would have made today really suck.

  I laid there for a while until my breath came a little easier. It wouldn’t take Luke long to find me here, but I shifted around on the bed, trying to find a position that didn’t cause my body to feel like a balloon about burst. As I rolled over, I spotted a paper on Luke’s bedside table. I almost ignored it, but the only thing written on it was a single name.

  Frowning, I reached for it, not bothering to acknowledge how my broken ribs scraped against my lungs. I pulled the page out from where it was half buried. Once I had it in my hands, I read the name scribbled across it over and over.

  Olesya Volkova.

  Volkova. I’d seen that name before. I stared at the page until the quickly scrawled ink blurred. Why had Luke written this name down? The books on the table revealed nothing that would have prompted a note like this, and I’d never told him my full first name unless he’d read my file in Dean’s office, which I doubted.

  My head snapped up. The binder of the Originals. The Volkova family had been listed with the other original families.

  Olesya Volkova.

  I’m your father, Olesya.

  From the front of the barracks, a door slammed. Heavy boots stomped down the hall. I set the paper aside, back where I found it, and looked innocently at the door as Luke barreled in.

  “What the hell, Ollie?” he shouted. “Are you insane? You have a broken pelvis and collarbone! You need to be in the ward!”

  No finger tapping. No controlled unwrapping of his caramel candies. Nothing. Straight to wild Luke, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

  “How was your meeting?” I asked, ignoring him.

  Something happened in my chest, beneath the bandages and broken ribs. Something that had to do with my heart. Luke had a page in his room with my first name and an Original family last name. Hex was my father. I was part aswang.

  So what did this page mean? Anything or everything?

  I surfaced from my thoughts. Luke was still yelling at me. When he saw I hadn’t been paying attention, he stopped, shoulders heaving. He raked his hands roughly through his hair, tugging at the ends. A tic traveled up and down his jaw. A long moment passed, filled with his ragged breathing. I’d never seen him work so hard to get himself under control.

  Looking at him hurt that part of my heart, so I stared at my hands with my head cocked, wondering what the hell was happening to me. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream.

  Olesya Volkova.

  All this time, I thought I was a murderer, a runaway. No home. No family. Just me and running and trying to stay alive. That’s all I ever was. Now, I had no clue.

  What am I?

  Luke was talking again. “What?” I asked, interrupting him.

  “Christ.” He crossed the room and sat down on the bed beside me. “Are you okay, Ollie?” He went to touch me, but his hand froze in the air inches away from my wounded cheek as if he remembered the line in the sand between us. Too screwed up to be together. And now, I thought ruefully, remembering how the ’swang had ruined my face, too ugly. I turned away from him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you faster,” he said, voice rasping. “I had no idea what Dean had planned.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What else has happened.”

  Slowly, my eyes met his. He hadn’t shaved in a couple days. The scruff made his chiseled face look harsher and sharper, more angled and haunted. Black circles darkened the skin beneath his eyes. He looked like hell.

  “Everything is wrong,” I whispered.

  Olesya Volkova.

  The name meant nothing to me. Olesya was a common Russian name. But that page did mean one important thing: Luke was keeping secrets again.

  I didn’t trust him, but unlike him lying about how dangerous the day-form ’swangs were, I couldn’t be mad at him for this secret. I had my own lies to hide.

  He scooted closer and put his arm around me. “I’ll protect you,” he said, but he spoke the words into the wall without looking at me. “I know I wasn’t there at the cage, but I’ll do better. I’ll be better. I promise.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew the truth.”

  He stiffened beside me. Maybe we’d never been good enough friends to tell each o
ther all our secrets, but we’d been close. At one point, I’d hoped he would be the one I never lied to. Now the lies were building up so high that I hardly saw him over them. Finally, he spoke. “What is the truth, Ollie?”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t trust him, and he couldn’t trust me. It broke my heart.

  “I know you’re not telling me the truth about some things,” Luke said, his voice low and controlled, his grip tightening on me. “It’s fine if you want to lie to me, but remember Dean will never let you rest, never ease up on you. He’ll keep at you until he gets you killed, and when you’re dead, all your secrets will be revealed when he examines your brain.”

  I gritted my teeth to keep from shuddering. “Are you lying to me?”

  His eyes flicked to the table where the page with my first name on it rested. “No,” he lied.

  I turned my head away, hoping he wouldn’t see the moisture building up in my eyes. “Then I’m not lying either,” I said. And I love you. I love you even with your secrets and lies. I love you in spite of this place. I love you, but I’m a monster, and you’ll hate me when you know the truth.

  I clamped my mouth shut to keep those words from spilling out, because he could never know I was the monster he’d trained his entire life to kill. He couldn’t know I was the monster his father had abused him for. He could never love me enough to ignore the monster inside me.

  “You’re going north.”

  The words surprised me. “Now?”

  “For winter break. Dean wants you to go north to Barrow with me and a group of hunters. He says it’ll be good experience for you.”

  “Good experience,” I said numbly. All my plans of leaving, of going to Peg, were gone. If there were answers to have about me, I would have to find them myself. “I take it I’m not getting my pardon after all. Once a murderer, always a murderer.”

  “If you cooperate up north, he said he would still honor your deal about the pardon.”

  I snorted. Yeah right. “Did I at least pass Fields?”

  “You did. He said he made it harder because of your abilities. Everyone is talking about it,” he said, disgust heavy in his voice. “They’re saying you’re some great talent, but they have no clue he tried to kill you. Ollie, this is what I was afraid of, but if you come north, I can keep you safe.” His grip tightened and he finally looked at me. “Winter break would give us time to figure out what Dean wants with you.”

  He wants to make monsters from a monster. He wants my head cracked open, brains exposed for his knife. He wants me dead but not before I provide him with an army. I said none of it out loud.

  “Your father is in Barrow,” I said instead.

  Luke’s fist clenched in his lap. “Don’t worry about him.”

  “Dean will have him testing me or . . .” Or experimenting on me. Maybe north was an excuse for me to die.

  Luke shook his head. “Dean has to be careful after Fields. Some of the professors and hunters are watching him closely. They say he’s going too far with the testing, that you were too young. The other students faced off with some old ’swang that’s so beat down he doesn’t even try to do anything. It’s what all the first-years do for Fields. They just had to stay in the cage for five minutes to test their fear. By the time we figured out he’d sent everyone away, it was too late. You were already killing it.”

  “He was really going to let us die if I couldn’t kill it?”

  “The ’swang was old and slightly sedated, and Dean had a gun up there with him. I don’t think he would’ve let it get that far.”

  I looked away as Luke kept talking about how everyone was saying my test was the best they’d ever seen. Instead, I thought about Dean and the bodies in the morgue. He never would have used that gun to save us. I was easier to handle dead than alive. If I’d died with a decent excuse, Dean could have studied my brain. And would have realized what I was.

  That was why he was sending me north.

  Dead with a pretty bow on top. Monster free-for-all. Instructions included.

  And Dean would never be punished for trying to get me killed, because everyone here, including Luke, didn’t think the President of Fear University was capable of killing a student. But he was. He really, really was.

  “Sunny and Hatter are coming north too. Hatter won’t leave her here alone with him.”

  I sighed. “He won’t leave her or Dean won’t? He used her as leverage last night. I doubt he would be bothered to do it again.”

  “Dean said if you didn’t come back with me, Sunny wouldn’t either.” His voice sounded reluctant, like he’d hoped I wouldn’t figure that part out.

  “Is that the full truth?”

  Luke nodded, but he was lying again. That wasn’t the full truth. I thought about the page beside me. All the ’swangs would be up north. Including Hex. If I wanted the truth, and I did, I would need to talk to him, which meant going where Dean wanted me to. Playing into his hands. If I managed to stay alive, I would be able to find my answers. Maybe, just maybe, I could figure out a way to stay and make Dean pay. To keep my family, my home, and Luke.

  If I was going to stay instead of run, then I needed answers.

  I’d never been the type to stay. I was a runner. A low-life. A murderer. Like my mom, I wasn’t the type to keep promises or stay when I was needed.

  “We need time,” Luke was saying. “We can figure out what Dean is planning.”

  “He wants monsters,” I said quietly.

  “Ollie . . .” Luke leaned into me, resting his head against mine. “You’re not a monster. You’re just too good at killing monsters. That’s all. Nothing is wrong with you.”

  Everything was wrong with me.

  I met Luke’s eyes and waited for another lie. “Do you really believe that?”

  But I was really asking if my broken lover, beaten down and beaten up by his insane father, infected with saliva, turned into a vengeful, angry man by the university he believed in, still believed in me, even though we were too screwed up to be together, even though I was a monster and he was a monster hunter.

  Unwavering, Luke met my eyes and nodded. “I do.”

  Truth. He still believed. That alone was enough for me to stay and fight. For as a long as possible, I wanted him to believe that nothing was wrong with me. I loved him.

  “North it is then.”

  North to kill ’swangs.

  North to search for truth amongst the blood and bones.

  North for pretty answers to ugly questions.

  North for Olesya Volkova.

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, thank you, Nate. How you can tolerate me and still manage to love me, I will never understand. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me to dream and that hard work kicks luck’s ass every time. Sorry I said ‘ass.’ And sorry for all the f-bombs in this book and for the awkward sexy stuff too. Thank you, Wylla, Mandy, and Drax the Destroyer. Y’all hang out with me all day while I’m writing and never, not even once, look at me funny for talking to myself. Big thank you to Jessica West and Red Road Editing for understanding my vision of Ollie and making her grammatically correct. Jessica, your friendship and enthusiasm make my life complete. Another big round of gratitude goes out to Najla Qamber Designs. Thank you for yet another beautiful cover, and thank you to you and your wonderful family for all the personal accounts and stories about the aswang. Thank you, Katie, my favorite aunt, for helping me with all the medical questions I had (and thank you for always asking if it was “real life” or not. I appreciate the concern, even though we both know I don’t go outside enough to actually get hurt). Thank you to my “Not a Street Team” members. Y’all are the best not a street team ever. And a huge, massive thank you to my Reviewers Club. Last but not least, I would like to thank The Hype PR, all the bloggers who spread the word about Fear University, and all the early readers, who called dibs on Luke.

  Licks for all your faces.

  About the Author

  Meg Collett lives deep in
the hills of Tennessee where the cell phone service is a blessing and the Internet is a myth of epic proportions. She is the mother of one giant horse named Elle and three dogs named Wylla, Mandy, and Drax the Destroyer. Her husband is a saint for putting up with her ragtag life.

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  Other Books by Meg Collett

  End of Days series

  The Hunted One

  The Lost One

  The Only One

  End of Days Trilogy Box Set

  Days of New serials

  (an End of Days spin-off series)

  Speaking of the Devil

  Full of the Devil

  Better the Devil You Know

  Devil in the Details

  Give the Devil His Due

  Days of New Complete Box Set

  Stand-alone Contemporary Romance

  Fakers

  Novellas

  Little Girls and Their Ponies