Flynn and I sat in chairs next to each other while Suthering headed to open the door. There was a proportionally measured gap between the chairs, two feet apart as they were equidistantly arranged. Flynn scooted his chair closer to mine so only a couple inches remained.
“Nervous?” I asked.
He gulped. “Damn straight I am.”
At least I’m not the only one posing bravery here. “But he’s on our side,” I whispered as Suthering spoke at the door.
“How do we know?” Flynn mouthed to me as others entered this room.
How did we know? Because he just erased evidence right before our eyes! Actions versus words and all that. Was Flynn that jaded and mistrusting that he didn’t believe Suthering simply because he hadn’t manually emptied the computer’s trash, therefore permanently removing the evidence? And here I thought I had issues having faith in people.
“Mr. Madsen, Miss Holden,” Suthering began.
We faced him as the councilmembers entered Mr. Suthering’s deep-brown decorated space.
“You already know Headmistress Andeas,” he said as the prim woman took a seat. She slapped a zipped-up legal pad folder to the table and sat glaring at us.
Not a good vibe here.
“And this is Ms. Bateson.”
“I have them for my Zoology lecture, Gerry.” Ms. Bateson employed her accent to her words, rendering her maybe a six on the scale of one being plain, old English and ten being slurred, untranslatable brogue.
“And this is Dr. Griswold.”
The skinny man crossed the tails of his white lab coat over his lap as he took his seat.
“Hello,” he said with a brief glance at me but a longer scrutiny of Flynn. His voice was drastically different from Bateson’s but I couldn’t place his accent. It hardly mattered. Where he came from wouldn’t make a difference in the power he seemed to have here at the Academy.
“It’s come to our attention that an incident occurred during your gym session today. You were studying proper horsemanship with Mr. Otis at the stables, correct?” Glorian said once her colleagues were seated across from us.
Mr. Otis? I bit back an inappropriate laugh. I thought that was his first name.
“Correct,” Flynn answered.
“And what happened?” Bateson asked.
Neither Flynn nor I opened our mouths. That was a bit too much of an open-ended fill-in-the-blank situation. I checked a glance at Suthering.
You told us not to answer, that you’d handle this…
“Why bother asking them? We can verify what occurred. Gerry?” Griswold said and sat up in his chair. He set his hands together on the table and steepled his fingers. “Have you pulled the stables’ exterior surveillance tape?”
“I tried to.”
Glorian slanted a glare at the headmaster. “Tried to?”
Suthering shrugged, splaying his hands out. “Nothing was there.”
“Nothing? Why would nothing be on the surveillance?” Griswold demanded.
“I’m no tech expert, but when I requested security to bring me the feed, nothing was there.”
“It was deleted?” Bateson asked while icily glaring at Suthering.
Do not blush. Do not blush. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.
Suthering shook his head. “I don’t know. All I was provided was a blank screen.”
“I don’t understand,” Griswold lamented.
“Was the camera identified as a malfunctioning unit?” Glorian asked, her beady regard never once leaving Suthering.
“Not that I’m aware of, but it’s a possibility.” Suthering sighed and placed his hands palm down on the table.
“What are you aware of?” Griswold burst out. “I came upon a…subject—”
Animal. A-nim-al. They are called animals.
“—and Otis was just lying there…” The doctor let out a grunt and set his lips together.
The councilmembers, sans Suthering, sat there quietly, fuming, it seemed, by their displeased frowns at the lack of a video to resort to.
“Miss Holden.”
I froze at Glorian simply saying my name. Her tone brokered no nonsense. She wanted answers.
“Yes, ma’am?” I replied.
Why couldn’t you pick on Flynn instead? I refused to break my attention from her, but oh how I wanted to sass at Suthering. This is you taking care of it all?
“Tell us what happened at your gym class today.”
“No please?” I teased. When she didn’t even crack smidgen of a smile, I laughed weakly. Sooo much for humor to break this tension. And sooo not the time to be a smart alec. Adrenaline was short-circuiting my brain and I was uncharacteristically acting out.
Just…calm down. Think…
I nodded and inhaled, calling on every reserve of bullshit I might have in my head. Paging, Inner Sabine. Paging, Sabine Manipulation Observations. Paging…? I doubted even my sister would know a way out of such a direct demand for answers like this. Yet, she’d deflected this old lady’s inquisition about the sweatshirt…
“I’ll wait as long as I need to, Miss Holden,” she droned.
I swallowed. “Oh, uh, no need to wait. It’s quite simple, really.”
Simple. Ha.
“We were brushing down the horses and putting the saddles away after riding.” I licked my lips, faltering. I lifted my hand, reaching for my earlobe, but Flynn intercepted before I could even move it from my lap. He held it under the table and squeezed my fingers.
“Go on,” she insisted.
I imagined replaying the surveillance feed that Suthering had just deleted. I tried to mentally erase all traces of the griffins, and signs of me and Flynn controlling the animals. And I described that. Horses suddenly running wild. Otis on the ground. Flynn and I went to check on Otis, and then the horses simply jumped the fence.
“Just like that?” Bateson asked, her pointy chin in her palm as she rested her elbow on the table. “The horses were spooked and ran away?”
“I guess.” I shrugged for the special effect of gee, I dunno.
“What subject did you find in the pen, Gris?” Bateson asked the doctor.
“I didn’t see, exactly. Miss Verlene’s call for help suggested ancient species involvement. When Wolf came, he explained why the subject had escaped.”
“Escaped?” Glorian slapped her unopened pen to the mahogany tabletop with a sharp whack.
“That incident shall be investigated,” Suthering supplied.
“Yet, it has nothing to do with these two.” Bateson gestured at me and Flynn. “How did you two manage past a frenzy of spooked horses?”
“Lucky, I guess.” Flynn’s smile hardly helped. If anything, the Zoology instructor seemed repulsed at his attempt of charm.
“Luck, child, has no place at this school.” She ended with a harsh laugh of disbelief. “Miss Holden? How do you explain it?”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t?” She pressed, slanting over the table with a sneer on her face. “Or won’t?”
“Can’t,” I repeated. “I don’t understand what happened out there.”
Please believe me.
The quiet that followed twisted my heart so my pulse skyrocketed. I bit down on the inside of my lower lip and focused on breathing steadily.
“I’m not pleased with this situation.” Glorian stacked her forearms on top of one another. Her tone suggested cool calm, but the fury behind her eyes and in the stiff set of her lips said otherwise. “This is the third time I’ve been alerted to incidents involving her. It is highly suspicious. Too suspicious.”
Suthering tapped a finger to the table twice and cleared his throat. “Then perhaps she needs more supervision.”
I knew I couldn’t trust him! I swallowed hard and Flynn shifted in his seat. Okay, you were right…
Flynn’s adjustment brought Glorian’s attention to the fact we were still holding hands. She narrowed her eyes in the direction of our clasped fingers and he let go i
mmediately.
“I agree,” she stated.
Bateson leaned back and swiveled once, twice, in her chair. “I can take them on.”
That sounded too much like something an adversary would promise, not an offer to volunteer.
“Place them under my tutelage.”
“When?” Suthering asked. “Your teaching agenda is booked.”
Griswold sighed. “I can’t accept more students to mentor.”
Ah. Okay. Mentoring sounds much…nicer.
“I’ve got too many seniors to oversee in my labs as it is.”
Thank God he was too busy. Although, that left…
“Then I will arrange for them.”
Bateson swiveled to face Glorian’s profile directly. “Arrange, what, Glorian?”
With a serene smile, the headmistress said, “Arrange to take them under my wing.”
“Under your wing?” Bateson’s laugh was throaty and mean. “Wing. Nice pun. But I think we can all remember the last time you suggested taking a student under your wing.”
Wing. I fought from frowning but my curiosity flared. Did that mean Glorian—and Ren—were bird people? Like Lorcan and Stu? What did Paige say… Airine?
Glorian kept her lips pressed tightly together then said, “Those circumstances were rare.”
“Rare?” Bateson smacked her hand to the table. “Rare for Stuart Wright to nearly kill others under your wing?”
“He was an exceptionally unique case.” Glorian didn’t rise to the bait and kept her voice collected and smooth as her younger colleague flustered.
“Unique.” Bateson shook her head, her cheeks turning red as she prepared another comeback. “Uniquely lethal, more like—”
“Ladies.” Suthering rapped his knuckles on the table like a judge. I turned to him, praying he’d intervene and not feed us to either of these women. I didn’t want their help. I didn’t want their anything. “Ladies. I’ve already taken care of it.”
I just barely caught myself from narrowing my eyes at him. Was he some kind of control freak, always claiming to be the problem solver of everything at Olde Earth?
“They’ll remain under my direct guidance.”
Chapter Ten
Under Suthering’s “direct guidance” was a loose concept, I came to find out. He wasn’t going to stand by and hold my hand. Or Flynn’s. He intended to pass the buck. Flynn was to report to Marcy in the greenhouse in lieu of taking Botany with Alwin. And I was slated to assist Otis at the stables during the same period. Hardly a punishment, and I already knew Otis wasn’t going to hawk over me while I spent more time around the horses.
Why Suthering had to separate me and Flynn though… It seemed too much like the arrangement over the summer. Why couldn’t we work together? Really, if he’d learned anything from that video he erased, he’d see that Flynn and I collaborated effortlessly. Two prematurely powerful freaks of nature. Though I hadn’t missed the way Glorian had studied the space between me and Flynn in the meeting, or more like the lack of appropriate space.
Do they not want us ganging up on anyone or something?
I didn’t understand what Suthering’s strategy was, but he’d saved us from Glorian’s and Bateson’s clutches.
So I was grateful. Suthering was ninety percent there on the path to gaining my trust, and even though he was “saving” me, in a sense, from his colleagues, I wasn’t about to gullibly take faith in his guidance. Once we were dismissed from the council meeting with Suthering’s parting instructions to check our emails for further details, Flynn and I didn’t hesitate getting out of there. Too much…control to choke under with the council focused on us. As we left, I still wondered what the council discussed as they remained gathered in that room without us. To be a fly on the wall…listening to what the superiors of Olde Earth didn’t want us to hear.
“I feel…cheated,” I said as we stepped outside. I inhaled a deep breath of fresh air and hoped it would relax me. Nothing doing. Tension coiled in my neck and I felt the itch to just go for a run. Classes were over for the day, so we set out on a slow walk to our dorms.
“Because you wanted those women to babysit you?”
“No. That he knew. Suthering knew from the beginning that I might already have my powers.”
Flynn stuck his hands in his pockets. “Nah. He said he thought it. But I guess we just proved it with the horses.”
Yep. Oops. I shrugged. “But he wasn’t alarmed that we have our powers before our date.”
“True.”
I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, replaying and overanalyzing what we’d learned before the meeting.
“But he does seem alarmed that you are as Pure as you are. Just like Ethel was.”
I frowned as two chipmunks chased each other over the sidewalk before us. One pivoted and faced me. It blinked over-large black eyes from a rhino-shaped face. I’d seen one of those before in Coltin. Dismissing it as just another ordinary critter wasn’t even hard anymore. Seeing otherworldly things didn’t elicit a panic attack anymore. Thank God. Then again, after facing off with griffins, it might take a lot to freak me out.
Was this going to be my fate? No longer classified as a psycho and nutcase, a lame lunatic as Sabine would say, but instead, stereotyped as a Pure? Was I going to be viewed as a dangerous individual—again? Not for my so-called disturbing mental state, but for unchecked powers? “Alarmed, like, afraid of me?” Or the idea of me and you together?
“More like for you.”
A whistle rent the air and we turned back. Sabine and Leo approached us as quickly as two humans could with one arm wrapped around the other’s waist. “Wait up. We’re heading back to the dorms too.”
Sabine wanted my company? The last time she’d waited for me on a walk home was back in Coltin when Suthering first found me. She’d had ulterior motives then, not wanting to be left out, and I bet she harbored the same now—somehow.
If we continued walking, they’d have to rush to catch up. I stepped faster and Flynn followed suit. Sabine’s presence? No thanks. Not today, at least. Not with so much on my mind.
I rubbed at my forehead. God. How was I supposed to concentrate and study tonight? Or tomorrow. Those three tests on Friday were going to be tricky. And Suthering axing my Botany period? I frowned anew. I was kind of excited about the plant Mr. Alwin had assigned me for the quarterly research report. I guessed I could still study it on my own, out of curiosity, but—
“Sure.” Flynn suddenly slowed and tugged my sleeve to encourage me closer to him.
The inseparable couple fell into step with us, casting an awkward discomfort to cloud around the group. Too quiet. If they were just walking, why’d they need us with them? Leo spoke up before it got really weird. “So you’re from London, huh?” he asked Flynn.
Maybe it was a guy thing, but they instantly shifted into a chat about soccer teams. Sports, the universal bridge of all boys. Flynn didn’t contribute much to the convo, but he answered enough and asked simple follow-up questions to not come off as a jerk. Their small talk took care of the strange not-companionship feel of our return to the dorms. We came to the Gold House first.
When Sabine pulled Leo lower for a more secure and louder kiss goodbye, Flynn cleared his throat and stepped back onto the main sidewalk that led to the other houses. “Uh, see you guys later.”
To my surprise, Sabine immediately pulled back from her boyfriend. “Hold up. I was just saying goodnight. There’s no point making me walk home alone, y’all.” She giggled and wiped at her lips. “See you in the morning, baby.” Her two-fingered wave seemed so childish compared to the womanly sway of her hips as she left Leo at his dorm’s foyer. Did she study the balance? Know when to turn on the coy act and dim the sexy one? Would this knowledge come with age?
I shook my head at my thoughts. How Sabine calculated her actions around guys wasn’t my concern. Or interest, really. “In the morning?” I muttered. “You don’t break out at curfew anymore?”
Sabine sneered at me. “Funny.”
“Ah. Tired of rooming with Bernadette?” Flynn teased. I smiled, maybe for the first time the whole day. That boy sure had a way with my happiness.
“Old Bernie.” Sabine visibly shuddered. “Let’s say I mighta learned my lesson to stay in at dark.”
My forehead wrinkled as I paid attention to what she said, or more so how. Too much Southern sweetness. Too twangy. She was still putting on an act. For Flynn? It wouldn’t be for me. She knew I knew what she sounded like, what the real her sounded like when no one was around and she was impatient for something from me.
And after gym today, I could only take a guess what she would demand. Answers, especially ones I wouldn’t know how to give. I shot my hand out and gripped Flynn’s, forcing his fingers apart to slide mine between them. Already, his calluses were a familiar map of bumps and dips. He jerked a little, probably surprised at my sudden move, but he returned the gesture and molded his hand with mine.
Anything to keep him with me so I wouldn’t have to face my sister solo.
“So, Flynn, you think I could have a chat with my sister?” she sing-songed.
I tightened my hold on his hand and I swore he chuckled. He must have figured out her ambush plan as well. “Go ahead.” It was no secret between us that I wasn’t on the best terms with this brat. Him staying with me spoke volumes.
She sighed. “Alone.” Now the twang was forced. Like artificial sweetener instead of the real deal.
“Anything you say to me you can say in front of him,” I reasoned.
“Oh?” Now her sweetness held a dash of spice. “Aren’t you two just an a-dor-ab-le couple.”
We weren’t. I didn’t think. Wasn’t he supposed to ask me to be his…his anything? Heck, I sure would like to be asked to be somebody’s something. Just so there wasn’t a chance of confusion and misinterpretation. Flynn and I were friends. Friends and…
“We—” he started at the same time I said, “I—”
“Ah. So, y’all still got some figuring out to do.” She murmured a gossipy sound of uh-huh. “But, really, Flynn. Let us have some girl talk, yeah?”
Discovery: Olde Earth Academy: Year Two Page 9
