Entrance Exam

by Ivy Hearne

  “What do I get if I do?”

  This time, his dimples came out in full force, and it struck me again how incongruous his appearance was with the thoughts I’d heard him broadcasting earlier. “You’re not going to trick me,” he said, in the same tone he’d used during all the times we worked together. “I know better than to trust your questions.”

  I struggled against his hold on me, but his fingertips dug into my skin, his hands stronger than I had imagined they could be.

  “I hadn’t intended to disappear you yet.” His eyes narrowed, and I shivered at his use of disappear as a verb—that was the kind of thing that drug lords did, not private school tutors. “But the disappearance of a student might distract the hunters from their search for the headmaster. We haven’t quite gotten all the information out of him that we need.”

  His words made my stomach lurch.

  I was never going to overpower him physically. I knew it without any doubt at all—I had been sparring with him for weeks, and he knew every move I had.

  That left mental powers—and I didn’t even know what kind of mental powers I might have. In psychics class, I’d read all the theory. Supposedly, some of the strongest psychics had been able to draw on all branches of the field—clairvoyance, messaging, telekinesis, and psychokinesis.

  I didn’t know what I would be able to do.

  But maybe I could use whatever mental powers had been blocked away from me by the Lusus Naturae to break Shane’s hold on to me.

  I closed my eyes and tried to center myself.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Shane shook me so hard my head snapped back. When my head popped back upright, something broke inside me.

  Not in the way Shane would have preferred, though, I suspected.

  It was like the cover had been jarred off a deep well of absolute fury. Of anger that so many years of my childhood had been stolen from me, anger that I’d been hidden from the people who could help me. Anger that this man in front of me had tricked me into believing he cared about what happened to me, cared about my success at the Hunters’ Academy.

  And absolute and complete fury that he had taken Headmaster Finnegan away from the one place that I should have felt welcome. Everything about my life up until now that I did not like, I focused directly on Shane. Because of him, I’d spent years vomiting in dark rooms when I should’ve been in school learning. Because of him, I’d gotten to the Hunters’ Academy late. Because of him, my hunting partner was a recalcitrant panther-shifter who couldn’t or wouldn’t even speak to me. And because of him—and everyone like him—my classmates would barely speak to me.

  I was filled with an incandescent rage that flowed through me from top to bottom, swirling inside me and around me and snapping into place in the very center of every cell of my being. It was so hot it burned Shane—I could hear his fingertips sizzling, and all I wanted to do was laugh.

  With a yell, he let go of my shoulders. I stepped back and announced, “You are not supposed to be here.” My voice boomed and echoed through the room.

  But Shane merely laughed, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, they flared green, and a glow spread from them to surround him. “You think you can overpower me?” he demanded. “I have more training than you. Years’ worth. You will never catch up.”

  “But I’m more powerful. I can feel it.” I held my hands out and pushed against the barrier he had created around himself with his green fire. It sparked red where it met my own power.

  He shrugged. “Power without control isn’t all that impressive.”

  In some ways, he was right. Between my raw power and his carefully honed and trained strength, we were pretty evenly matched.

  Except, possibly, in one thing.

  Allies.

  I pushed all my strength, all my rage into one mental call, and sent it reverberating across the school.

  Souji!

  And then all of my attention turned to Shane, who had picked up the blade he brought for us to practice with. “Too bad you can’t get to your sword,” he said, gloating.

  I didn’t bother answering. I held my hand out and called the sword to me. It flew through the air, landing in my palm as if it were an extension of myself, wreathed in hot, pink fire dancing up and down the blade.

  With a musical clash of metal, our blades came together.

  Our fighting was as much mental as physical. But one of us would tire eventually. And then it would be over.

  I simply did not have the years of training to build stamina that Shane did. It didn’t take him long to break through my defenses. And unlike our earlier matches, he was not trying to teach me. He was trying to kill me.

  His first lunge sent his sword through my abdomen. I screamed as he pulled the sword out of me, but I didn’t actually feel any pain for another couple of seconds. When it hit, it was like someone had set me on fire.

  I reeled but managed to block his next blow. I wouldn’t last long, though. The wound I had now wasn’t fatal, but it would weaken me, and he knew it.

  I had my back to the door when it crashed open, and an enormous black shape leapt over me to land on Shane, knocking him to the ground. His sword clattered away, the green light shimmering around him dissipated, and Souji crouched atop him, claws of one front paw digging into his chest and the other held, claws extended, just above his throat, prepared to slice it open.

  I froze, certain that if I made one wrong move, Souji would disembowel our only source of information about what had happened to Headmaster Finnegan.

  “Wait,” I called out. “Wait, Souji!”

  I hoped I wasn’t too late as Souji shook his head, retracting and extending the claws he held over Shane’s exposed jugular.

  Chapter 12

  “Just wait,” I repeated. I held one hand out in front of me and took a slow step toward Souji. I pressed the other hand against the wound in my side. I don’t have time to be injured, I thought. Aloud I said, “We need him for just a little longer. Please wait.”

  Souji shifted his attention to me for just a moment—and it was a moment too long. Shane took that opportunity to pull in whatever power he had access to and send it upward in a blast aimed directly at Souji’s chest.

  At the same moment, Souji saw what Shane was about to do and slashed at him with his extended claws.

  The fact that they were moving at the same time was the only thing that saved them both. Souji missed Shane’s jugular by millimeters, maybe less, and at least a third of Shane’s blast missed Souji altogether.

  They both screamed, and Souji staggered backward off of Shane, rising up on two legs and shifting into his human form as he went. And then he collapsed, unconscious.

  I began shouting almost immediately, praying for someone—anyone—to show up and help. I grabbed my gym shirt out of my bag, wadded it up, and pressed down on Shane’s wound.

  Souji might’ve missed anything immediately vital, but I wasn’t sure that Shane wouldn’t bleed out anyway, not with how quickly the T-shirt soaked through with blood. I knew I should keep pressure on it, but I had no idea how long it would be before someone came to help.

  And Souji still wasn’t moving.

  There was no right answer here. I didn’t know if Shane would survive even if I stayed and kept pressure on the wound. But I was pretty sure he’d die if I left for very long. For that matter, I didn’t know how much longer I would last if I didn’t get my own wound looked at. With a whimper, I sent out a wordless cry for help.

  The pain from my side flared out, and I glanced down to see the same hot-pink glow that had swirled around my sword now streaming out of the hole Shane’s sword had left in me. I squeezed my eyes closed against the burning agony.

  But then the pain faded. When it was gone entirely, I slowly lifted up my bloodstained shirt.

  The wound was gone. Entirely.

  I had healed myself.

  But when I tried to do the same for Shane, nothing happened.

  So I
gathered up all my remaining power and pushed it outward, calling for anyone who was nearby and could hear me to please come to us.

  When no one responded, I started running, sprinting out into the main library, hoping I would meet up with someone, anyone.

  The librarian wasn’t behind her desk, and for once, there were no students studying. There were still classes in session. For the first time since he’d arrived, I found myself wondering where Souji had come from when I called him.

  It felt like I was moving in slow motion, and still over everything, I kept the siren-bleat of my call going.

  Help us—they’re hurt—study hall four.

  Over and over again I sent it out, it seemed like a million times before I even got to the main library entrance.

  Just as I reached out to push open the door, someone jerked it out of my hand. I skidded to a stop, face-to-face with Matthew Gibbs, my partner in psychics class.

  “I’m here, I’m here,” he said, holding his head in his hands. “Turn that down, would you?”

  I stopped my internal cry for help, stunned not only that he’d heard me, but that he’d heard it as the shout I had sent.

  “There are others on the way,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back toward the room where I’d left Souji and Shane. Matthew took one look at the blood-soaked gym shirt next to Shane and ripped off his own Hunters’ Academy uniform shirt, rolling it into a ball and pressing it over Shane’s wound.

  “What happened here?” Matthew asked.

  I began to stammer out an explanation, and he waved it away. “Don’t try to tell me in words. Just show me using your mind.”

  I nodded and tried to send everything to him at once. After only a few seconds, he covered his ears. “Okay, okay. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. You can quit now Jesus.”

  I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, so I just frowned at him.

  “Do you have any water in here?” he asked, his tone as rough and irritable as it always was with me.

  “In my bag.” I gestured toward it.

  “Don’t just stand there. Go get it. Splash some of it on Souji and see if it wakes him up. Unless he’s injured?”

  “I don’t know. Shane hit him with a blast of something. He might be hurt, yes.”

  “Try the water, anyway. Let’s see if we can wake him up.”

  I followed Matthew’s instructions, gathering my water and moving toward Souji. Only then did it really register that my hunting partner was in his human form, passed out on the floor, completely naked.

  I told myself it didn’t matter. But I couldn’t help but blush as I knelt down next to him. I carefully averted my eyes as I poured water in onto my fingers and patted it against his cheeks.

  I studied his face as I tried to wake him. He had dark, straight hair, the same shade as his panther fur. His skin was a pale shade of cream that looked like it rarely saw sunlight. From the cast of his features, I thought he might be Japanese.

  And I know for sure he’s gorgeous.

  That thought had just flashed through my mind when Souji opened his clear, golden eyes. He stared directly up at me, gave a lazy smile, and said, “Thank you. You’re pretty, too.”

  My face flamed at that, but I didn’t have a chance to answer, as what seemed like the entirety of the school population came tumbling into the library in a giant wave of humans and supernaturals.

  Ms. Gayle led the way. As soon as I saw her, I hopped to my feet and started trying to tell her what happened.

  “We know,” she said. “Everyone in the entire school knows. I have never met anyone who broadcasts like you do.”

  I glanced at Souji out of the corner of my eye, briefly wondering if the whole school had heard my thoughts about him, too.

  Luckily, someone had tossed him a jacket to cover up with. He didn’t seem all that embarrassed, though.

  “Shane knows where headmaster Finnegan is,” I said, jabbing my finger in my former tutor’s direction.

  “And we have experienced hunters on the way to question him, just as soon as we stop his bleeding,” Ms. Gayle said. “It’s no longer your problem.”

  The school nurse pushed her way through the crowd, followed by two adults I’d never seen—the hunters, I guess.

  The nurse examined me while the hunters gathered up Shane and Souji. She frowned at the bloody hole in my shirt and ran her gloved hands over my side, her expression suspicious, but she didn’t say anything other than, “You seem to be okay. I’ll want to do a full work-up soon, though.”

  Shane and Souji were both lifted up onto paramedics’ gurneys and rolled out of the library toward the school infirmary.

  As they were getting ready to take him away, though, Souji reached his hand out toward me. “Kacie,” he called me over.

  I took his hand in mine. “Yes?”

  “In case I don’t have a chance to say it later—I’m really glad you’re my hunting partner. I think we can do some great work together,” he said. Then he leaned his head back against the small pillow and closed his eyes.

  I started to follow them, but the nurse turned around and pointed at me. “You come by and see me tomorrow for that work-up. We’ll also need to talk about this block you had. Until then, you should rest.”

  And she would not let me go any farther with Souji—no matter how much I argued that we were hunting partners and therefore should not be separated.

  Epilogue

  I don’t know what they did to Shane to get the information out of him, but the hunters were able to rescue headmaster Finnegan.

  What was left of him.

  No one is discussing the details of his injuries. But last I heard, he wasn’t coming back to Hunters’ Academy anytime soon. That made me sad—I missed having a kindly old man in charge, even if I only talked to him a couple times.

  Ms. Gayle still pretty much hates me. But after the entire school saw—and heard, since I broadcast it out to everyone—what happened, she couldn’t very well claim that I hadn’t done what they had brought me here to do: get rid of my psychic block. Or, as Mr. Jamison wrote in his letter recommending that I be allowed to skip the entrance exam they had planned for me, “Ms. DeLuca has shown remarkable promise as a student, with both a natural ability and the will to learn to use it that is unsurpassed by any other student currently enrolled in the Academy.”

  So I’m here for good, it looks like. And almost everything else is getting better, too. I don’t have to rely on my roommate for friends anymore. Angelica and I have started a first-years’ movie night of our own, and just recently, Hazel invited me to go into the nearest town to go shopping with her. There isn’t much there, so I think the invitation was more about going to do something together that it really was about something.

  But there are still some things to be worked out.

  Not all of my classmates have completed their entrance exams yet, so we’re all still on edge about that.

  I still don’t know why the Lusus Naturae put a psychic block on me in the first place.

  I’m still learning how to handle my unblocked abilities. Every so often, I send out a random message to everyone in the school. Like the curse word I apparently spat out when I saw Souji again for the first time after my unplanned entrance exam.

  He was back in his panther form.

  And no matter what I say or do, I haven’t been able to get him to shift again. I’m afraid that’s going to be a problem at some point.

  But overall, I’m glad I’m here. I’m happy to be a Hunters’ Academy student.

  Supereste aut Morimini.

  Survive or Die.

  I still think it’s a ridiculous motto. But I plan to survive. No matter what.

  And I’m ready to see what comes next.

  The End

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  Hunters’ Academy 2: Winter Break

  Santa’s C
laws have come to town...

  The worst part of having to stay at the Hunters’ Academy over the winter break is the pure boredom of it. With most of the other students away for the holidays, Kacie has little to do but read and watch movies...and practice all the hunting moves she learned in her first semester.

  When her boredom sends her on a run into the nearby human town, she discovers something horrific preying on the local children. But of everyone still on campus, she’s the only one who can see it—and that means she’ll have to put those hunting skills into practice much sooner than she expected.

  Order Now!

  Hunters’ Academy 3: Crash Course

  If the course load doesn’t kill her, one of her teachers might.

  Having passed the Entrance Exam, sixteen-year-old Kacie DeLuca is ready to buckle down and learn to be a true Hunter. But the Academy’s headmistress has hired a new instructor—a former member of the Lusus Naturae, the self-described “freaks of nature” with dark plans to subjugate humanity.

  When a student’s mutilated body is discovered on campus, all signs point to the new teacher’s guilt, and Kacie might be the only one who believes in her innocence. Worse, Kacie’s magics instructor has been assigned to investigate the murder and seems determined to ignore crucial evidence.

  With no clear sense of where everyone’s loyalties lie, Kacela is about to get a crash course in what it really means to be a monster hunter.

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  Hunters’ Academy 4: Independent Study

  She’s on the Dean’s list. And not in a good way.

  When Kacie DeLuca broke through the psychic blocks the evil Lusus Naturae placed on her, she thought she was free to complete her studies at the Hunters’ Academy.

  She was wrong.

  Now that she’s able to use her powers, the monsters are more determined than ever to keep her from becoming a full-fledged hunter, sending agents to attack her at every turn.