In all the time I spent with him, though, I dreaded any time it seemed like he wanted to do the “let’s talk about the future” chat.
I never wanted to bring it up. For fear we wouldn’t have the same goals.
And how selfish of me. What, I wanted him to just go wherever I was accepted? I didn’t shake my head, but I cringed inside.
“Yeah,” Flynn nodded. “I want to teach. Here.”
Professor Flynn. He’d look pretty damn cute as a scholarly man. Maybe he’d go all out and get tweed jackets. I bet all the first-year girls would go ga-ga over Professor Flynn no matter what he wore. Jealousy didn’t sneak in with that musing. Uneasiness sunk deep into my bones instead.
He wants to stay here. When I wanted out.
“Oh.” It was all I could say without expressing my conflicted emotions.
“I’m going to stay too,” Lorcan added. “Might apply for the archery coach position. And then teach. I might not be a Pure, but I like Bio. I could be a lesser faculty member.”
“You’re not any less of a person than we are, Lor,” I insisted.
“I know. And that’s not what I meant. But there’s no changing the fact you guys are…well, elevated than the rest of us.”
I swallowed hard. Elevated. More like…obligated. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to give back and help others, help animals. Just not here. Not under Glorian’s mental games. Not here where Bateson could act up or Griswold’s students could have dark power trips.
Why did my future have to depend on my elven powers?
Would I ever be able to just be me, Layla, or did my worth only count when I was “the Pure elf”?
Silence reigned heavily in the room. For me, it did. Lorcan had stirred up too many doubts and questions and Flynn had fueled the fire of indecision.
“Hey, I’ll, uh…” Lorcan suddenly shot to his feet and tossed the ball to his desk. It bounced and rolled off but he didn’t retrieve it. Instead, he grabbed his coat. “I’ll give you two some privacy. Or whatever. Just let me know when it’s safe to come back. Use a sock? Or is it a scrunchie on the door?”
Flynn threw something at his back. “Shut up, dude.”
I joined in Lorcan’s laughs. “A scrunchie? Wrong decade.”
“Nah. My little sister back home told me those VSCO chicks are a trend again.”
“I don’t even have a scrunchie,” I said around more laughs.
Lorcan waved a hand back at us and left.
“Never mind him,” Flynn said.
“I don’t,” I admitted, still laughing.
We snuggled next to each other. I sighed, taking the comfort Flynn’s warm body offered.
Take it while you can.
I gritted my teeth at the thought.
Despite Lorcan’s pointed hints, I knew I was safe with Flynn.
“I’m not… You don’t have to worry…”
“I know.” I patted his chest. Of course, he’d want to be the polite guy and tell me my virtue was safe with him.
“There’s no rush, for anything,” he went on.
“I know,” I repeated, grateful that I’d found the most patient and un-pushy guy to call my boyfriend, even if our relationship seemed so…tame.
He shifted to his side, his chin in his hand, elbow dug into the pillow. I turned to face him fully and prayed he wouldn’t follow the same line of questions about life after graduation.
“Are you applying for schools outside of Olde Earth?” he asked.
Straight to the big one, huh?
“I’ve been thinking about what it’d be like to go somewhere else.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth. Guilt seeped into the turmoil taking over my mind. I hated being untruthful with him, but I couldn’t admit to applying elsewhere now.
He nodded. “I get it. With Glorian. And Ren. And…everything.”
“What would happen if I did?” I asked and held my breath. “If I did go somewhere else?”
“You mean with us?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Nothing.”
He reached out to hold my upper arm, a frown lining his face. Alarmed, probably, by the way I’d gasped at his answer and widened my eyes.
“I mean nothing would change. We’d still be…” He let go and flicked a finger back and forth at the space between us. “Friends. Dating. Boyfriend-girlfriend. I meant nothing would happen to us to change us.”
Other than a lot of distance.
“At least, I don’t want anything to change between us.” He ran his hand through his hair and then dropped his arm to his side. “I’ve never done the whole dating thing, Layla.”
“Me either.”
“But I know I only want to try it with you.”
I smiled then, a trickle of relief getting in.
“However we can. If it’s long-distance, then we’ll figure that out when it comes.”
I rubbed his arm and relaxed at his reassurance.
“If you want,” he added, like a forgotten afterthought.
“I do,” I promised.
He locked his gaze with mine and being so close together on his bed, I felt suddenly out of depth. This was an awfully private and…intimate situation.
“Can I ask you another question that might freak you out?”
What a way to lead. I swallowed and raised my brows.
“Do you not want to kiss me because…” He licked his lips. “Because of last year? The thing in Mooresboro?”
While his question didn’t freak me out, it did embarrass me.
“Kind of? No.” I shook my head and wanted to fan at my face.
Damn blush.
“I keep thinking maybe you might not want to, like some form of associative memory or fear? PTSD?”
I was surprised I didn’t have lingering mental scrapes from a near-death experience. Then again, my trauma involvement had taken a few booster shots since I’d come to Olde Earth.
“No. I mean, a few times, I wanted to, but then I’d remember that day.”
“But that’s not it?”
I shrugged. Dear God. I’m a freaking tomato. Why couldn’t he just read my mind or something? Didn’t girls give off pheromones? Couldn’t he just tell I wanted him to kiss me?
“I don’t know how.”
One side of his lips quirked up.
“I’ve never… You’d be my first.”
When he still didn’t say anything, I just barely held back a whine. Come on. Have mercy. Don’t make me say this. It was hard enough to admit it in my head.
“I don’t want to screw it up.”
He chuckled. Not to laugh at me. He was too nice for that.
“Can’t you just…do it?”
“Right now?”
I wiggled closer and nodded. Maybe my weirdness would disappear after the first one. Once I knew I wouldn’t knock his forehead too hard, or fall on him, or slobber on his cheek.
Dammit, it was all just new to me. Yeah, I was late to the game. But I wanted off the bench now.
Without hesitation, he brought his hand to my cheek and cupped it. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine.
Flashbacks of taking the mold from him didn’t surface.
There were no injuries or assaults of foreheads or noses.
Just sweet, warm lips brushing mine.
He backed up and met my gaze. Then raised his brows.
I smiled, and it was all the encouragement for him to do it again. This time, I kissed him back hard enough that I felt his grin against mine.
He dropped back to the bed and looked up at me. “Okay?”
I leaned down to show him exactly how okay I was with one more kiss.
Chapter Sixteen
I kissed Flynn.
He kissed me.
We’d kissed.
It was a fact that refused to leave my mind. We’d said goodnight soon after the first kiss. Unlike me, he still had non-core classwork to finish and we both knew he learned better by himself than with a study
partner.
It was an easy, perfect way to step away from the monumental change in our relationship. Now, when I’d think of myself as his girlfriend, it had less of a question mark to it.
I’d floated on cloud nine after we’d kissed. Each day, we made sure to at least once, normally a goodbye kiss. Neither of us had dated anyone before and it was comforting that he was just as shy of publicly showing our affection as I was.
With my non-core classes done, I was lighthearted. Add to that the fact my December exam and final were “normal”, and I was one happy girl.
My glee wasn’t fated to last though, because when I opened my email one day, seeing a concerning subject line in my inbox, my stomach plummeted.
With shaky fingers, I clicked on the link and opened the message from Dad. He still emailed me, and to my knowledge, Sabine as well. Not daily, but at least every couple of days. Hazel had even kept up correspondence, asking if I was still training and forwarding me articles she thought I might appreciate about self-defense.
This email, was headlined with College Mail? and I sucked in a deep breath to hold as I read.
He explained very quickly that he’d tried to forward the letters to me a few times, and each time, they were returned. It made no sense. He’d sent us letters before, and then our birthday and holiday gifts over the last three years. I wasn’t an undeliverable address on campus.
But something—or someone—had ordered his envelopes to be returned.
Dad had attached photos of the outside of the envelopes and I growled aloud at the swooping cursive penmanship declaring me the “wrong address”. I knew that old-fashioned, perfectly shaped writing. It was what signed off some of my assessment forms.
Glorian.
She’d personally intercepted my mail.
My fingers flew over the keyboard, telling Dad, yes. Open the envelopes. They were just simple, then white rectangles. Not large manila packages.
I slapped my laptop shut and stood to pace in my dorm. Knightley matched me step for step and then I slumped to the floor. I let my boy snuggle onto my lap and I cowered over, burying my face in his short fur.
“How could she?”
I had no doubt why she had.
If she’d interfered with my early applications to the colleges I’d selected…
My tablet dinged from my desk, alerting new messages.
Knightley eased off my lap and I returned to my laptop. I opened it and narrowed my eyes at my inbox.
Dad, again. Six emails, all with telling little icons of paperclips.
He hadn’t even wanted to type out the replies. Just took pictures instead.
The subject line on the first email explained enough.
I’m so sorry.
Each attachment showed a brief summary of rejection. Three stated complications with my records and the other three expressed no reasons.
Glorian.
She’d somehow learned about my applications to other schools and destroyed my dreams of leaving here—maybe by simply denying the colleges’ requests for my transcripts. I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter how she’d messed this up—she had clout in too many ways. Not only that, but she’d also tried to hide it from me, sending my mail back to Coltin several times.
I roared out my frustration and Knightley nudged at my thigh. I patted his head once and then rushed for my closet. Too much anger and fury burned inside me and only a run could dispel the worst of the heat. I couldn’t even think with the mess taking over my head and heart.
I changed and as soon as my shoes were tied, I patted my thigh to Knightley and I took off for the woods.
****
Hours had passed before I’d trudged back toward the dorms. I’d run through dinnertime. Knightley stayed at my side the entire time I tried to run off my emotions. It kind of worked. I’d run, sat in the woods, jogged, and then ended in a listless walk.
Snow fell and it would’ve been a pretty, still, wintry night if my heart wasn’t so crushed. Anger had faded first, leaving me morose and just defeated.
I wasn’t fuming anymore. Only numb. And tired. So tired of it all.
Knightley straightened to a stop and cocked his ears.
Something’s coming?
A bark sounded and I turned in the direction it had come from.
Arthur bounded into view, careening around a fat oak trunk. Knightley barked once and Arthur emitted a lighter grunting noise.
“What?” I asked. Bigger fluffs of snow landed on my nose and I brushed them off. Thank God I’d had enough foresight to dress warm for this kind of weather on an impromptu run. I hadn’t realized so much snow was due to fall tonight.
He barked at me and lowered his front paws, tossing up some snow with the movement. Then he bounced back up and barked again.
“What?” I asked once more.
Heck, I could communicate clearly to them. But I still had to decipher dog—grog—speak to make sense of what they wanted to say.
He turned and faced the direction he’d run from. A couple more barks, a glance back at me, and then he faced away.
All right, I’ll follow. He took off and I groaned. Wait up! I’d already run plenty. I couldn’t sprint wherever he wanted me to go.
Arthur led me and Knightley in the direction of the greenhouse and Menagerie and I wasn’t surprised. This late at night, that was where the dog would be. He’d stopped sleeping in my room since I had Knightley there.
If he’d been ordered to seek me out, I was sure it could only mean trouble. Worry replaced the numb depression that had shrouded me at the end of my venting run. I wiped away any lingering evidence of my tears and ran into the greenhouse after the large grog.
I shook my head and brushed off the snow that had accumulated on my hat and in my long ponytail. Slowing my steps, I frowned at the crowd. Lorcan and Wolf were there. Lorcan had his hands pressed to the panels of glass that enclosed one of the insect rooms near the rear of the large building. The older rooms where cool columns stood tall and proud between thick solid walls of transparency.
“Don’t do this!” Wolf yelled. He pounded his fist on the glass.
I slowed, taking in the scene. Marcy stood to the side, speaking with Suthering. They came toward me together.
“What’s going on? Did you send Arthur for me?”
Marcy nodded. “Wolf did. He thought you’d be able to help but she locked the doors.” She held up a tablet and gripped a fist of her blonde curls, holding them out of her eyes to stare at me with deep pools of worry. I just barely glanced at the screen, long enough to recognize the lock software window. “I can’t override her change to the locks.”
“She?” I stepped past Marcy and Suthering. Peering past Wolf, I spied Bateson inside the insect room. It wasn’t a space I was familiar with. It was so far back here, in the corner, I’d assumed it was just another empty lab space for projects or more places to use for seeding time. Most of the classes spent time closer toward the front of the greenhouse, near the more modern-adapted spaces and equipment.
Bateson wasn’t alone. Flynn stood there in his loungewear. Flannel pants and a tight t-shirt. He was arguing with her about something, and the redheaded teacher laughed.
“What’s going on?” I pounded on the glass and Flynn looked up. He frowned at me and then faced Bateson again.
“She’s releasing a hybrid,” Suthering said over my shoulder.
“Of…?” I squinted, eyeing the containers where something must have been bred. Lights weren’t on within the glass-walled room and the bulbs illuminating the main room we all stood in reflected off the panes.
Insects, but what kind? More than that… “She’s releasing them now?”
Wolf yelled again, “Don’t!”
It was snowing outside. No insects would get far out there.
“What…” I scoffed in frustration.
Lorcan knew me well enough that he realized I needed to be caught up to speed. “Wolf called Flynn. There was some kind of a lo
ck alert that worried him. He asked Flynn to come.”
Suthering wedged himself between me and Marcy. “She overrode the locking mechanism,” he said.
“Then how did Flynn get in there?” I asked.
“She’d left the door cracked open while she was in there. Flynn ran in and it shut after him,” Lorcan added.
“We got here just after he did,” Wolf said. “And she won’t open the door!” More pounding of his fists on the wall.
Bateson faced him and smirked. Then she flipped him off before returning to checking whatever she cared about in the containers.
“How do you know she’s releasing a hybrid?” I asked.
“Because that’s what this room was reserved for,” Suthering replied. “She filed a permit for research a couple of years ago and this was the lab space she’d asked for.”
I thought research was put on hold? Or at least monitored. Since the sketchy and downright nefarious experiments that had been revealed recently, Suthering and Glorian had declared a halt to new projects. It was why Griswold had done his mold studies under everyone’s noses.
But she’d said she had her own goals to worry about. She’s always had something else planned.
“She’d applied and provided the proper paperwork before we’d changed our research policies.”
I nodded at Suthering’s words but kept my gaze narrowed on Bateson moving around the room. Flynn darting after her, still talking. It made sense. This must have already been in the works before the council’s research rules were modified. It had just been something on back burner this whole time.
“Why now? Why do you think she’s getting ready to release them?”
“Because she said she was.” Wolf set his fist on the glass, glaring at her. “When we arrived, a couple of the ventilation ducts up there were still open.”
I glanced up at the solid glass wall. A slat was shut.
“I asked what she was up to and she said it was time to release the devorens.”
“Which are?” My breath fogged the window with my face so close.
“Devorens are a complex result of hybrid crosses of two kinds of wasps and bees. She planned to add some ancient bee DNA to the offspring as well,” Suthering said. “This was likely the only project of hers that I didn’t hesitate to support. I’m not fond of hybrid tests but this one promised something too good not to try. Her main objective was to find an alternative—a stronger one with a more diverse genetic makeup—to the bumblebees that have been declining.”
Victory: Year Four Page 13
