by Eva Muñoz
I grimaced at the thought. What was I supposed to do for two hours? My gaze landed on the bookshelves.
“Fine, but when you get back, you need to answer the rest of my questions.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Why am I finding it hard to believe that you will actually stay put?”
“I think I’ve had one too many brushes with death for one evening.” I crossed my heart. “I promise to stay here and wait. There? Satisfied?”
He waited a moment before he nodded and left the solarium without a backward glance. I studied the entrance for a long while, imagining his broad-shouldered frame filling the doorway. I had never met anyone quite like Troyan. He exuded a cold and threatening persona, yet compassion simmered below the surface. A gummy bear inside a jawbreaker.
Twenty minutes later, the clinking of china wrenched me away from the thriller I’d ended up reading. Gaige walked in with a tea set on a tray. I dog-eared the page and looked up.
Concerned for the safety of the elegant blue-and-white-trimmed china, I stood up and took the tray from him. All his nervous energy made me nervous. Jeez! The guy had to relax.
His smile wobbled. “Thank you.”
“Why twitchier than usual?” I placed the tray on the table.
“Too much caffeine maybe.” He plopped down onto a cushioned chair and stretched like a sunbathing cat.
He seemed sweet in his own way, like he couldn’t hurt a fly—unless he wanted to. My eyes darted to his face, then to the table. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have done so in his lab. But that thought brought with it little relief as I poured tea for us. I had no way of knowing who to trust.
Gaige took the cup I offered and stared at the amber liquid, thoughtful. With my own cup in hand, I settled into my chair.
The ice of uncertainty coated my chest. Usually I flew by the seat of my pants, deciding what to do as I moved forward. My plans had gone down the drain the moment Beatrix threatened my life. The annoyance I felt for Troyan’s overprotectiveness kept me on edge. And Zaire? I didn’t even have words to describe what I felt when I remembered him. I took a sip and ignored the burn on my tongue. The tea had a distinctly floral aftertaste with a hint of spice.
“Darjeeling?” I asked. My mother loved tea. Many afternoons we shared cups of different blends. Half of what I know came from her. The other half? Mostly self-taught and earned from a delinquent lifestyle.
Gaige’s face drained of color when he shook his head.
“It tastes familiar, though there’s a difference I can’t quite pinpoint,” I remarked.
“It’s a special tea. Its leaves are grown in our gardens.”
“Your gardens?”
“Yes, where we live.”
A fuzzy dizziness came over me. I couldn’t quite understand what he meant. Where they lived?
I dropped my cup when the tea set on the table swayed. Gaige swayed too. The cup shattered, spilling its contents on the roiling floor.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” The last of my question came out slurred. My tongue refused to cooperate.
The solarium spun like a top—first slowly, then faster and faster, until everything around me faded to black.
Chapter Four: Obstacles
SHAKING. LOTS of it. The kind that rivaled most San Franciscan earthquakes. I slapped away the hand on my shoulder. I rolled over in an attempt to find a more comfortable position. Somehow my bed had morphed into a hard slab, but I chalked it up to still being half-asleep. Anything that involved me that day had to do with lying in bed. My body felt too heavy to even want to move. Damnable light pierced through the darkness behind my eyelids, so I reached for my head. Where did my pillow go?
“Camron, you have to wake up,” a female voice urged.
The shaking continued.
“Riya, if you don’t stop shaking me, I swear I’ll put toothpaste in your shoes,” I threatened, my voice like gravel underfoot. A metallic tang coated my sandpaper tongue.
My torturer gasped. “Mr. Masters, get up. Get up right now!”
Several giggles and a few laughs greeted my slowly waking ears like irritating birdsong. People. As in plural. Wait a freakin’ second. I lifted one eyelid to peek at who wanted me up so early, but the bright morning light forced me to shut it again. I pushed myself up to a seated position. I brought the heels of my hands to my eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them. Then I stifled a yawn, stretched my arms above my head, and finally opened my eyes.
Sunlight streamed in from the large windows. I found myself sitting on top of a long study table located at the center of the library. Along with Ms. Lipinski, several students crowded the table I sat on like they might observe mold growing in a petri dish.
“What am I doing here?” I blurted out.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Ms. Lipinski said, her brow prune-wrinkled.
My gut sank. Ah crap.
I finally managed to swallow. The metallic taste made me want to gag. Gaige and Troyan must have drugged me. But why would they leave me in the library instead of bringing me back to the dorms? Then the monster realization crashed on top of me. I didn’t use the word imbecile lightly, but I thought it appropriate for my current situation. I’d been tricked and left to the wolves.
“Ms. Lipinski,” I said with great trepidation. “By any chance, does the headmaster want to see me?”
My question had all the students stepping away from the table.
“Why, as a matter of fact—”
I hopped off the table and ran for the door. Luckily, two girls were coming in just as I reached it, saving me the trouble of struggling with its impossible weight. I elbowed my way past them, much to their annoyed protestations. I didn’t care. I had more important things to figure out.
Outside, I made a right. My lungs felt tight, hungry for every breath. I stumbled into the nearest blue-and-white bathroom and slammed the door shut. If Troyan went to great lengths to expose my breaking curfew that meant there was truth in his words. He kept saving me from all the others, insisting they could kill me without a second thought. He would actually see me expelled just to keep me safe.
I leaned on the door to keep anyone else from coming in as the bell gonged eight times. I damned Troyan to a slow and painful death. My heart pounded so hard that I felt it in my head as I made my way to the sinks. I gripped the porcelain and stared at the drain before looking at my reflection in the mirror. Just as I suspected—ashen skin and purple splotches underneath my eyes. Not my best look, even after clubbing all night.
I quickly washed my face and rinsed out my mouth. Then I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged at my uniform. The wrinkles persisted.
Giving up on trying to look like I hadn’t slept in the library all night, I left the bathroom. The first breaking of curfew was free. The second was totally on me. I hurried to the north end of Braylin castle, which housed the administration offices, three rooms side by side. The secretary, registrar, and staff occupied the first room. The records room sat at the center. And at end lay the office of the man I’d been handed to on a hard wooden table.
At first, I couldn’t bring myself to enter Kiev’s office. The massive door with its gold nameplate that spelled out HEADMASTER in black letters seemed to mock me. It looked too formal, too highbrow. If the wood had a face, I was sure its eyebrow would be arched as if to say “You deserve what you’re about to get in here.”
Yet, really, there was no point in waiting any longer. I twisted the knob and pushed my way in. At the other end of the room stood a tall man gazing out bay windows that offered up a view of the northern courtyard. Below, students hustled from one end to the other to get to class.
The headmaster had dark hair, a clean-shaven face, broad shoulders, and long legs. I would have thought of Aleksander Kiev as handsome if the concept of good-looking hadn’t changed forever for me. Meeting Troyan, Zaire, and the rest of the “too attractive for their own good” crew messed with the bell curve.
“I�
�ve been waiting for you, Mr. Masters,” Kiev said in his Russian-accented English.
I flinched. He regarded me with a neutral expression, his hands clasped behind his back. He reminded me of my father in this moment, and I tensed. It put me on edge.
“I took a detour,” I mumbled, intent on staring at my boots, hands in my pockets.
“What detour?”
“Bathroom.”
“I see.” He sighed. “Please take a seat.”
I looked up at him. He had moved from the windows to his oxblood leather chair. His cherrywood-paneled office had a fireplace, reading chairs, a wall filled with books, and a painting of a woman draped over a man kissing her neck. It hung over the mantel. The plush carpet reflected the Braylin colors, which made the room darker than it should be.
“I’ll stand, thanks,” I said, too nervous to sit still. I couldn’t be sure of what Kiev knew. If anything, Troyan had already spoken to him.
“All right.” He laid his hands on the armrests of his chair. “I assume you know why you are here?”
I shrugged. Feigning indifference always helped determine the wrong committed without accidentally confessing to a different crime.
Kiev studied me for the longest time. “Mr. Masters, you’ve been caught breaking curfew.”
“Headmaster, I can explain—”
“Twice,” he interrupted without changing the cadence of his voice. “As you know, Braylin does not impose many rules. The students who attend classes here are specifically chosen for their academic achievements. They work hard and are good at what they do. They study to the best of their abilities, which does not leave much room for disciplinary offenses.”
In short we were all nerds. We liked stability. We liked to study.
“How is this connected to my breaking curfew?” I asked.
“I was just getting to that,” Kiev answered in an even tone.
I briefly wondered how rude I would have to get to bring out the anger. It didn’t take much to piss off most people. The only person I’d tried and failed to get riled up barely spoke to me unless absolutely necessary. I bit my lip hard for slipping into thoughts of my father again.
“Normally, I would be signing your expulsion papers right about now.”
A ray of hope parted the storm clouds above me. “But?”
“You have friends in high places.” He gave me an all-knowing look.
“What are you hiding here at Braylin, Mr. Kiev?” I asked.
His expression went from neutral to serious in less than a second. “For your own safety, Mr. Masters, I suggest you forget about the existence of the individuals you have recently come in contact with. It is a miracle that you are even standing before me… alive.”
Tell me about it. Then the first part of what he’d said clicked into place.
“Is that a threat?”
“Only if you make it one.”
My palms felt damp inside my pockets. “So, why not expel me? It’s the easiest thing to do.”
“Like I said, you have friends in high places.” Kiev reorganized his features to the neutral mask. “For now, you are being put under disciplinary probation.”
I couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that left my lungs.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are not getting off that easy, Mr. Masters.”
I waited for the rest of what Kiev had to say. It hardly mattered since I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my stay at Braylin. Not anymore. Troyan was right. It was too dangerous to keep digging. I didn’t want to risk being anyone else’s dinner.
“You will not break curfew again. You will attend all your classes and report to me every day before you leave campus. And you most certainly will not mention what happens on campus after sunset to anyone. If you do, I assure you that I will not only expel you, I will expel everyone you have told. No one, and I mean no one, will be able to stop me. Am I making myself clear?”
I had so many choice comebacks for the authoritative way he doled out my punishment, but I stopped myself. Instead I said, with complete resolve, “Crystal.”
Chapter Five: Rendezvous
EVERY STUDENT I passed the second I entered Braylin—after a well-deserved shower at the dorms—stepped out of the way like I had the plague. I’d only been gone an hour, and already the news about my probation had spread. My professor kept calling on me to answer his questions as if my IQ had decreased by fifty points since the last question he’d asked me not five minutes before.
As far as punishments, I got off easy. Kiev hadn’t even suspended me. But then again, a suspension would have meant time away from my classes. For a school that focused on academics, keeping a student out of class seemed like a big no-no. If I was right, no one had ever been suspended at Braylin.
After my last morning class, I made my way to The Roast. The glass doors parted and a momentary lull in the conversation accompanied my entrance. I glanced around the room to catch at least half the eyes in the place focused on me, but nobody had the guts to meet my stare. Then, like flipping a switch, the whispering continued. The different cliques huddled together, talking all at once.
I hurried to Riya’s table and sat down, dumping my bag on the floor. “Riya?”
She fiddled with the tip of her braid. “It’s going around that you’re on academic probation.”
“Disciplinary,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“It’s disciplinary, not academic.”
Her eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets. “That’s worse. Far worse.”
A fiery blush spread across my face, prompting me to avoid Riya’s gaze. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t fallen asleep in the library.”
There was a brief silence followed by laughter so hard I thought she’d fall off her chair. “Was that where you were last night?” She slapped the table several times.
“Shhh!” I grabbed her shoulders. “Will you keep it down? It’s embarrassing enough as it is.”
Riya continued laughing at me. Normally, I’d be forcing her to stop. But the fact that she bought my story without asking any further questions gave me some needed relief. I knew Kiev would make good on his threat of expelling anyone else who found out about Troyan and the others.
“Oh, will you stop it already.” I rolled my eyes at her and slumped into my seat.
She smiled. “You hungry?”
I returned her smile. “Starving.”
After Riya’s chicken vindaloo and my salmon patties arrived, I gave her an update on my pariah status. With every bite of patty, I got more and more wound up by the smug expression on her face.
“What?” she asked.
“You make me want to pinch you. Really hard.”
“Oh, stop it. I told you researching late into the night would be counterproductive. Worse, you were apparently cutting curfew because of it. Be lucky they didn’t expel you.” Riya scooped another spoonful of rice into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and then added, “Besides, you’re a rebel now. Although I doubt any of the other students will be following in your footsteps considering what’s happened to you.”
“You make it sound like an achievement.”
“Even if everyone is giving you a wide berth because of it, many of them admire you for being the first ever to break curfew. You’ll go down as a legend.”
I dropped my fork and knife on my plate and sat back. “I honestly don’t want to be a legend.” I hoped Riya was right when she said the masses were basically sheep. If they knew what lurked in the halls of Braylin at night… I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened.
I realized my mistake too late when Riya said, “But you’re not stupid enough to get caught breaking curfew for researching about your mother’s sickness. If you weren’t doing it to gain legend status among the nerd population, why did you get caught?”
“I really did fall asleep, Riya,” I said. “My life’s not that exciting. Not anymore. Not since my d
ad stopped caring.”
Her crystal bindi caught the light when her brows came together. “Fine.”
I knew playing the Dad card would get her to back off. Putting on a fake frown, I nodded.
Riya reached for my hand and squeezed. “How are you feeling now? I’m sure being on probation isn’t easy. What can I do to make it better?”
“I dare you to run around campus naked.” I resumed eating.
Riya threw a crumpled paper napkin at me. I swatted the ball away, and we laughed. We finished our lunch while chatting about other things not related to my disciplinary probation. After parting ways I muscled my way through the library doors. Then I sneezed. Twice. Loudly. The sound actually bounced off the walls. My gaze landed on the outraged Ms. Lipinski. She had her finger to her lips. I wasn’t getting on her good side anytime soon. I mouthed “sorry” and hurried to the history section, ignoring the exasperated stares other students cut my way for disturbing the sanctity of their study time.
I wanted to get a head start on a few of my assignments. I didn’t want professors breathing down my neck because of a little thing like disciplinary probation. The phrase stung now that I’d had time to process what it really meant for me. Not that I didn’t deserve worse.
The tall bookshelves I slipped between muffled out all sounds. Even the soft whirr of the temperature control disappeared. I stopped for a moment, reveling in the utter and complete silence. Not even the thud of my heartbeat could be heard. I veered right and followed the descending letter plates stuck to the side of the shelves until I reached the section I was looking for, then began pulling out large books that smelled oh-so-old. I took a long whiff and smiled. E-readers were a great convenience, but nothing could beat the smell of a library and old books.
I had pulled a third book free from the shelf when clear blue eyes greeted me on the other side. I yelped. The books slid from my hands and hit the ground in a series of loud thumps, eliciting a sharp “shhh!” from a student somewhere close by. I stumbled and tripped, falling against the opposite bookcase. I grabbed a shelf to steady myself while my heart attempted to leap out of my chest.
