Friday I woke up completely groggy. The sirens had gone off nearly every hour. I desperately wanted to look out the window, but we were under strict orders not to look. Plus, I wasn’t going for a repeat, but worry for Dastien kept me up most of the night.
I probably should’ve known something was up when I saw Mr. Hoel at breakfast in the morning, but ignorance was bliss. He was the President of the Board and, as such, had decided that all us youngins needed a three-hour lecture about the situation on campus as it were.
There were more than a few nasty looks shot my way when news hit in my first period class. It seemed like he was using my example of getting snatched from the dorm for his talk. It was going to eat up everyone’s—except for the Freshmens’—martial arts class. With vampires close by, that was the last class that anyone wanted to skip. Even for a day.
I was with them on that, but I didn’t mind skipping Were history, which was kind of interesting-ish, or metaphysics, which seemed like a load of hogwash. This week’s metaphysics lessons comprised trying to make magic have a scientific edge. I wasn’t sure that any amount of rhetoric would convince me chemistry and spells were synonymous.
After lunch, we all piled into the gym. Folding chairs had been lined up and a podium sat in the front of them. I hadn’t been in a room—other than the cafeteria—with the whole school before. Spread out across the cafeteria I didn’t get much of a sense at how many people actually went to the school, but all in this room it felt both bigger and smaller. Smaller because of the number of people—there couldn’t be much more than a couple hundred of us. And bigger because all the energy of the pack together made it feel like there were well over a thousand in the room.
Mr. Dawson, Sebastian, Donovan, and Dastien stood in the back of the room. Dastien and Donovan laughed at something Mr. Dawson said. There was really way too much hotness going on back there. The laughing only made them that much more attractive. Those two really didn’t need the bonus points.
I found a chair between Meredith and Adrian. Chris was still keeping his distance from me after Dastien’s freakout. I didn’t blame him, but it chafed.
Once we were all settled, Mr. Dawson walked up and introduced Mr. Hoel. “Rupert Hoel is the head of the school board here at St. Ailbe’s. He wanted to speak to you all about the vampire attacks on the school and the repercussions they could have on student life. I hope you’ll all give him the attention he deserves.”
I almost laughed. What if I didn’t think he deserved any attention? Did Mr. D just give me leave to ignore the lecture? Nice.
“Thank you so much, Michael, for that introduction. I hope that in the next three hours you will come to learn a bit about vampires and the vampire threat. We’ll also discuss relations with humans and the future of werewolves in this world. I do hope I have your undivided attention.”
I snorted, and Mr. Dawson winked at me as he walked back to his spot against the wall.
The first hour of the lecture was spent talking about vampires and their abilities. Then the plans they had to keep us protected during the night when the vampires would be out.
But slowly what he was talking about changed. It was little comments here and there sprinkled in, but as I recalled each one, they added up to all the ways that werewolves were the best species on the planet. We had a merciful five-minute break and then it was back to the lecture.
The second hour turned my stomach. If there was any doubt that I disliked the man, it quickly disappeared. Mr. Hoel droned on about how humans were the weaker species and differences between the two. Throughout the course of that hour, I found myself grinding my teeth.
I’d heard this before—Caucasians versus African Americans, women versus men—same bullshit arguments. Anything but equality was just a load of crap. It made one half-white, half-Mexican, part-werewolf, part-bruja woman want to scream. I didn’t fit into any nice little box in Los Angeles, and I sure didn’t fit into any of Mr. Hoel’s boxes now that I added a hefty dose of werewolf into the mix. I had a good feeling that I was a “lesser citizen” in his eyes. Mustering up the ability to give a shit about that was exceedingly hard. This was some Hilter youth bullshit that Mr. Hoel was trying to pull, and I sincerely hoped I wasn’t the only one seeing through his line of crap.
The third hour was brutal. Halfway though I was jonesing to hit something. Or maybe just a specific someone. Too many of my classmates were nodding or clapping to his conclusions. Didn’t they see how wrong this was?
When the time came for questions, I made sure mine was the first hand up.
I stood from my chair when he nodded at me. “I get that going to school here means that I have to listen to you wax poetically about how much better werewolves are than humans, but don’t you think that you’re being a little racist? Or maybe more appropriately species-ist? And what good would it do to really show up the humans? You want to start a species war in a world that is already ravaged by injustice. You talk about honor among wolves, but I don’t see any honor in what you’re implying.”
I expected the open mouths and gasps from my classmates, but what I didn’t expect was the clapping and cheering from the back of the room. I pulled out the sides of my invisible skirt and curtseyed before sitting down.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Mr. Hoel said. His words were clipped. “A former human would have little hope of grasping at the complexities of what we covered today and will cover in any future lectures.”
I cleared my throat. “It’s a good thing that being new isn’t the same thing as being ignorant. I’m grasping your complexities quite well, I just happen to vehemently disagree with them. And I have to say your vitriol on the human condition really gets under my skin.”
“I don’t understand—”
“What? Were my words too big for you? Which ones, and I’ll try to explain.”
Meredith elbowed me. “Oh my God! Stop,” she mumbled.
Mr. Hoel strode down the aisle toward me, but Mr. Dawson stepped between us. “Class dismissed. Everyone clear out.” Mr. Dawson’s order echoed in the silent gym. I wanted to stay and argue with the ignoramus but Adrian grabbed one arm and Meredith the other. They dragged me out of the gym.
“Do you have a death wish?” Meredith whispered. “You already know the Hoels have it out for you. Why’d you do that?”
I shrugged out of their grasp and continued walking to our dorm. “No one was contradicting him. I couldn’t just sit there and let him think that we all agreed with that bullshit.”
“Well, it was dumb,” Adrian said. “He’s a powerful enemy for anyone to have, but especially so for a recently bitten girl.”
“Standing up against prejudice is never ever dumb.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”