1
MIA
“Come along, Miss Apollinari,” the secretary, Miss Linda Worthy says, gripping my hand in a vise and tugging me along. “I hope you said your goodbyes to your friends here at the Academy because it is time for you to go home.”
“No, I had no time. Can I—”
“If you go quietly, we won’t press charges. Bad publicity, you see, and that’s the only reason you may simply gather your things and leave.”
“But I can’t—”
“Can’t what, Miss Apollinari?” she mutters.
Can’t go back.
She hauled me out of the changing room in the stadium before I could say anything. I’d gone to check that Emrys was all right after a catastrophic hit by the Scale-ball. I can still see the four boys’ eyes on me—questioning, shocked, angry… sad.
Why the sadness? Did I imagine it?
I yank my hand out of her hold—but there’s no way to go but follow her. What can I do, run away? That’s exactly what she wants from me. Run away from the Academy.
Exactly what I can’t do.
Despair swamps me. I haven’t managed to accomplish anything. Leaving home in the dead of night, scared to death Father might catch me and beat the hell out of me, that I might run afoul of bad people who’d rape me and kill me, that the money I took wouldn’t be enough to get me to the Academy or put me on the enrollment list—that I’d get conned, as I was, because I’ve lived such a sheltered life, that I’m naïve, ignorant of the ways of the world.
All that for nothing? Getting Zoey McFarlan, the Ice Queen, to help me dress and look the part of an Academy student, getting close to the four boys who bullied my cousin into practically taking her own life—well, specifically a spell that landed her in an enchanted sleep she’s unlikely to ever wake up from but why nitpick?—and taking revenge on them… And now this? Getting caught before I started? Being sent back to a life I can’t imagine living anymore?
Leaving these four boys—these gorgeous bullies—unpunished?
“Don’t make this worse for yourself,” Miss Worthy says, glaring at me over her gold-rimmed glasses. “Come with me. You don’t want the Headmaster to get involved.”
“Don’t I? And why is that? Is he one of these creatures? A vampire, maybe? A werewolf? A demon?”
She chuckles. “Miss Apollinari… These deflection mechanisms may help you cope with your anger, but believe me, they won’t serve you in any practical way. The Headmaster is a busy man and will not be happy if he has to be called away from this work to deal with a little miscreant like you. He trusts me to take care of things.”
“I see that,” I mutter. “You’re devoted to him and the Academy. You’re his watchdog. This is your home and you’re defending it.”
Not sure where those words came from but they cause her eyes to narrow. “What do you know about me?”
There’s something…abouther, something familiar, something tugging on a string inside my mind like a kitten playing… A scent of leather and grease that I remember from a party by the lake as a boy saved me from the demons who tried to toy with me and probably kill me.
“You’re a werewolf,” I say, “aren’t you?”
A werebitch, my mind supplies,or probably just a bitch, but I manage to stop my mouth from blurting out anything else.
“How do you…?” She stares at me, eyes round behind her glasses. “Who told you?”
“Nobody. Doesn’t anyone else know your secret?”
After a moment, she shakes her head. “There aren’t many of us,” she says, “shifter women. Not anymore. Demonblood magic has been killing us off, preferring males to take over. We women are elemental creatures, and elemental magic has dwindled, suppressed by the demonic one.”
“This is your home,” I whisper, as things fall into place. “You grew up here.”
“True, the Academy belongs to my family. But enough about me.” Her gaze hardens again. “If you think for even one second that your knowledge about me will give you an advantage… Think again. Come, let’s get this over with. I have work to do.”
She’s taking me to my room, I realize, to pack my things. She wants me out here and now, and panic threatens to seize me again. “Look, I really would like to say goodbye to my friends. Can’t you give me one day longer? Then I’ll be out of your hair.”
Not enough time to find out the boys’ secrets, that bird has flown, but maybe I can take some sort of revenge, even if it means smashing up something, taking something they care about.