When my latest peer excused herself to visit the punch bowl, I sighed. A few groups had formed, and some close-lipped peers who I’d been talking to were chatting animatedly with others. Maybe Eva was right. Was I too muchfor our classmates?
“What’s up, buttercup?” Hunter asked. He, at least, hadn’t left my side.
I shook my head. “I keep trying to engage people, but they all scurry away so fast. It’s like they don’t want to talk to me.”
Hunter leaned closer. “Because they’re intimidated by you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Your parents are legendary. They took down entire crime rings of demons, and tribes of dangerous faeries.”
I blinked. My parents had done those things? How had Hunter found this out? And why didn’t they tell me?
A spurt of jealousy that Hunter was so well informed about my parents’ past shot through me.
“And then there’s the dragon wrangling—my favorite tale,” Hunter said. “That’s definitely scaring a few people off.”
My grip tightened on my drink. “Dragon wrangling! What are you—”
“Orthey feel obligated.”
A sharp tone cut through my disbelief, and I whipped around to find Diana standing before us.
“I’d say people are ignoring you because they’re aware that you shouldn’t be here.”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish’s. “E—e—excuse me?” I sputtered.
“Did I stutter?” Diana arched an eyebrow. Seriously, what had I done to deserve her ire? “You may have dodged the entry testing, but perhaps Culling year will weed you out sooner than I thought, if you can’t grasp such a basic concept.”
“Are you telling me they’reallbeing standoffish because they’re upset that I didn’t test in?” I challenged.
Diana shrugged. “I can’t speak to their motivations, but since our performances in the testing were made public in our orientation packets, I’d have to say it’s a distinct possibility. I bet that some didn’t want to come, but their parents insisted. Our parents’ generation is far too concerned with appearances.”
The music, which had been soft before, picked up, and Diana wrinkled her nose. “Thankfully, our peers seem to be of a different mind. Less inclined to put up a front for a freeloader, living off her connections.”
“I’m not—!”
“Anyway,” Diana waved her hand in front of her face as she spoke over me, “I’ve made my appearance, and that’s all I’m willing to give. Class starts early tomorrow, and you can bet that I’ll be ready.”
She turned on her heel and strutted out of the room as if she owned the place. I was about to follow and set her straight when I noticed five other classmates scurrying after her.
My heart plummeted. I recognized that scurry. It was the mass exit, the one that followed after the first person brave enough to leave a party made their move.
People wanted out.
My stomach hardened as an unavoidable question popped into my mind.
Did they even want to be here in the first place?
Chapter Seven
The next morning, snippets from the mixer replayed in my mind like a bad dream as I walked to my first class. My inability to hold anyone’s interest, Diana’s hoity-toity attitude, and the mass exodus that had followed her out of the room, being the most memorable and hurtful.
At least there had been a couple wins. Like meeting Wilhemina “Mina” Köhler, the other girl who lived on our floor, and Amethyst Rhines, whose family was friends with the Proctors. Those girls hadn’t seemed to dislike me. And as Mina was another L.A. native, we’d been able to bond over our love of good tacos.
Still, that left the vast majority of my class that potentially thought I was riding on my parents’ coattails.
I heaved a massive sigh.
