“She’s asleep,” I said, ashing my cigarette out the window.
“Considerate of you to leave the window open,” Konstantin drawls. “Do you have another one of those?” Chuckling softly, I hand him the almost empty pack. Lighting up, he eyed me. “I thought you were quitting.”
“I am,” I said, watching the two lights burning in the main building. One is from Dean Christie’s office, the other is a light glowing on the basement level. “I just keep them for…” I suck in another deep breath of stale tobacco smoke, “special occasions.”
It’s really too cold to have the window open, the ever-present wind on the island gleefully whipping into the room. We’re both wearing heavy sweaters, though, and we stay seated on the window bench, smoking.
There’s a terrified scream that morphs into agony and then sobbing. Then, another. And another and then one more.
Flicking my butt out the window, I stand up and stretch, and so does Konstantin.
“Goodnight,” I grin. It must not look right because Kon, who knows me better than anyone, flinches just a bit when he looks at me.
Chapter Twenty-One
In which we learn how cruel life can be to a ten-year-old.
Tatiana…
The Academy does two things well, train future sociopaths and spread gossip, so by the time we walked into breakfast the next morning, half the dining hall falls silent, staring at us.
Two girls from my Interrogation class - who’d never spoken to me - hurried over the minute we sat down.
“Hey hon, how are you doing?” Tansey Marchand is the daughter of a powerful Mob boss in New Orleans, and she adds a little extra sugar to her Southern accent. “It’s just so terrible, what happened. You can always talk to me if you need a sympathetic ear. Mateo and his whole slimy group are trash. Just trash.”
I stare at them, drinking my coffee. Why do people like to watch the grief of others so much? As if hearing all the ugly details of my pain and terror would keep it from happening to them? It’s why I refuse to talk about my parents to anyone but Lucca and Mariya.
“Thank you, Tansey,” Mariya said dryly, “you can move on now, your good deed is done for the day.”
Tansey stares at Mariya, eyes narrowed. “Well, bless your heart.” Tossing her curls over her shoulder, she flounces away, her friend in tow.
“You know she just told you to go fuck yourself, right?” Konstantin said gleefully. “For a Southern girl, that’s the worst thing she could ever say to you.”
“It definitely seemed like the message based on her expression,” she snickers.
“That didn’t take long to make the rounds, did it?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
Lucca kisses the top of my head. “They don’t matter. Ignore them.”
It was a week before I saw Mateo again.
“What is that fucker still doing on campus!” hissed Camilla. “I’m going to stab him in the throat with my pen!”
Just the sight of him makes my stomach churn violently, and I look down at my white-knuckle grip on my book bag. “I thought he left the school with the other three.”
Athena caught up with us. “He should have, the little prick. But apparently, his father insisted he stay and finish the year since he’d already taken his punishment. His dad’s a realbástardos,too.”
Camilla steps closer to me as he approaches us, but she doesn’t need to worry. Mateo turns when he spots us and goes the other way. He looks pale, nasty like he hasn’t showered. As I glance down at his right hand, I drop my bag.
There isn’t one. A hand. Just a bandaged stump.
“I’m going to be sick,” I whisper.
“Don’t you dare,” Athena says, linking her arm with mine for the first time ever. “He got exactly what he deserved.”
With Mateo keeping away from me, life at the Academy settled into something that perhaps wasn’t perfect, though it was close. There was so much laughter and happiness in the moments spent with our group - the first people ever that I could confidently say were my true friends - and with Lucca.
He was very careful to not touch me in any way that could be considered sexual, though I spent nearly every night with him. This went on for over a week before I straddled him in bed - naked - and told him no one was getting any sleep until he made me come.
