“Fuck them!” we all chorus, and we all fall into a drunken sleep on the floor in front of the fire.
“Are you going to be okay when you see him?” Tatiana murmurs as we enter the dining room the next morning.
“Fuck him,” I smile pleasantly as two seniors from the Warriors division walk past us. They look oddly interested and one leans in close. His name is Christoph, I think.
“If you want to offer any payback to Turgenev,” he whispers, “I’m happy to offer my services.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I whisper back. It’s more likely that fucking Kon would kill him in a fair - or unfair - fight, but I appreciate the show of support.
I’ve barely ordered a bagel when Lauren Birch slips into the seat next to me. “It is true that you caught that fucker Turgenev going at it with that walking STD Tansey Marchand in the greenhouse?”
Tatiana spits out her orange juice, trying to wipe it off her shirt as she laughs.
“I see the legend has begun,” I said. “No. They were just flirting and he is an asshole.”
“It doesn’t matter,” shrugs Willow, who seats herself across from Tati. “By tomorrow, he will have been caught in the middle ofan orgy including Marchand, a couple of the pastry chefs from the kitchen and a mermaid.” Her eyes widen as she realizes that was probably the wrong thing to say. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless.”
“You can never resist delivering the funny line, can you?” Mala says dryly, sitting on my other side.
“It’s my upbringing,” Willow says, “I was raised by a family of insensitive pricks.”
Breakfast continues pretty much how I expected it to. Everyone whispering. The mean girls were giggling. Tansey is holding court at the far end of the dining hall with two of the juniors from her father’s syndicate standing guard. Like I’m going to fight her? Please.
Jun shows up, giving me a careless kiss on the cheek. Just as we’re finishing breakfast, Lucca walks in.
“Are you still speaking to me?” he asks with a tentative smile.
“You are not the asshole in this scenario,” I said, “and I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He nods, hugs me, and leaves again.
Konstantin doesn’t show at all.
The most difficult encounter I am prepared for is Combat class, when I’m going to be forced to work with that bastard, but Konstantin is missing when we walk into the gym. Professor Zimmerman irritably shifts those of us training with Konstantin into other groups. I end up in O’Neill’s.
“Hey, my girl,” Liam says happily. “Come try an’ kick my arse.” I don’t, but the punching and kicking is very satisfying.
Three days pass, and there’s no sign of Konstantin. The campus is buzzing, speculating that he was expelled.
“Oh, come on!” I groan when Mala reports the latest gossip. “You would have to actually disembowel someone to get kicked out of the Ares Academy.”
“I think Dean Christie would handle a case like that with her table saw and the deeply unfortunate student,” Meiying laughs.
Tatiana looks a little green and I hastily change the subject.
I’ve always been a light sleeper, and when I hear a scraping sound outside my window, I’m up and holding my KA-BAR knife in seconds. There’s another grinding noise, metal against metal, and I see the grappling hook attached to the wrought iron rail outside my window. Leaning back against the wall, I raise the knife high, ready to drive it into the skull of whoever’s trying to break into my room.
A thin blade slides between the balcony doors and disables the locking mechanism in seconds. As one muscled arm pushes the window open, my knife hand is driving down with all my force.
“Shit! Mariya, it’s me!”
Konstantin.
Really, I should stab him again, but I’m horrified. I pull back my blade but there’s a cut streaming blood from his left shoulder. “You should go back down that line,” I said coldly. “Though I’m happy to add a few more slices before you do.”
“I had no other way to see you,” Konstantin said, quickly swinging over the railing and shutting the doors.
“Maybe that should have been a clue. Get the fuck out of here.” I’m trying to sound firm and indifferent, but that cut is still bleeding.
