“How dare you! Do you not know who I am?” She snarls at me.
I take another nonchalant pose and look her dead in the eye. “Of course, I do. You were arrogant enough to give me your title when I asked who you were. How could I forget about the Queen of the Harpies?” In a split second, her eyes turn as dark as tar and an ethereal glow surrounds her as I try my damnedest not to flinch when I see her hand pull back.
Smack!
The force of her slap sends me rolling off of my chair, and a burning sensation blossoms across my cheek.Damn that stings. I hear a few chuckles and giggles, indicating the harpies saw it and loved how their Queen took me down. Well, fuck playing nice. I might not have powers, but I’m not a fucking whipping post either.
Jumping back up, I spin around to see her smug look. I can guess how nasty my cheek looks by how bad it stings, but I don’t waste any time. I throw a right hook and watch as a brief look of astonishment crosses her face before my fist connects with her cheek, but I don’t stop there. This bitch hit me first, but I’ll be damned if I’m not the last one standing.
As she falls to the ground from my hit, I jump onto her back, and students jump up from their seats yelling and chanting, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Burn, Fairy Burn!
Rez
Tap. Tap. Tap. I look around the sparse sterile room while I sit on a hard ass table, swinging my legs into the bed with a steady rhythm as I wait on a doctor to come see me and let me go back to class. I need to get out of here. The annoying tech wouldn’t just take my word that I was okay and let me go. I needed a clean bill of health for a release. The walls are blank, and what I think are cabinets that can’t be opened without a code. There’s no mirror, no sink, nothing. I would be happy with just a Q-tip to play with right now. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but it’s been long enough that I’m sure I’m into my next class and I’m missing it as well. If I keep this up, I’ll never be able to get the information I need to get back home. UGH!
The only thing that’s making me happy right now is knowing Emer is sitting in another room down the hall from me, whining up a storm, because she can’t take a punch. Pussy. Some Royal Fae, she is. HA! Don’t they teach people how to fight? Granted, I never took any professional classes, but I learned the hard way. Kids are mean, that’s all I have to say about it. My adrenaline is still running from the fight, and I’m itching to get out of here, even though my cheek still burns like hell. I know better than to touch it, it’ll be tender that’s for sure.
Mr. Weston, an older black man, took pity on me when I was in sixth grade and let me sit in his dojo to watch his students. He got tired of shooing me away when I just stood in front of his window overlooking the class while I tried mimicking the moves on the sidewalk. Every Saturday after his session, he would correct any mistakes he saw over the week. Too bad it didn’t last, though. After my mother died, I moved to New Orleans with my grandparents, and my training stopped. I can deal with innocent shit-like words all day long, but once you put your hands on me, “It’s free pickings, missy,” quoting my Grams.
There’s a knock on the door, and an older man with salt and pepper hair and dark-rimmed glasses walks in with a small tablet, giving me a friendly smile. “Ah. Nerezza. Hello, I’m Dr. Steinbeck. How are you?” He pulls the one black stool over and sits in front of me.
“I’m good. Can I leave?” I ask in the nicest way possible.
“Not until I do a complete check-up and make sure there’s nothing wrong.” He looks at his tablet before putting it into his pocket and pulling out a device that looks like a new thermometer. “So, tell me what happened in Ms. Lyon’s classroom,” he says while running the device over my forehead, all the while it beeps numbers at him.
What’s the harm, right? Besides, I have a feeling he won’t let me out of here until I spill the short story. Shrugging, I recap what happened. The slap, my punch, the hair pulling, and me ripping out her earrings in her too long ears. She should think of getting those clipped if she wants to fight with me. I’m a scrapper. I might not know how to properly fight, but I know how to play dirty and throw the proper punch. Too bad I couldn’t do any more damage before Ryker pulled me off of the Harpy Queen, and Ms. Lyons, apparently, sent us to the clinic.
He turns my head and takes a look at my cheek, letting out a long whistle. “Let’s get this patched up, shall we.” His guiding hand releases my face and he goes to the cabinet where he opens it by pressing his finger on the edge. When he swings the door out, inside is a mirror that I can see myself in from where I’m sitting. It has to be bad if I’m still feeling it, so I turn my head and take in my cheek. Damn! Not only is there a handprint, but it’s raised up like a second or third-degree burn. What the fuck?
He pulls out a few canisters of ointment and some gauze. “That’s some nasty Fae Fire she used on you.” Setting what he needs within reach, he sprays something cold on my cheek that smells a lot like rain but tingles. Then he rubs cream over the area, and I watch in fascination in the mirror as it bubbles on my face, but there’s no pain. After a few minutes, he uses the gauze and wipes away the red, inflamed skin. Now it looks like a standard handprint, but shiny with a black mark running along where her palm and middle finger would have been. It seems like a dark crevice in the middle of my cheek, and I’m surprised it didn’t hurt worse than what it looks like. Well, at least my skin doesn’t look like it’s melting off now.
“What’s Fae Fire, and is it going to scar?” I ask.
Dr. Steinbeck looks at me with concern. “Fae Fire is more like acid in the human world. It’s a slow burn, but it does remarkable damage if not caught early. I was told this was just a squabble, so I’m sorry that I didn’t get here sooner to look at your skin.”
That BITCH! She was going to melt me?I wish I would have done more damage.Fuck it!I hop off the table. I’m going to go find that Harpy.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Dr. Steinbeck says, throwing an arm out to stop me.
“To teach her a lesson. No one tries to melt me,” I say, balling up my fists.
“Not without me checking out those knuckles first,” he says and grabs my hand, holding in his laughter. My hands are a little worse for wear. I have dried blood on them, and they are scratched up. At least it’s not MY blood.
“Are you seriously trying not to laugh right now?” I ask, aghast he finds this funny.
He looks over them and reaches for the other jar he pulled out of the cabinet. Wiping a yellow paste over my knuckles and fingers, I watch as it evaporates, leaving my hands clean.Sweet, they look brand new.
“What’s this?” He points to the five indentations on my arm where Katie May had dug into my skin yesterday.
I shrug and avert my eyes. How do you explain that you’re the reason a student died?
“Did Emer cause this too,” he reaches back for some cotton balls and another bottle.
“No, it was from someone else.”
