Page 273 of Vexatious Queen

My brain refused to accept what my eyes were seeing. This was Mr. Sharpe. My professor. The man who’d trusted me enough to make me his TA. Even after catching him with Patricia and my suspicions about the texts, I never thought it would come to this.

I searched his face for reason or logic, for some explanation that made sense.

But there was nothing familiar there. Just rage where quiet authority once lived. Just a stranger wearing a face I thought I knew. And the worst part wasn’t the fear. It was the realization that I had trusted him.

“Mr. Sharpe?” My voice sounded thin, wrong in the vast echoing room. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t answer. He just lunged.

Panic slammed into me as I threw my backpack up again, using it like a shield. He ripped it from my hands with brutal force, yanking me off balance before tossing it into the pool.

“No!”

I watched helplessly as it hit the water and sank. My laptop, my notes, the pictures Sabastian had given me, pieces of my life swallowed whole.

He was on me again before I could think to move. I tried to recall Nash’s instructions. Liam’s corrections.

Center your weight.

Protect your head.

Move fast.

Anticipate the strikes.

But the tile was slick beneath my feet. My heel slid as I avoided his grasp.

Taking advantage of my error, he grabbed my arm.

“Na—” I started to scream, but pain exploded across my face.

The punch snapped my head sideways, and white-hot stars burst behind my eyes. I tasted blood. He hauled me upright and hit me again, harder. The world blurred at the edges as if someone was smearing reality with their hands. My knees wanted to give out. I covered my head trying to ward off another blow.

“Nash,’ I said, but it sounded muffled to my ears.

“Hey!” A woman shouted. “Let her go, Sharpe! It’s over, we know everything.”

I knew the voice but couldn’t place it. Everything felt slow, like I was underwater.

He snarled something incoherent and shoved me away. I stumbled backward toward the pool and hit the starting blocks.

“Ahh,” I cried out as my foot caught wrong. It all happened so fast. My head cracked against the edge—sharp, ringing pain—and then there was nothing but gravity.

Splash.

There was only a weightless panic as I hit the water. Then the world vanished as it closed over me.

Nash

My phone dinged just as I went to leave. I opened the locker and grabbed it.

Edmundo: Nash, have you or the guys gotten any new strange rhymes?

N: No, nothing on our end. Why?

Edmundo: I got one last night that was disturbing. I’ve been up for hours trying to get it traced. It bounces all over the world and then stops at Wayward.

N: That happened to our guy, too. I think the property has its own electronic security that scrambles things.