Page 53 of Resurgent

A loud, grinding sound fills my ears, but my focus doesn’t break until Zeke nudges my shoulder, dragging me back to the room. His gaze flicks toward Alric, then back to me, his mouth twitching. “If the daggers you’re shooting him don’t give away how close to murder you are, the obsessive grinding of your teeth is sure to do the trick.”

It takes far too long for Healer Alric to remember the rest of the class is there, though that doesn’t change the direction of our lesson. As he digs into how to know when to cut dead weight, I realize with a sinking certainty that this class is going to be a very long fucking hour.

As soon as class ends, I rush to catch Sasha in the corridor.

“Sash!” She turns, the smile she gives me immediate and inviting.

“Lee! Sorry, I was a little distracted. You ready for lunch?”

I hesitate, unsure how she could be ready to move on so easily after sitting through that farce of a lesson.

“I'm sorry.”

Her eyebrows draw together. “For what?”

“For Healer Alric. For everything he said.”

Her expression changes slightly, but her smile doesn’t falter.

“I know he's been treating you like shit.”

She sighs. “Annalise—”

“He's pissed because you broke the rules for me…I know how much you respect him.”

At that, Sasha laughs. “No.”

“No? I know you—”

“I mean, yeah, he's pissed about that, too,” my stomach twists as she leans against the stone wall. “But really he’s upset because I was the one chosen to treat you.”

I stare at her.

“What?”

“That's the part Alric really can't get over.” Her laugh is bitter this time.

“Matt and Korr refused to let anyone else into the house...”

My chest tightens.

“What about the dean?”

Grabbing my arm, Sasha pulls me into an empty classroom, the wood and iron door shutting with a thud.

“What—"

“Okay, so I wasn’t out there when it happened and when Matt told me, I was completely focused on not letting you die—”

“Which I appreciate.”

“Right…well just know the wording may be off a bit from what Matt told me, but supposedly…” Sasha looks around the room as though someone is lying in wait for the secret she unexpectedly pulled me in here to tell me. “Well…supposedly Korr told Dean Stevens not to send anyone else out to the house…something along the lines of 'between her attack and the bear attacks I'll shoot anything seen moving around my house if Tyr and Kali don’t get to them first.”

“WHAT?”

“Shhhh!” Sasha chides, though she’s as invested in the gossip as I am. “Now this part I was present for, which definitely made things worse…but Healer Alric didn’t think the dean's rules applied to him, so on your third day of being in a coma, he came waltzing up to the house like he owned the place. His foot didn’t even touch the first step before the dragons were flanking him and the barrel of Captain Korr’s gun was to his forehead.”

Sasha looks down at her hands, and I fight not to ask all the questions circling around in my mind.