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He looked around. “No. We shouldn’t even be talking about it.” His thick accent was unfamiliar; it certainly wasn’t local.

Blaire stared at them, frozen to the spot. She didn’t know what to make of what they just said, but the guy’s discomfort with the topic prompted her to ask. “Do you… is that something you do? Turn humans?”

The guy shook his head. “No. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s not done. No one talks about it either.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think it is—how do you say? Taboo. As far as I know, there’s never been a need to ‘make’ a Vasirian. We’re born this way. We don’t need to be created.” He flashed her a bracing smile while Rue rolled her eyes.

The casual way they relayed that calmed Blaire. At least she didn’t have to think about the possibility of becoming another species altogether.

Rue smiled. “Anyway! I’m sure we’ll see each other around—maybe even have some gen ed classes together or whatever major you decide on. They like to get most of them out of the way the first year. You know, English, Math—all the boring stuff.”

Blaire relaxed, a small laugh leaving her.

“Well, Liam and I are meeting people in the valley for the afternoon, so we gotta go. It was nice to meet you.”

The guy at her side—Liam—offered a smile. “A pleasure,” he said,

Blaire watched the couple walk away and exit the cafeteria. So far, the others were friendly; way less snobbish than kids at Magnolia Heights. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad here after all. She moved to the beverage bar and grabbed a bottle of peach tea, then turned to go find a table but stopped short at spotting a row of refrigerator units with glass fronts.

Filled with medical-grade bags of blood.

She watched in rapt curiosity as a student opened the unit and reached inside to grab the cold blood.

Her breathing quickened as she looked more closely around the room, white-knuckling the sides of her tray to keep from dropping it. A few students glanced up at her as she stood in the middle of the foot traffic, on the edge of a panic attack. When she recoiled at the sight of one of the students drinking blood from a straw, he stopped and looked at her, a wicked look crossing his face. He winked at her and grinned with descended fangs, the blood staining his teeth and tongue.

She wanted to run.

She couldn’t run.

Instead, she moved as fast as her legs would take her without drawing attention to herself, but she could still hear the student laughing with their friends behind her.

Blaire dropped into an empty chair at a table in the far back corner of the cafeteria.

Taking a deep breath, she willed her body to stop trembling. Her gaze continuously darted around the room, watching students not only eat actual food, but drink blood from bags. How had she missed that when she first came in? Several minutes passed before she calmed down, finally realizing no one paid her any attention and they weren’t going to rush over and trade cold blood for warm, fresh blood.

She sighed and poked at her salad with her fork, lacking the appetite she’d entered with. This was certainly not how she envisioned her week going by when it started. She thought back to Charlotte and wondered if she was doing okay at the diner and if everything got squared away with Ricky. Had Caleb heard the official news of where she went, and was he looking for her? The professor said the Wilcox family couldn’t reach her here, but she was still worried.

“Blaire!”

Pulling Blaire from her thoughts, pink-haired pixie Riley rushed to the table, brother Aiden behind her.

A tall, slim man with long, dark hair followed them, holding hands with a pretty, petite, blue-eyed girl with cherry-cola auburn hair hanging long and straight down to her slim waist. The couple looked like they belonged in a goth band, with their dark makeup and uniforms accented with jewelry and lace-up combat boots.

Even Riley gave the academy’s uniform a unique twist. She had replaced her stockings with torn fishnets and wore a pair of platform boots with buckles up the sides, adding a few inches to her five-foot-four frame. Riley pulled out the chair next to Blaire and sat, waving at the others to do the same.

While Blaire admired goth fashion and enjoyed the aesthetic, she didn’t feel the look suited her. She always wanted to try something new and bold, but her mother didn’t have the kind of money for her to play with different fashion styles to find what she liked, so she opted not to step too far outside of the box. Once she became a Wilcox, different was definitely off the table.

Blaire tried to smile politely, but she had lost all desire to deal with the day. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and not leave the room.

“This is Mera and Kai. They’re friends of Lukas’s, so by extension, they’re your friends,” Riley chirped.

Riley had a weird way about her. How did friends with Lukas automatically become friends with her? She wasn’t against making friends, but right now, she wanted to leave. Blaire forced another smile and tried to make small talk.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” she said in the voice she reserved for serving customers.

Kai nodded politely at Blaire, bringing his ankle up to rest on his knee. His long hair swayed across his back with his movements reminding her of raven wings; while black, it reflected the light in iridescent shades of purple, blue, and green. He looked at Riley. “How many logic-bending hoops did you jump to draw that conclusion?”

“Well, see, Blaire and Lukas are totally going to be bonded soon, and that means we’ll all be together. Like, a lot. It’s only natural everyone would become friends. Right?”

Blaire’s face fell and she put down her fork.