10
“You wanted to see me?” I asked Dean, our Finance lecturer, when he emailed to say he’d like to see me.
I didn’t have a spare moment until the next day, and I had to meet him quietly so Ezrah and Lev wouldn’t notice.
They allowed me to sleep last night uninterrupted, although I vaguely remember Lev coming into my room, stroking my forehead in the dark, and whispering, “You’re going to kill me, girl.
” Strange thing to say, and I couldn’t kill him if they took my weapons off me.
They refused to let me eat dinner in the dining hall; instead, they grabbed me a takeaway plate, and I ate it alone in my room.
Mila messaged me when I didn't show for dinner, and I said that I was unwell.
An hour later, she knocked on my door to check on me.
She heard what happened to my father because it was all over the news, and I just said that I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
I hated doing that to her because she was the only light in the darkness, but I was too broken to open up.
Besides, I knew the spies in the dorm were watching me.
Honestly, I didn’t know how long I could go lying and faking, pretending that everything was okay.
“Your…episode in class yesterday?” Dean asked as he walked into his office, beckoning me to follow.
“Oh, yes, I apologize for disrupting the class. I had a panic attack,” I explained.
He sat down at his desk, tapped on the keyboard of his computer, squinted at the screen before saying, “You need to apologize. I understand your situation is difficult at the moment.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat, “I’ll need the notes from yesterday, um, if you don’t mind, so that I can catch up.”
“Are you sure you should be here at all?” he pressed, and my heart sank. I didn’t want to talk about my father’s suicide because I’d crack again—either blubber like a baby or have another panic attack.
The problem was that I struggled to believe it was real and not some fiction created by my overactive imagination. My father was unobtainable, so resistant to outside forces, yet he somehow couldn’t handle the pressure. No. Even as I try to rationalize that in my mind, it doesn’t make sense.
“I’m fine. I’d rather not talk about it,” I looked away as I spoke because tears filled my eyes, and crying in front of my hot Finance lecturer would make me fracture into a million pieces. No, I simply will not allow that.
“Are you sure?” he pressed, and I swallowed, took a deep breath, and replied with a sharp, “Yes.”
“Okay,” he seemed unconvinced, but my shitty life was not his problem. His fingers tapped away on his keyboard, “I’m emailing you the notes right now and the assignment.”
“Thank you,” I replied, and was about to leave when he said, “Wait, I haven't finished with you.” He laced his fingers together, then rested his hands on the desk, looking up at my face as I stood over him. “Ezrah Warwick,” he said with a tone of distinct aversion. Judging by that tone, he wasn’t a fan of Ezrah, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah? What about him?” I said unenthused.
“He’s…how should I say, not exactly-
“His father is in prison? Is that what you wanted to say? That the Warwick is a dirty scumbag criminal family, is that what you wanted to say? Because I’m already aware of that.
” I pressed my hand against my chest, “I’m Adina Boleyn, daughter to Maxwell Boleyn, the man who put his father in prison.
I’m a hundred percent aware who he and his brother are. ”
“I’m checking you are okay with him being your friend because he has a tendency to be somewhat pushy,” he added, fishing for me to agree.
“A bully. A prick. Ezrah is many things,” I agreed, and I was dangerously close to confessing everything to him.
Everything from the Warwick's kidnapping and drugging me to them having a key to my room. Now that college was in full swing, Morgana was mostly empty, except for Mila, Lev, and Ezrah moving in. Oh, and let’s not forget the strange one who lived on the same floor as Mila.
I was so close to telling Dean everything because, after all, he’s an adult and should be on my side, but something stopped me.
“And yet you choose to spend time with him?” The more questions he asked, the more suspicious I became, but I was so messed up that I lost my internal orientation of what was right or wrong and what was up and down. I was surprised I found my way to class at all.
“I can look after myself,” I assured him, but the tone of my meek and silly voice wasn’t convincing, and he frowned, so I cleared my throat and added, “I’m my father’s daughter.
I am well-trained at dealing with difficult people.
” This wasn’t true, of course. I could load and shoot a gun with great accuracy, and I could swing a knife, but a single woman without weapons was a sitting duck.
Again, he seemed unconvinced as he nodded slowly, “Being stuck alone in the mountains with your enemies can’t be easy.”
“I can manage,” I pressed, but he shook his head and opened the top drawer in his desk, took out a key, and held it in his palm.
“Honestly, it doesn’t look like it,” he argued, pushing his chair back and standing. “The fishhooks? They weren’t for fishing, were they?”
I bit my tongue, refusing to confess to anything as he might snitch to the president and have me expelled, but then again, that could be a good thing. When he stepped toward the door, he poked his head outside to his classroom, then shut the door and turned the lock.
My heart slammed against my ribcage, “What are you doing?”
“Securing the room, so no one walks in,” he assured me, but that was the last thing I wanted to hear.
“Oh, no,” I snarled, stepping out from behind the desk and moving toward the door as he unlocked the cupboard. “I’m not having this.”
“What?” he glanced back at me, confused, then, when he turned his back again, I unlocked his office door and was about to flee when I saw him punch numbers into a safe. “I thought this would help you.”
My curiosity urged me to stay to see what he was talking about, and as he opened the safe, I saw exactly what he meant. A yellow can of Dragon pepper spray? “Are you allowed to do that on campus grounds?”
He sniggered, “No, of course not, but I’m going to give it to you as protection against the Warwicks,” and placed it down on the desk. “It’s yours, if you want it, but I suggest that you don’t tell anyone where you got it from.”
“Sure,” I said, taking it and slipping it quickly into my bag.
“I understand your predicament, Adina, that you probably can’t go to the campus police when the Warwicks are harassing you, would that be correct?” he asked, placing the safe back in the cupboard and then locking it.
“Yes,” I answered meekly. “They are concerned…” I paused to consider whether it was wise to finish my sentence, but I owed Ezrah Warwick and Lev Ashthorn nothing.
“They are concerned about the police investigation here, among other things, and of course, because they are a renowned crime family, like my family, I guess. Except there are more of them, and you know, my dad isn’t alive anymore. ”
His eyebrows cocked as he furrowed his brow, fascinated. “In what way are they concerned about the police investigation?”
“In like, they, well, specifically, Ezrah might have something to do with the man’s death,” I said vaguely. “Obviously, I have no proof, but they are eager for me to remain tight-lipped about it.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and immediately, I knew I stuffed up. “Tight-lipped about what exactly, Adina? Did you see something on the train?” he compelled me.
“No, but I was there,” I argued, stepping closer to the door, letting him know that I needed to leave.
He made a face, “Many students shared the same carriage as the victim, but the Warwicks aren’t trying to gag all of them. So why are they keeping you quiet?”
I shook my head, playing dumb was the only way to get out of this predicament, “I don’t know.”
“Adina, if there’s something you know about what happened to Theo-
“Theo?” I interrupted. “Theo Abbott? The same student who painted that pink mural over by the Business School. It was him, wasn’t it?”
“If you know something,” his voice was stern, “tell the detective, or if you’re uncomfortable doing that, tell me, and I’ll pass the information on anonymously,” he asserted. When he was met with hesitation, he added, “It’s important to find out who did that to Theo.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat, “So someone did kill him. That’s very sad, but I have to go because I’m meeting a friend in the library.”
“Think about it, Adina. Theo’s parents deserve a resolution,” he said as I left his office, breathing through the rapidly beating heart. “As I said, come to me first if you know something.”
“Okay,” I breathed, and as I stepped out into his classroom, he called after me, “You can trust me, Adina.” He almost had me until he said that, You can trust me, Adina.
Maybe it’s because I was my father’s daughter, but alarm bells went off in my head. There’s something off-putting about people who say they are trustworthy, because it should be obvious in their actions where they don’t need to say it aloud. With Dean, the Finance lecturer, I was just unsure.
“I’ll think about it, and thanks for the pepper spray,” I said calmly and watched my back as I walked through his classroom, then out into the hallway.