Chapter Thirty Why You Gotta Be So Jude
“The admins keep a bunch of creatures in the school dungeon,” I tell her as we walk toward the admin building. “Most of them aren’t exactly what I’d call friendly.”
My shoulder picks that exact moment to twinge, as if calling me out on my understatement.
“What kind of creatures are we talking about?” Remy asks, and he doesn’t look any more concerned than Izzy. Then again, he did spend almost all of his life in the Aethereum, the scariest prison in the paranormal world. He probably figures a few monsters can’t touch what he’s already been through. And who knows? Maybe he’s right.
Besides, it’s not like he’s doing anything but nailing plywood over windows. Why should he be concerned?
“We’ve got chricklers,” Jude tells him matter-of-factly. “Along with a bunch of creatures so unusual I don’t actually think they have names.”
“That’s an interesting choice to populate a menagerie with,” Remy comments. “I thought I’d heard of everything, so I can’t imagine creatures more obscure than chricklers.” He lifts a brow. “What are chricklers anyway?”
Luis and I exchange a look. “They’re special,” he says.
“Probably not the kind of project you want to take on,” I add.
“I already told you, I’ve got this,” Jude interjects.
“Have you ever even been to the menagerie?” I ask incredulously. “Hearing about what’s down there isn’t the same as actually being in the cages with them.”
He doesn’t answer—big surprise—just widens his stride so that he effortlessly pulls several feet ahead of the rest of us.
I start to try to keep up but decide there’s no point. It’s not a contest—and even if it were, I’d lose. Partly because he’s nearly ten inches taller than my own five-foot, nine-inch frame. And partly because I always do when it comes to Jude.
It’s pretty much the blueprint of our relationship.
By the time we get to the base of the admin building, my trepidation is sky high. Not just because some of these people actually seem to think they’re going into the menagerie with Jude and me—which they definitely should not—and partly because I’m terrified the hallway will have filled back up with ghosts—or, worse, those strange flicker things. And while it’s one thing to let Luis or Eva see me trying to deal with them, it’s another thing to let Jude and a bunch of people who are pretty much strangers see me that vulnerable.
I mean, it’s not like I exactly shout out to everyone on campus that I can see ghosts. I told my mom a few times when I was younger, but she insisted that there are no such things as ghosts. Years on this island have taught me differently, however, and the escalating negativity of her reaction has taught me to keep my weird ability to myself.
A glance at the sky tells me the storm must still be stalled, because the weird lull between rainbands is still holding. The sky is a strange shade of greenish gray that I’ve never seen before, and while an occasional burst of wind comes through and shakes the hell out of the trees, it disappears almost as suddenly as it showed up.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get lucky and the ghosts will have decided the creepy snake monster escape from earlier makes the hallway too risky of a hangout.
Hope springs eternal, after all…
“The instructions say to grab wood, hammers, and nails from the station set up next to the groundskeeper’s hut,” Simon says, looking at the instruction sheet we were all given. “We’re supposed to use them to board up the dungeon and first-floor windows from the outside. Then we need to make sure everything inside has enough food and water to last them at least a week.”
“They don’t really think the storm is going to last that long, do they?” Eva has given up the pretense of her earbuds and has joined the conversation again, though she’s definitely staying as far away from Simon as she can get.
“I’m sure they just want to be on the safe side,” I soothe. “Depending on how much damage the storm does, it may take us a few days to get back here.”
“I don’t get this whole thing,” Remy comments. “Can’t they just portal in to check on the school? Or for that matter, why are we even waiting for boats when they can portal us out? I know student powers are locked down, but surely faculty—”
“They probably weren’t thinking about it,” I tell him. “We’ve had a portal block on the island for decades. No one gets around it, not even faculty and staff. Which is probably why they can’t portal us out before tomorrow morning—it probably takes that long to bring the block down.”
“Really? No one gets around it?” He sounds surprised but also—strangely—not.
“No one,” I reiterate. It’s the first and most unbreakable rule of Calder Academy. Even my mother takes a boat or a helicopter when she has to leave.
“Seems like a waste of time and effort to me,” Remy comments. “I could make it around the world at least twice in the time it takes to get here by boat from the Texas Coast.”
“You’re that good at portalling?” Eva asks, sounding skeptical. “It usually takes at least a decade for a warlock to—”
“Time wizard,” he says with a wink. “Not a warlock.”
“Really?” Her eyes go wide as she scoots closer to him. “I’ve never met one before. What do you—”
She breaks off as a small dagger goes flying by her head and embeds itself in the trunk of a nearby tree.
We all turn to Izzy incredulously, but she just shrugs. “Whoops. It got away from me.”
Remy grins in response, but Eva looks pissed. “You’re not supposed to have weapons on school grounds, you know!”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Izzy asks with the lift of a brow. Then she walks away to retrieve the knife before Eva can answer.
“Can you believe that?” Eva asks Remy and me.
After seeing what she did in class a few hours ago, I absolutely can believe it.
Remy just shrugs as we keep walking. “Don’t worry about her, cher,” he says. “She’s a little feral, but she’ll settle down eventually.”
As soon as he says it, he shimmies to the right a little—almost like he’s expecting the knife that comes flying at him. Either way, he’s lucky because all it takes off is a few strands of his shaggy brown hair.
“You know, princess, all you had to do was ask,” he calls to Izzy. “If you wanted a lock of my hair for under your pillow that badly, I would have happily given you one.”
“Do you really think taunting her is the right way to go here?” I ask as Izzy shows him her very impressive fangs. “She did threaten to cut off a few fingers in English class yesterday.”
“Probably not.” His wide, larger-than-life grin is completely infectious. “But I like to live dangerously.”
“Keep it up and you can die just as dangerously,” she snarks as we come to a stop at the admin building’s front steps.
“So what’s the plan?” I jump in, hoping to distract Izzy enough to keep Remy’s fingers—and all the rest of him—in one piece. “Jude and I are taking the menagerie, so I guess you guys just need to divide up the different parts of the admin building, right?”
“Actually, I vote we split up,” Simon backs me up as he shoves the instructions into his pocket. “Half of us take the windows while the other half do the food and water. You’ll get done with the menagerie quicker that way.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Mozart agrees, stepping back to take a look at all the huge windows that line the outside of the bottom floors of the admin building. “There’s a lot to do—”
“I call windows!” Eva interrupts.
“Me too.” Luis throws both of his hands up for emphasis.
I roll my eyes at him in response, but he just grins toothily. “Once a day is enough for anyone. If you had any sense, you’d stay out here, too.”
I don’t bother to answer him. But then I don’t have to, because we both know that’s not going to happen. I may be pissed as shit at Jude right now, but I don’t actually want him to die at the hands of some pissed-off hydra wannabe. Someone who actually knows what they’re doing—and is also a Calder—has to lead the way through the dungeon. I’m pretty sure that’s why my mom gave me this assignment.
Either way, there’s no way I’m going to send people down there to get hurt while I stay safely up here. Not when I know exactly what’s waiting for them down there.
“I’m going into the dungeon,” I say. “And Jude’s coming with me. That’s our side of the plan.”
“I’m coming, too,” Izzy volunteers. “I want to see this not so petting zoo.”
“Me too,” Mozart agrees.
Remy steps forward. “I can go or I can stay here—whatever you think will be most helpful.”
“Why don’t you stay with us?” Eva tells him. “You’re so tall, I bet we could get a lot of these windows done in no time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Remy answers with a smiling glance toward Izzy. But the vampire has already turned around, having lost interest in his teasing.
“I think everybody should stay up here. Jude and I can handle this.”
I wait for Jude to say something—or at least step forward—but he doesn’t say a word. When I glance toward him, I realize that’s because I’ve been doing such a good job not looking at him that I totally missed something really important.
Namely, that he’s already gone.
I whirl around just in time to see the main door of the admin building closing behind the big, overly heroic jerk.
Too bad he doesn’t have a clue what he’s getting himself into.