Chapter Seven #3
We worked in silence for a few minutes when Wolf began to mutter his regret of the chore choice.
Finally, the question that I had expected for days came.
“So, Miroslav…” Appearing to have grown bored of his newspaper and the repetitive articles that recited the same tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that had gone on for decades too long, Mr Browne began to indulge himself. “Where did you say you grew up?”
I continued to work, moving from row to row as I pretended to remain focused on my task. “I never said.”
I could hear the smirk in his voice, even with my back turned to the far wall of carved mahogany. “Mmm… Well, humour me.”
I was a good liar, a great liar in fact, and despite my story already planned and proof-planned days prior, I found it hard to speak.
Opening and closing my mouth like a fish. I could feel even Wolf’s curiosity at my coming answer. “I… grew up in…”
Maybe it was the guilt of having to lie to someone I once respected, but I forced myself to speak anyway. “New York City. With my mom.”
I turned to face him, wanting to watch his expressions as I spoke. Or I wanted him to see me.
I killed that boy, and you will never get to see him again. You deserve it, anyway, abandoning and leaving him right there for the taking.
I knew the risks I’d be showering upon myself had I revealed it all. If a boy on the run was attending one of the most aristocratic schools in the world, it wouldn’t be long before the police would be waiting at my dorm. That was a possibility I wasn’t willing to chance.
For whoever.
Despite this, I wanted to watch as he tried to place his finger on what it was about me that he couldn’t quite figure out.
I didn’t want him to figure it out, but a cocky part of my mind whispered.
Come on. Don’t you remember the friend he’d made?
I stopped and waited for his next words. “And your mother’s all alone now? Waiting for Christmas to have her boy home?”
I doubt she’d be waiting for anyone from six feet under.
My words came easily; it was faking the emotion behind them I found difficult, “My mother is… My mother passed.”
Wolf stopped clapping at the chalkboard erasers and looked up with wide eyes, as though he’d never heard of such a concept.
A dead mother–an orphan.
“I’m assuming your father’s not in the picture, eh? Little prick ran from your first kick in the womb?”
I chuckled at that. “Yeah. I guess… I guess you could say that.”
Technically, he was not wrong.
He closed his newspaper and placed it on his desk before resting his intertwined hands on his stomach. “I’ve been to New York a couple of times. Which neighbourhood did you grow up in?”
I guess he didn’t buy it. “Fordham… Bronx.”
“Oh… Dangerous neighbourhood, that is.”
I only shrugged, glancing at Wolf, who hadn’t returned to his job but instead took to watching me, waiting for my next words.
Maybe the orphan thing shook him. But I’d wager it was hypocritical, what with him halfway there.
Or who knows, maybe his mother had kicked the bucket and I was none the wiser.
Moving to the last row, the front row, I sent him a scowl. “You going to reattach your jaw or keep us here all night?”
That seemed to get him going, or bristle more like, as he blinked back into existence and looked down at his uniform, now powdered in chalk dust. He gestured with open arms to Mr Browne as the older man watched, in what I was sure was an uncomfortable position, over his shoulder. “I think we’ll be here all night.”
Our professor rolled in his chair to face us, moving his feet that rested atop one end of his desk to the other. “You know, you and Wolf here have a lot in common.”
“And what is that? Dead parents?”
“Jesus!” Wolf looked at me with an irked expression at my bluntness or my words, but I paid him no mind, instead looking to Mr Browne for his answer.
He didn’t give one. Only an amused smile.
Wolf looked at Mr Browne, and as our professor met his eyes, they shared a look. Something I didn’t understand passed between them before Mr Browne took in the white streaks adorning Wolf’s uniform and huffed out a slow laugh.
An ugly part of me made me purse my lips and turn back to my chore, finishing quickly and moving on to the shelves at the side. Wanting out of this room sooner rather than later.
It seems he’s forgotten all about you, my dear friend.
It didn’t take too long before I organized everything I deemed necessary and turned back to the front, making a beeline for the door. “I’m done.”
I kept my eyes on the exit and didn’t let them wander anywhere else.
“You’re not going to wait for your partner?”
I paused and looked over my shoulder, from Wolf’s eyes as they widened with a silent plea in their depth, to Mr Browne’s closed expression and tilt of his head, before saying, “He can find his own way back. Knows the grounds better than I, anyway.”
Mr Browne didn’t speak again, and I didn’t wait long enough for him to do so. I exited the room with a scoff at what I’d seen on Wolf’s face.
As if he found the detention to be a punishment.
I passed by the Dining Hall in hopes that I could take my dinner to my dorm, and relief filled me when I discovered that I could; no one stopped me when I walked out with a plate full of food.
Hours passed when I returned to said dorm, and when eight o’clock rolled around, the expected knock sounded.
Throwing my head back in a groan as I devoured the last, cold piece of my risotto, I took my time before answering it.
Let them think well about their choices.
I thumbed the invitation that sat at the corner of my desk, watching me. The location was a riddle I wanted to laugh at. Yet I couldn’t deny being intrigued.
If this were nothing but a joke, which Wolf, who had the most knowledge of Castle Hill, believed it not to be, the riddle itself would be an interesting way to pass the time.
I am shared under the cloak of night. In betrayal, one must shred that cloak like a thin blanket of spite.
Those who sit between the ripped pair of cloth, to drown in their ultimate misery, will find our forgiveness never won.
For those loyal in acceptance, a fire to light the way to a seat at our table.
I scoffed at the simplicity of it. I doubted August or Wolf had it any different. But it hadn’t implied anything. If secrets were the answer, how would one find the place of meeting in a library? How does it correlate?
Three bangs sounded against his door, and a slam of another down the hall slipped under the crack of my room. I listened to the muffled shouts and hissed words. Voices asking to keep it down before Wolf’s own told them to shove off.
I raised a brow at the petulance in his voice. When, after a moment, the hall settled into silence, I stood and made my way to the door, grabbing my jacket along the way.
My eyesight was momentarily blinded when I pulled the door open, and a sharp pain exploded over my face, spreading to my temples and forcing tears into my eyes. I reared back at the force of it. “What the hell!”
“Sorry! I didn’t think you’d open the door.” Hands grabbed at my shoulder as I nursed my nose, but I shuffled back and shoved them away.
“So, you punch me?!”
“I was knocking!” August’s rushed and placating words only made me hate him more. If it had been Wolf, he’d be pummeled into the ground before he could get the first word out. But August was… August. Weak and childish.
His fist said otherwise.
I think that might’ve been one of the reasons I couldn’t help but find this entire ordeal unbelievable.
A secret society that would consider August Myro as its prime candidate.
It was a joke.
And yet there I was, jacket hung over my arms preparing for the outdoor cold.
I groaned, and my head fell forward. Thankfully, I could tell he hadn’t broken anything, but the ache made me sluggish.
I blinked a few times, forcing my teary eyes back into focus, and massaged my facial muscles. To August’s right, I could hear a high-pitched huff of breath that turned into a snicker.
Now he was getting it.
I lifted my head and found Wolf with a hand over his mouth, but despite the modest attempt at hiding his humour, I lunged for him.
“All day you have been a thorn at my side.” Grabbing at the lapels of his coat, the quick shock of my actions turned his eyes wide, and wiped any amusement left off of his face.
He tried pushing me off with a grunt, but Wolf was, despite his weak attempts not to be, a coddled boy. “Get off me! It was funny–”
“Guys!” August tried cutting in, grabbing for me, but I paid him no mind, and he made no difference to the situation.
Weak, as I said.
Wolf tried shoving me off, but all that had gotten him was out of breath.
“So, we should share the laugh, shouldn’t we?” I seethed and held him against the opposite wall with one hand, rearing back the other, set on breaking at least one bone.
I could see the fear in his comically wide eyes as he tried his best to grab for my fist.
Wolf and I didn’t have anything in common, and if we did, I wouldn’t like to be around him long enough to find out. In fact, I was sure he would get us all in trouble by the end of the night with his insistence on this quest.
My plans on becoming a model student were crumbling right in front of me.
My fist curled as I held it in the air, my nails pressing against my palm, burning, almost cutting.
August came around and held onto my hand in a vice grip, almost climbing me in the process. “Alright, I-I think we should just-just calm down. Alright? Let’s just calm down.”
I would have finished the job had August’s words not made me think twice.
Well, not August, he couldn’t clear or cloud my judgment if he tried.
But the moment of clarity, hidden behind a cloud of unreleased tension, brought forth the reality that something had been nagging me since detention.
Something that made me irritated with every look and every word out of Wolf’s mouth.
His mere presence was beginning to bother me.