Chapter 8 #3
“Yes,” I groan, covering my face with my hands. “Twice.”
“OK, well, the rats weren’t delivering messages.
One rat, one time, delivered a message. The rest of the time, they were being used as spies.
Living rats were too disorganized, too difficult to control.
It was easier to reanimate the rats than try to keep track of where the live ones went.
In fact,” Olta leans down, rummaging through his bag until he emerges with a battered textbook.
“It’s on page…” He flips through dog-eared pages until he finds last night’s reading, marked with annotation tabs and transparent sticky notes. “Two seventy-two.”
I borrow his ballpoint and scribble 272—rats on my hand. Olta frowns but doesn’t comment. “Thanks,” I say, handing the pen back. “I left my bag at my seat.”
“Yeah,” says Olta flatly. “You probably should go get that.”
When the buzzer goes off, I dive for my bag, properly chastised. Olta’s right. I’m not prepared for class at all.
The next five people are nice enough, but my cheeks are burning. Every time the question changes, I’m a little more lost. Luckily, my classmates are discussion-ready and willing to carry the conversations for the most part.
As I get closer and closer to Duncan Stirling, my stomach clenches. I want to run from the room.
I’m overreacting. Duncan’s kind of odd, but I shouldn’t dread this interaction the way that I do. I wrack my brain for any real reason to be afraid of him, and can’t come up with any. So far as I can tell, he’s harmless.
Unless he isn’t. When I was a kid, my mom used to watch true crime shows on repeat. Tons of people met future (and current) murderers, and had a bad feeling about them. Something they couldn’t explain that was later proven right.
I inhale, and tell myself sternly that paranoia is a bad look. I have no reason to think anything negative about any of my classmates, because I don’t know them.
The only thing I do know is that I wouldn’t want to be in a room alone with Duncan, even though I kind of like his strong jaw and his serious brows and his gray eyes—
I’m so fucked.
And then we’re across from each other and—
Is he having some kind of medical emergency? His face is red. When he opens his mouth, no sound comes out. He won’t look directly at me.
“Are you alright?” I blurt.
He’s probably not alright, because when he speaks, his voice is shaky. “Awesome.”
I look at him. He is definitely not awesome. He’s gone kind of pale. I scoot my notes back in case he throws up on them and look frantically to Jane, but she’s already engrossed in conversation with her partner.
“So, um, prophecy in World War II?” he says, and yeah, he sounds like he’s dying.
Maybe he’s just really shy?
I frown, glance down at my scribbled notes. My last partner was happy to rant at me, so I start. “Yeah. Um, I guess it was predicted by, um, Johnny the Great? A guy who lived in, um, the sewers under London? He was a prophet, right?”
He drums his fingers on the desk. “Why do you ask it like a question?”
Abruptly, I’m angry. I hate all of this. I hate this exercise, I hate this entire school, and I hate that I’m too stupid to keep up with basic academic discussions. The retort bursts from me like a spray of acid. “Don’t be a dick. This is all new to me.”
This catches him off guard. His brows draw together. “New? How is it new?”
Instead of punching him in his stupid, handsome face, I force myself to take a deep breath. “Because… I didn’t know all of this existed until a couple months ago?”
It comes out like a question. I brace for his response, but it’s not what I expect.
“That sounds traumatic.” There’s something off about his tone, but his expression, red and odd though it may be, is genuine.
Why is he like this? I take another deep breath, try to extend an olive branch. Maybe if I’m friendly, he’ll chill out. “It was a shock.” Shock doesn’t even begin to cover it, but he doesn’t need to know that. “I knew there was something off about my mom, but I didn’t know what it was, you know?”
“Oh, yeah, totally,” says Duncan. At my raised eyebrow, he adds, “OK, so I don’t know, but I’ve heard stories.”
I cross my arms.
He adds, inexplicably, “Horrible stories.”
What the fuck? Who says stuff like this? I laugh, flummoxed. “That’s not reassuring.”
And OK, maybe he’s finally gotten the message, because he pauses, frowns down at his hands a long moment, then looks back up at me. I still haven’t uncrossed my arms.
“Have you been to the resource center?” he asks abruptly, and OK, I was right not to trust him. “I think they have to give you pamphlets and stuff.”
There is no fucking pamphlet that could save me from the total shock of Halea. Possibly, under other circumstances, I could appreciate the sentiment, but not right now. I sigh, suddenly exhausted. “Yeah,” I say. “That was the first place I went.”
It wasn’t, but he doesn’t need to know that.
The buzzer sounds.
Duncan Stirling leaps from his seat and bolts out the door.
My stomach is in knots the rest of the day.