Chapter 10
SADIE
Elix wasn’t the only one who survived. Paige did, to my relief, and Lawrence did, to my annoyance. We’d all survived. The four of us, at least. Fioranna never showed up, but I couldn’t blame her for hiding out in her room and hoping it would all go away.
Sadly, I’d begun to accept my place here at Lunatic Academy. No matter how badly I wanted to leave this nightmare behind, there was nowhere else to go. Not until I got my ninety thousand, anyway.
The three of us sat together at dinner, Lawrence a few seats away, staring into space. None of us were particularly enthused about eating, or pleased to be surrounded by staring eyes—either weighing, judging, or impressed.
Each arena, I’d learned, had posed a different issue. Mine had been ash. Elix’s was blood. Paige had to fight in pitch darkness. Lawrence had to battle through ice as his body froze. Like me, he hadn’t meant to kill his opponent; he’d just shoved the guy and he shattered on the ground.
I’d heard more than one not-so-hushed conversation about it, and about the ruthless way I snapped Suri’s neck with her braid. As if that was a stylistic choice and not a complete mistake.
I poked at a pile of mashed potatoes on my plate, trying to work up the appetite to eat them. But my stomach twisted every time I blinked, replaying the sight of the woman splayed in the ash, her neck snapped. Murdered. By me. I killed someone.
I killed someone.
“Amazing what kind of riffraff they allow to join these days,” a silken voice remarked as footsteps drifted behind our table. Intentional—that smooth, vain tone could be nothing else. “Humans I understand—they’re useful as cannon fodder—but a mute girl?”
I knew who I’d see before I even turned: Ponytail Girl, with her ladies in waiting. Or should that be court jesters? They erupted into tittling laughter when their queen bee said, “I can’t wait to see how she’s going to handle training when she has to stop fighting to write in her sad little book.”
I shot to my feet, rage burning the numbness from my chest, but Elix grabbed my arm and dragged me back into my seat. The It Girl herself met my stare, unimpressed, an eyebrow lifted, mouth at a cocky angle.
“Something to say?” she asked, with a confidence that came from thinking your place in the world was secure. She was a trust fund baby; I’d put money on it. And probably one of the strongest slayers in the academy.
“Plenty,” I replied with an unfriendly smile.
“Well, let’s hear it,” her short, curly-haired handmaiden challenged, a hand on her hip. “Don’t leave us in suspense.”
Elix pulled on my sleeve, shaking her head.
“I just love your hair,” I said instead of voicing my real opinions. “How do you get the curls so defined?”
“I soak them in blood,” she replied, a clear threat.
“Creative. I love it.”
I turned back to the table, putting my back to the three of them, but the nape of my neck tingled for long minutes until they scoffed, laughed, and moved on.
“You just earned an enemy,” Paige pointed out, nervously playing with her nose ring. “Or should I say three?”
I frowned, my mouth in a flat line. It had been a long time since I’d had a genuine friend, but I’d adopted Elix and now Paige as my people. Fioranna maybe, if she ever turned up. I wouldn’t abide anyone insulting my friends.
I hated bitchy comments, hated bullies, but Paige was probably right. If they were anything like the cliques at my high school, the Brown Jacket Brigade wouldn’t forget this in a heartbeat. I’d offered a challenge. And unfortunately for my chances of survival, I didn’t back down.
“Should we go to the next session now?” Paige asked, sending nervous glances around the hall. We were still the centre of attention. “While everyone’s busy with dinner?”
“Yes,” I agreed. The next block of our day was dedicated to a class called ‘Intro.’ Intro to what? Knitting? Lunovan history? Disembowelment?
Elix rose, too. She looked even more shaken than she had after her fight.
I put a hand on her arm. “Don’t listen to those harpies. You’re going to become the most badass slayer the academy’s ever known and humiliate every last one of them.”
She smiled. Weakly, but it was still a smile.
“Lawrence is following,” Paige muttered, glancing over her shoulder.
I shrugged. “Let him. If he can’t—”
A group of students formed a block in the tight hallway ahead, and I sighed. Good thing we’d set off early. If our next tutor was anything like Reed, they’d make us fight to the death for being late.
Elix held up her pad. What’s happening?
“Good question,” I muttered.
It wasn’t just a crowd; there was an atmosphere. A buzzing tension. Either excitement or panic. The kind of energy that formed when someone was fighting. I was surprised they weren’t chanting it; fight, fight!
“What’s going on?” I asked the pigtailed slayer in front of me.
“No one knows,” she replied, but with a bubbling tone of excitement. “But look!”
I followed the direction of her hand to where the corridor fed out into a wide hall, staircases crisscrossing overhead. It was from the balustrade of one of these that a woman hung.
Brown hair draped around her shoulders, her face bloodied, her eyes open pits.
“Someone stole her eyes,” the girl in front of me added.
I wanted to grab her and throw her against the wall for her excited tone. That was a person who’d been killed, an innocent woman. Not gossip for the rumour mill.
“Oh, god,” Paige gasped when she saw the mutilated woman hanging from the staircase. “Fioranna.”