Chapter 40
Quill
Rivalry
Carlos Rafael Rivera
“Attention. Important announcement from the Director of the Faculty of Law. I repeat. Important announcement from the Director of the Faculty of Law.”
I leaned my back against one of the large linden trees next to my friends and leafed through the hardcover edition of Batteries of Ink.
I had just wanted to show it to Lara and talk to both of them about it, but now all my attention – like that of all the other students on campus – was focused on the loudspeakers, or rather, on the young student who occasionally made announcements here on behalf of the four faculties.
“I hereby announce the official order of the upcoming major debates,” Arnold's voice now rang out. “Debate One will be held between Feng Zhou and Lucas McMillan.”
A group of guys nearby cheered and a few of his friends patted Lucas on the back, while Zach still looked intently at the loudspeakers. In the distance, I spotted a remorseful-looking Feng, whose friends were also patting him on the shoulder.
“Debate Two will be held between Zachary Faber and John Wexler.”
Lucas pulled his buddy into his arms and ruffled his hair as if they couldn’t have been opponents by a hair’s breadth, while the rest of the group laughed and turned hostile glances toward John Wexler’s circle of friends. He stood there with a look as if he wanted to destroy Zach.
I felt a sense of unease spreading through me.
Who would I be competing against?
“Due to the odd number of participants, I have decided to give a free pass to the lowest-performing student at Maplecrest Law, Quillon Veritas, who will then compete against the winner of the first debate in round three.”
My jaw dropped as Thomas to my left lowered his comic book and students around me began to look in my direction, some laughing and with amused expressions on their faces.
“Shit...” Lara uttered, looking at me with wide eyes.
“The first debate will take place in three weeks' time. Best of luck to all participants.”
The loudspeaker crackled.
Arnold was gone, but his words hovered over me like a verdict, visible to everyone on campus.
“He didn't do that...” I blurted out, quickly shoving the book into my bag.
“He definitely wants to send you a message with this,” Thomas said, and as I was about to get up, he pulled me back to the tree by my wrist. “And whatever you’re planning to do, you should think twice about it if you don’t want to get kicked out of Maplecrest.”
His gaze was serious. There was concern in it, an emotion he rarely showed.
“You should listen to your nerdy friend.”
Playing Mr. Ganz
Carlos Rafael Rivera
With a confident glint in his eye, Lucas stepped in front of us, followed by three guys in suits whom I didn't know, but who looked at me with the same contempt as the blonde model next to him.
Her long, straight hair framed her face in a heart shape, her lips were full, and her white and brown business dress with a gold brooch made her fit perfectly into this town.
“This free pass won't save your head, Smudge,” Lucas snorted contemptuously, nudging the brown leather boots I had borrowed from Lara – along with the black pants and brown knit sweater – with his black patent leather shoes. “But you'll have time to prepare for your defeat.”
He crouched down so that we were almost at eye level and he could lower his voice.
“Because let's be honest... Zach and I are going to get rid of those two idiots, and then you'll be the only one left.”
I managed to ignore the staring campus, albeit with difficulty.
“Naaw. Look how scared this little bunny looks,” snorted the girl next to him as Lucas rose back to his feet.
I'm not scared. Not of you. Not of your threats. And not of your power, which is built on the fragile facade of your unstable families.
The girl, who could only be Lucas's girlfriend, barely paid me any attention, instead looking at my best friend with raised eyebrows.
“God, Dilara. You're hanging out with this lowlife?” She pointed at me. “I heard her parents aren't actually judges and that she's one of those scholarship students who worm their way in and take what doesn't belong to them.”
Oh. That rumor.
Someone seemed to have found out that Monica was funding me. And since there was no further information for the students here to gossip about, they made up their own stories.
I was surprised that I wasn't already the president's secret daughter or the heir to a mafia empire.
“And you are?” I asked, unimpressed by her attitude.
She reluctantly turned away from Lara, eyed me as if I were a filled lunch box she had forgotten in her school bag years ago, before snorting dismissively.
“Someone better than you.”
Oh, right. Of course. So that’s the kind of person she was. To be honest, anything else would have surprised me.
“Come on, Luke.” Both my eyebrows shot up as she put her arm around Lucas's shoulder, thereby forcing him to walk with her. “I definitely don't want to have anything to do with these losers.”
For a split second, I thought I saw something dark in Lucas's condescending expression, then he turned away, along with the rest of the group, and they strode off across campus together.
The corners of my mouth won the battle, and I looked at my friends in disbelief.
“Luke?”
Lara rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“May I introduce, Jessica McLoy. Journalism student and representative of the student newspaper. She almost kicked me out the other day just because I didn't submit my newspaper article three hours before the deadline. As if the clock revolves around her.”
Lara sounded annoyed.
“Wait. McLoy? As in... the fashion magazine?”
I watched the group before they disappeared around a corner with Zach, where they pushed three freshmen out of the way.
“Yep. That’s her. She’s the manager’s daughter.”
And apparently the daughter of Lorette's trophy wife alliance.
“Weren't the two of you friends once?,” Thomas asked casually before looking back at his comic book.
“We still would be if I hadn't changed schools and met Quill and...” She paused, staring into the distance.
“Oh, oh, Quill. You should run while you still can.” Alarmed, I followed her gaze and spotted Anthony looking around searchingly, who also spotted me at that very moment. “Concerned brother at twelve o'clock.”
I jumped up, grateful that Tony couldn't rush at me in front of everyone, and slung my bag over my shoulder.
Playing Girev II
Carlos Rafael Rivera
I said goodbye to my friends and hurried in the opposite direction, trying to turn as many corners as possible, just as I had done for the past two days to escape my brother.
I looked around frantically before stepping around the next corner of the main building and stopped dead in my tracks when I came face to face with Tony.
He grabbed me by the shoulders, pierced me with a worried look, and stared at my neck for a devastating five seconds before he was able to make eye contact again.
“What do you have to do with Professor Rydell's daughter?”
Oh... Shit.
“She studies here.” The answer didn't seem to satisfy him. “We became friends.”
I had never lied to my brother before. Well, we only knew each other for five months and I had already kept a lot from him. But I had also decided to be honest with the person who had pulled me out of my ruin... and – without any bad intentions – had dragged me into the next one.
“And who was this boy?”
He looked like a watchful female eagle with period cramps.
“A friend.”
“A friend or your boyfriend?”
“Relax,” I sighed and looked at his hands, causing him to immediately let go of me. “I know him from school.”
“Are you sleeping at his place?”
“No.”
Tony's features were still tense. He looked like his father...
“Gravia”
This time he sighed and all the tension disappeared from his face. Now he looked like Davian when he showed up in the kitchen far too early in the morning and hadn't had his coffee yet. A memory from the last two days that made me suppress a smile.
“Please tell me where you live.”
“That's none of your business.”
And there it was again, the desperation he was usually so good at hiding on campus.
“You're not registered for student housing.”
Frustrated, I turned away from him, and of course he followed me.
“Are you with Monica?”
“It’s none of your business,” I repeated melodically.
“Damn it, Gravia!”
“Quillon,” I snapped at him, perhaps a little too harshly, and stopped. “Or Quill. But if you want to show me how little you respect my personal choices, please, go ahead.” I held out my arms invitingly. “Continue to call me Gravia.”
His bewildered stare provided an excellent opportunity to escape.
“Gra... Quill.”
He caught up with me, but this time I didn't stop.
“Stop.”
Nope.
“I respect your personal decisions. You're important to me, and you know that.”
“Thanks for your brotherly love, but I have to get to a lecture. Anything else?”
“I just want to know that you’re okay, and maybe why you’re mad at me.”
He sounded desperate, and I felt sorry for him, but his mere presence reminded me of the family I would never belong to.
“You're on Father's side. And it's killing me. That's all.”
He was silent. Good. Even though our footsteps on the autumn-leaves-covered gravel were almost deafening.
“Just tell me one thing. That you're not sleeping with a man just because you don't have a roof over your head.”
And there he was again. My overprotective brother, who would rather see me close to my deranged father than with men who, in most cases, could give me more than Father ever could.
“What if I sleep with a man?” Tony’s stare pierced my cheek. “What if I have the best sex of my life with him? Maybe I’m already pregnant.”
I snorted in amusement, but Tony didn't seem to find it as funny, because he yanked me around by my upper arm.
The furrows between his eyebrows spoke volumes.
“What's your problem, Quill?! I'm worried about you and your future, while you're living like there's no tomorrow!”
“I never asked you to.”
Tony's jaw pressed against his cheeks. His eyes glinted.
“Do whatever you want.” He let go of me, raised his index finger and both eyebrows. “But if I find out you're living with a man, I'll come visit the bastard who touched my sister.”
I clenched my teeth, trying not to think about Davian.
Unsuccessfully.
Anthony ran his fingers through his hair before turning away from me and disappearing down the path.
Under no circumstances could he find out that I was staying with Davian. The two were friends, and I didn't want to be the reason Davian lost someone important to him.
Fading Hours
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
Disgruntled, I stormed out of Fitzek Junior's small lecture hall.
I hadn't gotten a single damn tally mark in this lecture – even though I couldn't care less – and yet he had belittled me, using my frustration with Anthony which had left me in a mental block, to tell the entire lecture hall how poorly I had performed in previous assessments.
Where did he even get the other professors' results? I could hardly imagine Davian or Monica, let alone Anthony, presenting my grades to him on a silver platter.
That bastard had wanted to talk to me after the lecture, but I had stormed straight out of the lecture hall and had only heard the chalk scratch on the blackboard.
Someone grabbed me by the arm. The next moment, I was pulled into a side corridor.
They’ve All Gone
Mr. Kamera
Startled, I stared into Lucas's face.
He had left the lecture before me.
“Well, well.”
He grabbed me by the throat so roughly that I felt the marks my father had left, and pressed me against the wall.
“Who do we have here?”
He came closer, tilting his head as I squinted my eyes in pain and tried to push him away, but he grabbed both my hands with one hand.
“The little rebel with the bad grades who thinks she's something very special.”
He talked to me as if I were a toddler. Something I was in the eyes of many, just because I lived more uninhibitedly than many of these dead souls in this town.
Reluctantly, I looked him in the eye.
“I'll give you one piece of advice.” His smile disappeared, giving way to the coldness I had already seen at noon today.
“Lose voluntarily. Drop out. And then get out of here.
You'll never hear from me again. But if you continue to play the brave one, I'll be forced to remind you of the McMillans' existence for the rest of your life.”
“You can kiss my ass, Lucas.”
A sly smile crept onto his lips.
“Oh, we could do it that way, if that’s what you want.”
He let go of my hands and slid his now free hand under my sweater until I felt his fingers on my skin, but I pushed them away in disgust.
His grip around my neck tightened. The snake-like smile faded.
“You know, Smudge. We could have been friends. We could have had so much fun together. If only you had been more grateful.” His head came closer, his voice softened. “For me being generous enough to stoop to someone like you.”
“Someone like you will never find true friendship. After these debates, you'll lose the only one who ever came close to the title of friend.”
“Zach knows how things work here. He always knew that I pursue my own goals, just as he pursues his. But no pack has room for two alphas. And I don't like being a beta.”
He laughed quietly again.
“To this day, I still don't understand how a weak loner like you intends to survive here.”
He narrowed his eyes, squeezed even tighter, and I let out a sound of pain.
“Tell me, Quillon, what made your father withdraw your student funding? Who is your father?”
His predatory gaze was piercing.
An unpleasant feeling spread through me. One that told me we weren't alone.
“Take your fingers off her neck.”
We all live in the same cage.
Those who believe that money and power will
give them freedom have merely enlarged theirs
to avoid being confronted with its bars.
– Blue