It was the first time I’d given much thought to Bard’s Orientation speech. First time I really wondered whether I had it in me to be that sort of Cape. Vibe did. She’d shown that much tonight, walking head-on into a hurricane of emotions, not once but twice. Paladin probably did too, as much as I hated to admit it. Unicorn would never have to actually face combat, but his desire to just help people leaked out of every overly pale pore.
The rest of us? Fuck if I knew.
Eighteen years old and the world was suddenly bigger than just Mama Rawlins’. Bigger than Bakersfield. A great empty unknown waiting to fuck with me. And every day, the Academy was changing me. Friends were changing me. Even enemies were changing me.
Who the hell was I going to be when I graduated? If I graduated?
I shook myself and swung my legs over one side of the bench, pulling myself back upright. Mom sat on the other end of the bench in her faded sundress, smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world. I studied her and for a moment—just a moment—I thought something close to recognition made its way into her empty eyes. Then it was gone, and she was looking past me, humming her soundless song.
I was too tired for this shit.
•—•—•
Should have known the day wouldn’t just end like that. Shit day that turned into a shit night and had already gone on way too long?
Of course it couldn’t stop there.
There was one person in the common room when I finally got in. Rest of the class was asleep—or banging each other silly in the privacy of their own rooms—but she couldn’t pass up the chance to be a pain in my ass.
Of course Poltergeist was waiting for me.
She was drunk too. Jumped up way too quick when she saw me, spots of color in her cheeks, hair halfway between curly and bird’s nest. She stalked over, green eyes flashing.
“Can this wait, Tessa? It’s been—”
Never got to say what a shit night it had been because she was jabbing me in the chest with an overly long index finger and its equally long nail. No clue how those nails survived Nikolai’s classes, but they weren’t far from the claws the two Beast-shifters had been sporting.
“I don’t care if my neckline is down around my ankles,” she hissed. “If you ever look at my chest again, I’m going to pull out every one of your pubic hairs, one by one.”
“With your teeth?”
“Excuse me?”
“It just seems like the kind of threat that should involve teeth,” I told her.
My head snapped to one side, ears ringing from a slap that hadn’t involved hands. In fact, Tessa hadn’t moved at all.
“You know what I think?” she asked.
“It’s hard not to, since you never shut up.”
“I think that everyone’s been giving you way too much credit, walking around on eggshells, worrying about what you might do. Other than bleeding all over Paladin’s fists, what exactly have you accomplished? Failed at Control and slept through classes? I’m not sure you even are a Crow.”
“Maybe I’m not.”
“What?”
“Could be I was just added to this class as a test for you first-years, to see which of you would actually behave like Capes.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Guess who’s failing?”
“Funny.” Tessa narrowed her green eyes. “When you flame out of here and end up on the streets or in an asylum where you belong, I just hope you don’t bring anyone else down with you. Someone like Kayleigh.”
“Yeah, because you sure gave a shit about her before all of this.”
She shook her head. “Why am I even bothering? I don’t understand how someone like you survives to adulthood. Let me guess… stim-weed addict for a mom and no clue which of three or four deadbeats was your real dad?”
I thought back to what Silt had said earlier that night, and let my smile slip out. The Telekinetic went pale and took a step back.
“Fuck your ignorance,” I told her. “Fuck your theories about my parents and your sad attempts at superiority, but most of all, fuck you.”
An invisible hand wrapped around my throat, lifting me easily into the air. “You’re not a Cape, Damian. I’m not even sure you’re a person. You’re just some sort of thing, oozing along, not seeing how disgusting you really are.”
I had a couple good comebacks to that, but they all required speech, and that was impossible with the telekinetic hand squeezing my throat.
“He’s more of a Cape than you are, Tessa McShane.” I couldn’t see her, but I recognized Vibe’s voice. “Capes don’t go around choking people just because they’re drunk.”
The hand let me go and I dropped several inches to the floor, gasping for breath. Vibe was standing in the doorway to the girls’ hall, skinny bare legs sticking out from under a voluminous sleep shirt.
“Capes save people,” Kayleigh continued, “like Damian did tonight while you were busy getting drunk and making a fool of yourself at The Liquid Hero. Again.”
Where my anger had just seemed to spark Tessa’s, Vibe’s had the opposite effect. Poltergeist winced and dropped her gaze. “What are you talking about?”
I was more interested in what exactly Tessa had done to make a fool of herself, but it didn’t look like Kayleigh was in the mood to satisfy either of our curiosities.
“I’ll tell you when you’re sober,” she decided before turning to me, her voice stern. “Good night, Damian.”
I wasn’t sure why I was in trouble… or when Kayleigh had transformed into a disciplinarian, for that matter, but I recognized the out and took it, fleeing for the boys’ hall.
When I made it
