“Sort of, yeah.”
“Wrong. He did what he’s supposed to do. Just like you did.”
“But now you’re—”
“I’m not out of Combat because you won. I’m out of it because I couldn’t win.” That truth had been weighing on me for almost nine days. I didn’t agree with Nikolai’s decision—because fuck that sadistic bastard—but he was right that temporary immunity to pain didn’t mean shit against super strength, super speed, or—as my roommate had unfortunately demonstrated—rock-hard skin. I might as well be a One or Two for all the good my power did me.
“But if it weren’t for you, I’d be getting kicked out of Combat myself any day now.”
Truth was, I had been pissed at Jeremiah at first. I’d spent a lot of my free time teaching the big fucker how to fight, and then he’d turned around and used what I’d taught him to ruin any hope I had of being a Cape. But it was hard to hold on to all that righteous anger when the guy seemed as upset about it as I was.
“Nikolai wasn’t going to kick you out, Stonewall. He was just waiting for—” I cut off as an all-too-familiar rhythmic banging started in one of our neighboring rooms, followed almost immediately by paired moans. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” I got out of bed, walked over, and banged on Jeremiah’s wall. “It’s eleven in the morning, El Bosque! Can’t you and your girlfriend fuck somewhere else for a change?”
Shockingly, neither Santiago nor London took my advice. I rolled my eyes. “A building full of horny, eighteen-year-old Powers, and they give us dorms with inch-thick walls. This is one fucking thing I’m not going to miss.” I tossed myself back onto my bed and tried not to listen as the Druid and Pyro went at it.
“No shit. Anyway, what were you saying—” Jeremiah cut off with a frown as a particularly loud moan interrupted him. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous.”
“There’s only one thing we can do,” I agreed. “Retaliate in-kind.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You need to bring a nice girl home and bang her brains out. Preferably when I’m on the other side of campus, thanks all the same.”
“Wait… what?!?”
“I’d do it, but…” But Orca wasn’t interested, as she’d made abundantly clear. “Look, Paladin may be keeping himself pure, but almost every other guy in the class has managed a one-night-stand… except for you and me. And that’s just fucking embarrassing.”
“Actually…” Jeremiah coughed. If he’d been any less dark-skinned, I was pretty sure I’d have seen a blush. “I’ve been kind of seeing someone.”
“Seriously? Who?” I waited as he stammered out something entirely unintelligible. “Just promise me it’s not Winter, okay?”
He gave me an odd look. “It’s not Winter.”
“Or Tessa the Pube-Hunter.”
“Tessa the what?”
“Never mind.” In the other room, London and Santiago finally fell quiet. “What was that? Three minutes? El Bosque’s improving.”
“This was not how I expected Sunday morning to go,” grumbled my roommate. “Why are you here anyway? Don’t you have counseling?”
“Not this week. Bard decided to give me the week off for good behavior.” Actually, Alexa was away on some sort of work emergency. Someone in the world was in critical need of dispassionate diagnosis.
“So what are you planning to do with your free time?”
I shrugged. I’d been wondering the same thing for almost a week. There didn’t seem much point in putting that time into my powers classes—let alone the academic ones—when I was now all but guaranteed to wash out of the Academy as a first-year. “I don’t know. Try and find a non-powered woman who doesn’t know—or care—what I am, I guess.”
“Christmas break’s coming up. You could always come meet my family. My sister—”
“Are you seriously trying to set me up with your sister?”
“—has plenty of friends,” he continued with an ominous glower. “Maybe one of them wouldn’t hate you.”
“It’s a nice thought, but like I told you before summer break, I’m not allowed off campus. Looks like it will be another week of me having the whole place to myself.” Part of me almost hoped Sally would make another appearance… but I wasn’t sure if that was the insanity talking.
We both looked to the door as someone slid a crisp white envelope into our room. Jeremiah picked it up with a frown. “It’s addressed to you.”
The envelope contained a card with a green wreath embossed on the front, below the words Season’s Greetings. On the inside, the pre-printed message read ‘Tis the season for merriness. Come join us for a night of celebration… except the words us and a night had been crossed out and replaced with me and an hour or so, respectively. The sender had added another message below in that same uneven scrawl:
Banach. A little bird told me I’m not the only fart staying on campus for Christmas. Come on by and have some food. There will be booze.
“Bard?”
I shook my head, and nodded to the signature. It was almost entirely unreadable, but I’d seen it on my History of Powers exams. “Amos.”
“I forgot he lived on campus.”
“Yeah. Looks like I have plans after all.”
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend a few hours with Amos. I only understood half of what the old fucker said, after all, and he wasn’t shy about enumerating my faults. But he’d promised food and booze, and hadn’t said one word about me having to pay for it.
Maybe it would be a merry fucking Christmas after all.
CHAPTER 58
Christmas Eve at the Academy is weird. The weather is mild, the campus’ many trees still green and leafy. The sun goes down early, like it does everywhere else during winter, but out there on the coast, it takes forever to fall into the ocean, and the shadows it casts across campus seem to stretch for miles. Weirdest of all is the silence. Every student and teacher with a place to go has left days earlier, and college grounds that were built
