"Why Doc?" Someone called from the back.
"Ah," Doc laughed. "Friends of mine gave me the nickname Doc Holliday when we met. It stuck."
I was guessing those friends were Ed and Allan. If I had to pick just one of them, I'd go with Ed.
Doc glanced at me and nodded slightly as if guessing what I was thinking. He answered a few more questions from the other students and then fell into the first day's lecture. I took a few notes in the textbook and mostly found myself enjoying the cadence of Doc's voice as he spoke.
It was almost a surprise when he stopped talking and dismissed the class a few minutes early. He claimed it was so students had a few extra minutes to find their next class on the first day. He caught my eye as I stood. "Have a moment?"
I nodded and went to the front of the room. I glanced as the others filtered out of the classroom and saw the guy with the husky eyes staring at the two of us for a long moment before he left.
"Weird," I muttered under my breath.
"Yes. I do wonder what that's all about," Doc said, though I was surprised he had heard my comment.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize you were a teacher."
He shrugged. "I don't really look much older than Allan or Ed, so it's not surprising. I had thought they might have told you, but I guess not. I wanted to apologize again for Ed, since he's either completely oblivious, or doesn't care, and I didn't have a chance to say anything Saturday."
I shook my head. "He didn't bother me or anything. It was just a little strange. Do you know what he was doing?"
Doc's slight hesitation before he shook his head made me think he knew and didn't really want to talk about it. That was fine with me.
"It's all good."
Doc smiled. "Well, if I don't run into you before then, I will see you in class on Wednesday."
"It's a–" I stopped myself before I finished saying 'date,' thinking that would be way too weird. "Plan," I finished.
Doc arched an eyebrow, as if wondering what I had been about to say.
I just smiled and hurried out of the classroom before I said anything else awkward. Victoria must be getting to me with the hot boy phone number collection she was trying to get me to make.
It turned out that either Alex or the husky eyed guy were in all of my classes. Victoria shared three, and Ed or Allan were in all but Doc's class. It wasn't surprising, considering how small the college was. It sounded like the first year, if someone didn't take one of the core classes in the first semester, they were in it the second. It was nice to already know people if nothing else.
Chapter 5
Sofia
"But I want to come," Victoria grumbled into her phone as I walked into our dorm room. She paused for a few moments. "Yeah, I know. Next time maybe. See ya soon, Mom. Love you."
"What's up?" I asked when she hung up the phone. I didn't think she'd mind the question, especially since she was still trying to manage my hot boys contact list.
"There's a demonstration in the Springs this weekend. My parents are going. They want me to concentrate on classes for now." She put her phone on her desk and pushed her rolling chair back, spinning to face me.
"Oh. What are they demonstrating?" I put my backpack on my desk and pulled my rolling office chair back to her side of the room so we could talk.
"There's a case down there where a teacher got exposed as a werepuma. She lost her job right after for some other BS reason. The foundation we work with got wind of it, and decided it was a good issue to focus on for a little while. It must be so tough to have to hide what you are all the time." Victoria sighed. "I'm glad many of the battles for black rights were fought before I was born, so I can fight for someone else's rights. I mean, we're not there yet with anyone's rights, but we're a lot closer than the supernaturals."
"Yeah." I didn't know what else to say. "Maybe they should have stayed underground."
Victoria snorted. "Easier isn't always better. The magical community went into hiding during the Renaissance. I read somewhere that many who were interviewed several years ago were relieved that, even though it was harder in some ways, not having to completely deny their own existence was nice."
"Right, but now they can be persecuted again." They...we...did I even consider myself part of that community? Would anyone else if they found out? I hoped I never knew the answer to that.
"That's what we're trying to fix. The exploitation when it first came out was terrible. I'm sure you heard some of the stories."
"Yes, they were treated worse than circus animals, and forced to work for nothing in fear of their lives. You're right, at least the wide-scale exploitation from the big corporations was curtailed." I had to agree with her there.
Sometime in the early 2000's, someone who knew about the magical community had figured out they could profit from them and forced them into labor by threatening exposure. Other corporations had caught on and done the same.
Finally, a few members of the community couldn't take it anymore and outed themselves in an attempt to save lives.
It had worked, except no one knew how to regulate the industry, so the government had made it completely illegal to use magic in industry. They also adopted a rather harsh 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in regards to knowing if someone was other than human or not.
"The first thing we need to do is get the
