This is exactly why I told William I would never be a runner. Well, this and my aversion to aerobic activities. Thick hair + sweat + movement = I look like I met a family of birds and offered them permanent residence. Once upon a time, William had laughed at that excuse, and the next morning, he slid a brand new pack of hairbands under my door.
Molly opens the door to the building for me, and a rush of cool air washes over me. Surprisingly, she is not on edge, though I am. I wonder if my morning welcome party will appear at any second, but she said they only strike once per day, and maybe that’s why she is relaxed.
“The really scary one at the end is Ian Beckett, son of the international conglomerate by the same name,” Molly whispers to me as we walk down the hallway, passing students who wave and give hugs to friends they haven’t seen since last semester. “He comes from a long line of money. If you combined the net-worths of all the families with students here at the Academy, we wouldn’t even come close. His family could kill all of us and then pay the cops to bury the bodies.” My head swims at her words. I can’t fathom that kind of wealth, even after Grandma and Granddad’s luck put us well above the ranks of middle class. Molly lowers her voice and looks around to make sure no one is paying attention before adding, “Don’t piss him off, Harlow.”
“What did I do?” I snap back. “And what does ‘she’s mine’ even mean?”
She shakes her head, sending her brown hair swaying against her shoulders. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”
She frowns, and I join her as she examines my syllabus and leads me to my first period. I peek over her shoulder for the class description.
The Adaptive Nature of English.
Whatever that means.
Molly points me to the correct classroom.
As I walk inside, the chatter of students goes quiet, and I look up to find my guardian-angel-turned-personal-devil already staring at me from the back of the room.
4
Ian
I am sitting in the back, slouched low in my desk and ignoring Mia Beauregard as she gives me fuck-me eyes across the aisle. She’s got her arms crossed over her chest to push up her breasts so they spill out from the top of her shirt. She should be pretty with straight black hair past her shoulders and a mouth that promises all sorts of fun, but she’s desperate to get into Aurora’s coven and that alone makes me sick.
I don’t know exactly when I got tired of this contrite bullshit. All I can say is that the parties, the booze, the girls—nothing seems to interest me anymore. Except football. For a while, I even fought Archie for the title of Voclain’s premier man-whore, but somewhere along the way, it all blurred into a mess of skin and sex and monotony.
Then it stopped being fun. It was work.
On the gridiron, everything washes away, and there is only one truth I have to concern myself with: victory. There’s just me and the rub of the pebbled leather against my hands, the salt of sweat as it stings my eyes and slips between my lips, and the press of my cleats into the painted field.
In those moments, as I stare into the eyes of my opponent across the line of scrimmage, everything fades. The roar of the crowd dials down to a buzz in the background, my father’s expectations for me to carry on his legacy cease to exist, the pressure I put myself under to be the best so that my mother will notice me lifts from my shoulders.
On the field, I am no longer a grain of rice steaming inside a pressure cooker. I am just me.
When I was five years old, I asked my father for a football. He replied it wasn’t a sport for “our kind.” Over the years, with my incessant asking, I wore him down until after one particular bout when I asked every hour, on the hour, for a day and a half, and he finally gave in. Now, he is there at nearly every game, dressed to the nines and using my respite as a photo opportunity.
Across the aisle, Mia openly pouts at me, batting her eyelashes like she’s got something stuck in her eye. She has unbuttoned her shirt to the point of indecency, and I can’t help but think this is a test, Aurora sending her minions after me no doubt. She will be glad to hear I ignored her newest temptation, but she will also certainly take it the wrong way. She will think I am interested in her, and that one day soon this game of cat and mouse we’ve been playing for years will end with me on top of her as she screams my name.
Only she has got it wrong. There are no mice here, only two predators.
The girl walks into the room, and joy fizzes inside of me until I am weightless with the bubbles. She threatens to ruin my aversion to mornings.
The Thing waves to her from the hallway and disappears into the sea of rushing students as the final warning bell tolls. There’s only one open seat, and it’s directly in front of me. Although I had staked it as my own to create a personal leave-me-alone bubble, I much prefer this recent development.
The girl looks up from whatever she’s been studying on the floor, lost in thoughts I can only guess. Her self-preservation instinct must take over because as soon as her gaze lifts, her guileless, blue eyes zero in on me. Her gaze goes wide as the buzzer goes off, signaling it’s time to be in class or risk the wrath of Headmistress DuMonte. She sends
