Last Chance Academy

by Alex Lidell

  “What the hell?” Bernadette is on her feet at once, her braid whipping behind her, intensifying the lilac scent. She’s taller than me, her body a perfect hourglass of smooth curves and lean muscle. In her leisure wear—silk periwinkle booty shorts and a matching lace-edged camisole—she looks like an off-duty Playboy Bunny. “You don’t touch my things, witch. You don’t so much as look or breathe on my things. Understand?”

  Stepping around her, I grab the foot of my bed and drag it into position to claim more floor real estate. “Keep your shit out of my space, and we won’t have a problem.”

  “This isn’t your space.” Bernadette’s foot stops my bed frame. “And let me be clear, by this space, I don’t mean my room, or even Talonswood. I mean everything. The world was cleansed of your kind once, and no one here is eager to see a cockroach return.”

  My kind. She means witches. At least I seem to be catching on to that much.

  Knowing better than to ask Bernadette to explain, I shove my clothes into drawers and climb into bed, turning my face to the wall as the day finally crashes down on me. I’m cold and I’m exhausted, and in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been drugged, stripped naked, and lifted off the ground by my neck. I still don’t know what being a witch entails, beyond giving everyone carte blanche to shove me around. It’s enough to make anyone cry a bit in the dark.

  But I don’t. I’m tougher than that.

  I wake to the ear-piercing wail of a siren, Bernadette kicking my mattress as I sit up like a jackrabbit and look out the dark window.

  “Get your ass dressed and to the parade grounds,” my roommate orders, grabbing a workout uniform from my drawer and throwing it into my face. In the hallway outside, feet are already starting to pound toward the stairs. “We are not getting punished on account of your being late. Quinn imagines himself joining his sire’s court after this year, and I swear his power trip will kill one of us before the term is through.” She mutters this last part with an unmistakable note of jealousy in her tone.

  “What time is it?” I ask, pulling on my sweatpants while Bernadette slips into her kit like some kind of ninja. The dark sky outside the window shows no sign of dawn.

  “Which part of ‘move your ass’ needs extra explanation?” Bernadette demands, her braid whipping behind her as she stalks to the door, where a stampede of blue pants and T-shirts is already heading for the stairs.

  Try as I might, I can’t help marking Asher’s golden hair and broad shoulders as he presides over the exodus in crisp fatigues, a stopwatch in his hand. As if catching me watching him, Asher lifts his tawny gaze to meet mine for a moment before turning away.

  My thighs clench, a jolt of heat coursing through my veins despite my common sense.

  Shoving Asher firmly out of my mind, I spill out into the green with the forty or so other inmates—err, cadets—who are already lining up in formation under harsh spotlights, their uniforms clinging to lean, perfect bodies, as if Talonswood only reforms special forces dropouts.

  Well, them and me.

  Speaking of special forces—my breath catches as Ellis strides out the door, his long, sure steps overtaking the others without actually seeming in a hurry. If I thought he looked hot in nice clothes, the tight red Under Armour T-shirt hugging his biceps turns him from model to predator—a red T-shirt that is decidedly not the plain blue uniform the rest of us are in. Surveying the gathered cadets and instructors with a general’s eye, Ellis cocks his pale head a bit as if making a mental note before coming to stand beside me.

  “Are we meeting your expectations, Master Ellis?” Quinn croons.

  “It’s your formation, Cadet-Commander,” Ellis answers, the polite words lined with enough steel that I wonder whether the two know each other or if Ellis is simply self-destructive enough to bait a man who literally took a whip to him yesterday.

  I shiver, the combination of yesterday’s memories and the night’s cutting wind making me shift my feet.

  Turning from Ellis to me, Quinn presses the tip of a thin rattan stick he carries under my chin. Lifting my face up to his, the cadet-commander smiles down at me, his orange-tinged eyes glazed with a mix of disgust and cruelty that makes me freeze.

  “Tell me, did you dye your pussy the same red, witch? Better yet sh—”

  “Quinn. If you please,” Asher calls from the front of the formation, making a muscle in Quinn’s jaw twitch as he walks away from me. Clicking off his stopwatch, Asher shows the digits to Reese, who stands with hands draped loosely behind his back, hair pulled back with a leather thong, black joggers and T-shirt fitted perfectly to the hard angles of his body.

  Reese shakes his head.

  “Welcome to fire drill, first years.” Asher’s call cuts across the group, the students on all sides of me remaining perfectly still, faces forward. “The bad news is that you are three seconds slower than last week. The good news is that your cadre will be giving you plenty of chances to practice in the coming months. First, however, we’ve two new problems joining this mess of a class. Ellis of Talon and Samantha Devinee.” Asher nods to the pair of us. “Ellis is of fae heritage. Samantha is a witch.”

  The cadets shift from foot to foot, a rustle of whispers spreading through them like wildfire. The sudden movement is almost shocking after their robot-like stillness. On all sides of me, faces turn, every shade of surprise, disgust, even hatred playing across them. The girl on my right takes an exaggerated step away from me, as if I might carry the plague. Only Ellis remains still.

  I guess it’s safe to say they didn’t all know about me yet. Which means the fun is only just getting started.

  “Lock it up,” Quinn barks, tapping that rattan rod of his against his thigh. The cadets go silent and straight with almost comical speed.

  “Given the historical violence and hysteria surrounding witches, and the ongoing vigilance of creature hunters,” Asher continues, “the following additional safety measures are instituted starting now. One—nightly fire watch will now be conducted in pairs. Two—unannounced drills such as the one entertaining you this morning will double. Three—the afternoon defensive combat will be increased by one hour. You are not here on vacation, people. Anyone caught so much as thinking of violating Talonswood rules will be punished—and trust me when I tell you that you will get tired of the experience a great deal sooner than the cadre will.”

  Another wave of whispers rushes through the formation, the angry glances shooting in my direction sharp enough to slay. My fingers curling over my palms, I meet each and every one of them, though I know, deep down, that I have no bite to go with my bark.

  “Silence,” Asher snaps, and though he is obeyed instantly, a growl that sounds like a pissed-off Doberman rumbles from his chest. “Mister Quinn, it seems the class has some issues to work through before regular training. Will you oblige us with a fun run to help them do that?”

  Snapping his fingers, Quinn takes off at an ankle-twisting pace, the cadets falling in behind him in an amorphous group that sweeps Ellis and me along in a wave of morning misery. Well, my misery. Ellis seems to be enjoying the run.

  As I double over a mile and a half later to lose what little contents my stomach has in it, I realize that Bryant never mentioned whether all the students who enter Talonswood actually live till graduation.

  10

  Sam

  The first run sets the stage for my first week in Talonswood with the skill of an artist’s brush. In addition to being the only witch, I’m apparently the only one who can’t run for shit, a pastime which everyone at Talonswood considers both a virtue of the highest order and a sign of intelligence. Sure, there were times I had to escape quickly on the job, but since I was so good at hiding, that rarely meant running for any period of time. Turns out I have no cardio—which would be funny if there wasn’t already an enormous target on my back.

  After watching me fall out less than fifteen minutes into the first run, Asher sends me off to learn how to hand-wax floors for the rest of
the morning and makes me redo the run alone with him instead of having breakfast.

  I run no better then. I just do it for longer.

  Some of the students forgo breakfast too, just for the fun of standing along the edges of the green and laughing into their coffee cups.

  Between bouts of failing at every physical training exercise and polishing my menial labor skills, I listen to vampires and fae lecture about the history I’ve never heard of. Of Council laws forbidding the supernatural creatures—namely fae, vampires, and witches—from holding positions of power within human society or otherwise bringing attention to themselves.

  Apparently, the last time that happened, it triggered the Spanish Inquisition, which exterminated most of my kind.

  My kind. A strange concept after a lifetime of being an orphan, passing through the filthiest corners of the foster system—a concept that sends a tiny tendril of pain in my gut if I think too hard about it. Which is why I try not to. It’s crazy to waste time missing what I never had, and anyway, the other witches would probably reject me even if they were here. I have nothing resembling magic.

  Except for that ruby thing.

  Shaking away the memory of that night, I make myself focus on Reese’s current lecture about how, witch problems aside, the fae and the vamps had been at each others’ throats for several thousand years. The conflict came to a head in the sixteen hundreds, when the fae-vampire wars for control of Talon broke out.

  “To make a long tale short, the fae won,” Reese says, his tone academically smooth, though his body looks ready to turn to cold-blooded rampage at a moment’s notice. “They control Talon and the gateway to get there, while the vampires remained restricted to the human world. In addition to housing the gateway between worlds, the island of Talonswood has been declared a neutral ground for all creatures. Many vampires congregate here to recreate a sense of community or power that they’ve lost.” Reese’s gaze slides over Ellis, who is sprawled at his desk with a bored-looking expression.

  For a fleeting moment, the two males exchange a meaningful glance that, for reasons I can’t understand, makes my heart ache for them both. Ellis’s hand tightens on the edge of his desk.

  “Isn’t that under debate, sir?” The boy who tripped me on the first day, a beautiful olive-skinned demivamp named Christian, with traces of a French accent, smiles smugly. “Staying in the human world allowed the vampire clans to dig their roots in. Clans such as Count Victor’s may not have palaces, but the reach of their actual influence spans the mortal world—which is quite a bit larger than Talon.”

  Turning to Christian, Reese raises his chin. The motion is almost imperceptibly small, but still makes the cadet shrink into his chair. “Nothing I say is under debate, Christian.”

  Christian swallows.

  “The bottom line to remember,” Reese’s piercing blue eyes catch mine, even though he lectures the class, “is that witches have always been the only ones able to use true magic in the mortal world. Certainly, the fae can shift to animal form and are difficult to injure without iron, while vampires’ speed and compulsion abilities fall into the realm of what humans would call supernatural. However, these things are simple extensions of our bodies. Yes, Bernadette?”

  “Is there a way of checking if someone is really a witch or just claims to be?” my roommate asks sweetly. “I heard that true witches have one spot on them that doesn’t bleed. Does Talonswood have a protocol to test for that? It would be a shame, after all, if someone accidentally allowed a human into our ranks and we’d then have to kill her just to keep our secret.”

  “I volunteer to put such a protocol into practice,” Ellis says. His words are light, but the fleeting tension in Reese’s face says there is more to the quip than I think.

  When the bell rings a moment later, Reese dismisses us to lunch without further comment.

  Grabbing my books, I stalk out of class, pausing to watch second-year demifae trying to shift into animal form on the green. Most will never succeed, but it’s the ones who can’t control themselves that the instructors worry about—they call them weres, as in werewolf. As if this place wasn’t already terrifying enough. I hear the woods around Talonswood have cages of feral wolves, tigers, eagles, and more, deformed and monstrous, uncontrollable.

  Shuddering, I continue on, my thoughts swirling my mind at hurricane speed. Bernadette might have intended her question as petty torment, but the girl had a point. Walking into the mess hall, I head directly for where Ellis sits alone and pull over a chair.

  “What do you want?” he asks, cutting into a piece of meat that barely saw a fire, much less touched one, before being put on a plate.

  If I had any appetite after Reese’s lecture, I’d have lost it at the sight of Ellis’s lunch. “How did you know I was a witch?” I ask.

  “You mean without having resorted to seeking your witch mark?” Ellis raises a brow, his golden eyes sharp. Strong fingers plunge a fork into the meat. “I used the one tried and true method of gathering information—I paid you.”

  “You paid me to take pictures of some files from some old attorney’s office.”

  “Old being the operative word.” Ellis puts down his fork, bracing his forearms on the edge of the table as he looks down at me with flat eyes, taking up all the space and air in the room. “The file I had you photograph was behind a basic lock spell keyed to witches. From a time long ago, when such things were common. A nonwitch would never have been able to open it.”

  “So you, what, went through everyone in New Jersey until you found the one unicorn who could pass your test?”

  “Everyone in America. And I did a little better than that. But what is it that you’re really asking me, Devinee?” Ellis leans closer, his sculpted face dangerous. His lips so close to mine that his warm breath brushes my skin. His fresh pine-forest scent makes my head swim. “You want to know whether you really are a witch?”

  I swallow. “Yes.”

  Ellis smiles without humor. “You tell me. What happened when you walked into that house? What drove you to open the locked box when I had a knife to your neck, to wrap your hand around a ruby when everything sane inside you must have been yelling for you to run? Was it magic?”

  I learn forward hungrily, sensing answers. “What was that ruby? Why did you want it?”

  He pulls away instantly, eyes suddenly flat on the wall opposite him.

  “Why did it get you landed here?” I press.

  “That ruby responded to your power. And that’s all you need to know for now.”

  I slam my palm on the table, the wooden top wobbling slightly. “So where is that power now? Why am I as weak and useless as I’ve always been?”

  Ellis steadies his coffee, which, judging from the smell, is well spiked. “I neither know nor care,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine, something like hatred swirling in their depths. “But for all our sakes, I hope you never find it.”

  Brilliant. I stand up, pulling myself away from him. The more I observe the male, the less I understand him. The less I understand why he let me live that day.

  “Devinee,” Ellis says, catching my wrist, the skin contact—his hand callused and warm, almost pulsing with heat—making my body tense. “There’s a nightclub called Dusk on the southwest side of town. Ask for Cassis and tell him you’re a witch. He may have answers for you.”

  I frown, studying Ellis’s face, looking for any clues in the chiseled lines around his mouth, the high cheekbones, or steel-wall eyes. But his face gives nothing away. “Asher said we were not to leave the Academy quad, even during liberty.”

  “It isn’t a rule the cadre enforces. But…if a threat of a possible beating is enough to keep you down, maybe you don’t want your answers as badly as I thought you did.” Releasing my wrist as if it were suddenly made of fire, Ellis leaves his lunch unfinished and walks away.

  11

  Ellis

  He was supposed to be enjoying this, Ellis reminded himself as Sam doubled ov
er on the side of the running trail, her breath so ragged, he could hear her wheezing. The tight blue shirt hugging her breasts steamed with sweet sweat that rose into the air, the pants stretching around her backside reminding Ellis of just how very much a female Sam was.

  And also that she was officially the worst runner Ellis had ever seen, even among the humans. A week into Talonswood’s training regime and Sam couldn’t run half a mile without stopping. By the mile mark, the girl was full-on losing whatever food she had in her stomach.

  Ellis shook his head just as she pulled herself back up and onto the trail, twigs and pine needles sticking to her knees. Given the witch’s pace—and the five-mile morning running course—it should take, oh, two hours or so to get back to the parade grounds. Even Quinn had gotten bored with this reality and stopped riding her after the first day.

  “I’ve spent centuries in and out of the military, but I think this is the first time I’m starting to wonder whether dying from a run may truly be possible.” Asher, who’d been backing the group, came up beside Ellis just as Sam tripped over a tree root and went sprawling onto the trail again. “Not that we can call that running, even charitably.”

  “She has no immortal blood in her.” Ellis didn’t know why he was defending the witch.

  “I’ll be sure to mention that to anyone coming after her,” Asher said. “And by anyone, I mean that the Council is making a visit.”

  Ellis turned his head sharply. There were six members on the Council: three vampires and three fae, the three remaining witches’ seats empty for lack of the species. “Javin?” The fae male was the official dean of Talonswood Reform, but had been content to let Asher and the other leads run their cohorts as they saw fit while he pursued personal machinations. Talonswood Reform existed because it had to, not because anyone actually wanted to spend time putting the demis into place.