Academy of the Forgotten

by Eva Chase

  I closed my eyes against the uncomfortable prickling that came with the memories. I’d been so desperately, ragingly hurt and yet equally torn up because I didn’t have any good reason to be, and—

  I’d have given anything to be back in that moment, any moment, before this place had sucked him in. I wouldn’t take what I’d had for granted this time.

  There were no time machines here, though. I lingered by the rose for several minutes longer, with less hope as each second slipped by, and then trekked back to the school building in time for breakfast.

  Delta had made it down this time, although she sat at her table with shoulders hunched and only picked at her food. Her face looked outright haggard. She’d seemed to have friends or at least people happy to shoot the breeze with her before, but the seats on either side of and across from her stayed empty, as if whatever she had might be catching. When I moved toward her, she glared at me, so I let her be.

  If she was well enough to come downstairs, maybe she was on her way to recovery. She’d made it very clear earlier that she didn’t want me hovering over her.

  No classes ran on the weekends, thank God, but we still had our cleaning duties. I found myself in the main foyer vacuuming the rug with a machine I suspected was twice as old as I was while two of the other girls polished every inch of the suits of armor at the base of the staircase, even removing the massive shields to work those over on both sides. Another rubbed lemony-smelling wood polish into the banisters and the wall paneling.

  Every sweep across the room took me into view of the staff hallway and the door at its end. In my mind’s eye, I crept down the stairs on the other side to the padlocked basement entrance.

  What were my chances of breaking through there if I couldn’t get my hands on the key? The clasp and the lock had been too thick for me to hope that any of the tools I’d seen in the shed would cut through the metal. There was always the trick of tackling the hinge side rather than the lock itself, but when I thought back to my explorations, the hinges hadn’t been visible. The door must open inward. I had no access from this side.

  There had been a small ax in the shed, dappled with rust so probably not that sharp anymore. I could always chop my way right through the door… as if I was likely to get all the way through before the professors caught on. The racket that would make, they wouldn’t need any special senses to realize something was wrong.

  The problem gnawed at me. For all I knew, Cade was locked away down there, just one simple door standing between me and him.

  When I’d put the vacuum away, I came back to find one of the other girls struggling to mount the shield back on the suit of armor she’d polished. I leapt to take some of the weight while she maneuvered it into the right position. I’d seen her in class before but hadn’t caught her name. Which one of the roses I’d checked yesterday evening had she been tied to? I couldn’t remember.

  “Hey,” I said casually, hoping my help would have bought me some good will. “Have you ever seen any signs that there are students living at the school who sleep somewhere other than the dorms?”

  She looked me in the eye for the first time then, swiping a stray lock of hair back from her eyes. “You’ve really got to give it up already.”

  Her tone set off a spark of irritation in my chest. “I don’t really think that’s up to you. Why should you care anyway? It was just a simple question.”

  “I care because I’m sick of your stupid face,” the girl shot back. She grabbed her polishing rag and stalked off before I could come up with a remotely appropriate response.

  All right then. Someone had a stick or three up her ass.

  The girl who’d been cleaning the other suit of armor had taken off too. The one with the wood polish appeared to be just finishing up at the top of the bannister. I stepped back from the armor to take in the space and make sure we hadn’t missed anything—I’d prefer to skip any future migraines unless they were for a good cause, thanks—and a familiar voice reached my ears from down the hall past the cafeteria.

  “Give me a break, man.”

  That sounded like Ryo. Frowning, I eased over to the stairs and peeked over the now-lemon-scented banister.

  It was my formerly friendly punk dude—and the jerk he’d defended me from before. Ryo and Jenson were standing just past the arched entryway beyond the row of portraits, Ryo’s shoulders tensed and Jenson with his arms crossed over his narrow chest.

  “Is it a difficult question?” the taller guy said in the companionable tone I’d heard him turn on for plenty of people other than me. “Or are you not so gung-ho about the whole ‘working together for the greater good’ thing after all?”

  “I’m doing my part,” Ryo said. “Even though it feels like shit. How much have you changed your tune?”

  “All it took for me was a little tweaking. No big deal. Forgive me for asking.” Jenson held up his hands with a slanted smile and sauntered away.

  Ryo ducked his head and muttered what sounded like a curse. My hand tightened on the banister as I watched, debating whether to approach him. A trickle of shamed heat washed over my skin when I remembered the last time we’d spoken. Him telling me how he liked me so much that he had to kick me to the curb and encourage me to get the hell out of here, to give up on the whole reason I’d come here at all.

  Another voice traveled like a ghost from the more distant past, somehow managing to sound sweet and mocking at the same time. Things were never meant to keep going like this, Baby Bea. I thought you knew that. You’re my sister. You really want me to forget that, throw away everything else we’ve got together?

  No, I’d said, every time, again and again. Of course not. Because what else could I say? I should have known. Sometimes people needed you in certain ways, and sometimes they didn’t, but that had nothing to do with the love and loyalty that was always there.

  That back and forth wasn’t anything like this situation with Ryo anyway. There’d been no love or loyalty between us in the first place, just two people indulging in a little mutual chemistry. Or what I’d thought was mutual, anyway.

  He exhaled slowly and turned to head toward me, and that made up my mind. I slipped down the stairs to meet him by the portraits.

  He stopped in his tracks, his eyes brightening and his jaw clenching at the same time. “Trix.”

  “Hey.” My tongue momentarily tangled. I didn’t need to get flustered over this guy. There was a perfectly quick and simple way to see if I should bother talking to him at all. “Have you gotten over your heroic impulses? I think we left a little business unfinished in the carriage house.”

  A flicker of what looked like hunger passed through his expression. For a second, I thought he’d give me his easy smile and motion for me to follow him outside. Then his stance went as rigid as it’d been when he was talking to Jenson.

  “It wasn’t just an impulse,” he said. “And I was telling the truth. The most important thing to me is seeing you out of here safe. I was an idiot before.”

  A little of my earlier annoyance flared inside me. “An idiot for wanting to make out with me?”

  “No. Well, maybe. For putting that first. Trix…”

  I groped for something else to say that might knock him out of this ridiculous mood he’d gotten stuck in. “I found out about the roses. I’ve seen Cade’s—and yours, and, well, everyone’s. It’s so crazy. Just having someone to talk to who isn’t going to laugh in my face or turn their back on me would be nice.”

  Ryo’s mouth tightened. He glanced away, his eyebrow ring glinting in the chandelier’s light. Apparently he couldn’t offer even that much. Well, I guessed that was all I needed to know.

  “You have to see,” he started, and I was already shaking my head.

  “I do, and I wish I didn’t. So glad I could help you get your rocks off while you were up for that.”

  I turned my back on him before he could do the same to me again with another half-assed excuse. That was the way you had to handle thing
s if you didn’t want to get stomped all over. Nothing had really changed. My whole life, I’d been able to count the number of people I could count on with one finger.

  But what if that person hadn’t been right to count on me?

  Chapter Twenty

  Jenson

  Somehow or other, the burned Violet had gotten her hands on what looked like a genuine joint. She had the balls to smoke it within view of the school’s front doors, leaning back against the brick wall as if she hadn’t a care in the world. As if the wounded side of her face and the back of her hand didn’t glower nearly as starkly as the red end of the rolled paper between her fingers. It was a bit of an odd sight.

  I’d never been one to let an opportunity pass me by, though, and Violet hadn’t been that tough a nut to crack. Even if “nut” was a pretty accurate word to describe her. I’d figured out pretty quickly that her sense of humor had a dark streak that ran as deep as the Mariana Trench, and she got a lot more offended by people pussyfooting around her obvious scars than showing they weren’t fazed by the things.

  I meandered over with a grin already in place. “Playing with fire, huh? Haven’t you had enough of living dangerously? Or are you waiting to see if you can get both sides to match?”

  Violet let out a bark of a laugh and switched the joint to her other hand. “Of all the things that scare me these days, I think you can safely assume flames aren’t one of them.”

  I propped myself against the wall a couple of feet away from her, giving her the personal space I figured she needed. “Where’d you score that anyway?”

  “A new kid turned up this morning,” she said. “I managed to bum it off him. I think he took pity on my horrible torment. These do come in handy every now and then.” She gestured to the scarred side of her face and blew a stream of smoke into the dimming late-afternoon light.

  “Never get between a girl and her spliff,” I said glibly, but my stomach had sunk. Every time a fresh face turned up at the college, it felt as if one of the thorns on that damned rosebush had jabbed into my gut.

  We all deserved to be here, no doubt about that, but the newbies didn’t know that yet. They had no idea what they were in for.

  Violet tapped off a bit of ash and looked sideways at me. “I’m surprised you haven’t already noticed the kid, convinced him you’re his new best friend, and conned him into handing over the rest of his stash. Been a little distracted lately?”

  Her dry tone told me she already knew the answer to that question. She didn’t talk a whole lot, but that just meant she heard and saw plenty while everyone else was caught up in their own dramas.

  I waved her question away. “I’ve been focused on self-improvement. Eyes on your own page and all that. So, is it any good?”

  She made a face at the joint. “As far as I can tell, Roseborne has already leached all the fun stuff out of it. I’m literally blowing smoke. But it’s kind of nice just going through the motions after all this time. Like I’m living a normal life for a moment. Almost.” She let out a rough chuckle. “You want a drag?”

  “After that stunning recommendation? Ah, why not?”

  I held out my hand, and she passed the joint to me. I’d never been much of a smoker of any sort—when you relied on a quick tongue and quicker thinking to keep you ahead, addling your brains with illicit substances wasn’t exactly smart—but every now and then I’d indulged as a way of blending in or ingratiating myself. People liked watching other people give in to the same vices they had.

  Thank you, Mother Dearest, for that lesson.

  I sucked in a cautious wisp of smoke and determined that Violet’s assessment had been right. I didn’t even catch the burnt prickling down my throat that a cigarette would have offered, let alone the hint of a buzz to come. But the heat of the rolled paper in my hand and the thin smoke congealing in my mouth came with a weird sort of enjoyment.

  Violet had earned the thing fair and square. I took another brief drag and handed it back to her. I’d heard enough of her story in our classes to know that back when we’d been in the real world, she’d have hated the hell out of who I’d been then, if she’d known me. No point in stirring up old resentments by acting entitled.

  “Doesn’t seem like she’s going anywhere,” Violet remarked.

  I didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, the fact that she’s still here? She gets top marks in stubbornness, anyway. In it to the end, even if it kills her.”

  She couldn’t make that last sentence sound anything but dire. We both knew it wasn’t an “if” but a certainty.

  With a shake of her head, Violet pushed off the wall. “I’m starting to see why you like her, though,” she said, and ambled off without giving me a chance to confirm or deny, apparently having reached her socializing limit for the day.

  I stayed where I was for a moment, soaking in what little sun penetrated the clouds and wrestling with the annoyance and guilt her words had provoked. Just as I turned to go back inside, Trix herself came striding out.

  Her gaze slid over me, and her mouth set in a firm line. She marched onward with a resolute air as if she’d decided I wasn’t worth her attention, but halfway past me she appeared to reconsider. She swung around and planted her feet in the grass with her hands on her hips.

  “What were you bugging Ryo about this morning?”

  I blinked at her. Of all the things I might have imagined she’d ask me, that wasn’t one of them. “Pardon?”

  She rolled her eyes. “In the hall by the cafeteria. You were hassling him about something to do with ‘working together’ and ‘doing his part.’”

  Ah. For once my particular affliction worked in my favor. “School project,” I said with utter confidence. “He didn’t seem to be pulling his weight, and I didn’t want to see how the profs would react if we don’t deliver. How’s that your business anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” She eyed me. “It’s funny how suddenly you’re working on a ‘project’ together right when he’s also decided to start telling me to take off like you’ve been saying all along. Do you have something on him—did you put him up to that somehow?”

  What kind of an asshole did she take me for? Okay, I wouldn’t deny that I could be an asshole and had been plenty of times in the past, but I wasn’t a blackmailer, for fuck’s sake.

  “Sure,” I said. “Because the guy couldn’t possibly have a mind of his own. Did you ever consider maybe he just wised up and realized I had the right idea all along?”

  “Don’t pretend you haven’t had it in for me since the moment I set foot on campus,” Trix retorted. “You knew he was hanging out with me. I wouldn’t listen to you, so why not turn whoever you could against me to add to the pressure?”

  The playful spirit that had started to emerge when we’d dueled the last couple times had disappeared under what was by all appearances genuine anger… and hurt? Because Ryo had mattered that much to her? Or because she hadn’t thought I would stoop that low?

  My heart squeezed despite myself. This caustic back and forth wasn’t getting us anywhere. I’d already decided to trash that tactic. So why the hell did I keep finding myself falling back into the same dynamic? I was the master of adapting to the situation. Trix shouldn’t be any different.

  But she was, and I had one major limitation I’d never had to work around outside these walls.

  The frustration of it constricted my throat. I dragged in a breath. “Do you really think I’m just out to hurt you?”

  My voice came out strained despite my best attempt at keeping my cool. Trix’s expression didn’t exactly soften, but confusion took the edge off her hostility. “If you’re not, you’re making a pretty good show of it anyway,” she said.

  That was fair. And it might be the whole problem. Why would she believe the other guys when they told her it was best for her to leave when she’d already heard me spouting the same thing like a jackass? She didn’t ass
ociate that suggestion with concern—she thought of it as an attack. Because of me.

  How the fuck did I fix that?

  An idea wriggled into my brain—something I’d discovered by accident in my first month on campus and never experimented with further because of the consequences. Because I hadn’t cared enough about anything to endure those consequences. But I owed Trix. If there was a chance it’d show her that I wasn’t just some prick, that underneath the jabs I’d always wanted what was best for her too even if I’d screwed that up…

  Yeah, that was worth whatever hell rained down on me after.

  Resolve tensed my posture. I tipped my head toward the college building. “Will you come with me? Let me show you something? Trust me just a little, please.”

  Uncertainty showed all through her stance, but the “please” seemed to loosen it. She moved stiffly, but she did move. “I don’t trust you. But if you’ve got something you think I need to see, fine.”

  She was prepared for the worst, clearly. Not a great starting point, but one I’d set myself up for, so I could hardly complain.

  I headed back into the school and aimed for the music room at a casual pace. If any of the professors happened to be around and glanced over, I didn’t want them suspecting my intent before I’d gotten my chance. The light thump of Trix’s combat boots told me she was right behind me.

  No one was in the music room, naturally, because no one was ever in here except to conduct the weekly cleanings. Trix’s brow knit as she looked around the room. I turned the lock on the knob, not expecting it to keep the professors out but hoping it’d buy me at least a moment extra when even a matter of seconds could be critical. Then I went over to the wall where the guitars were hung.

  “Are you going to serenade me?” Trix said with blatant skepticism. “I thought playing the instruments was off-limits.”

  “Who says I can’t break a rule here and there?” My gaze settled on the acoustic with the rosewood sides and spruce top, like the one I’d set my sights on years ago beyond these walls. Maybe the exact sound quality didn’t matter all that much right now, but who knew when I’d play again? I might as well make the most of the experience for both of us.