by Eden Beck
I start swinging back and forth, building up momentum. My body screams for me to stop. I’ve been awake too long without rest. I’ve been pushing my body to the limit time and time again. Any moment now, it’s bound to give out.
I just need to do this one, last, thing.
“Black, what are you doing?” Piers shouts.
His shout draws the attention of the other boys, and Bennett sees what I’m trying to do at once.
“Get it closer to her!” Bennett yells, slashing at the ogre. “She needs to get down!”
My grip is weakening. I can do this. I force myself to do one last swing, and I let go, launching my body through the air.
I slam into the ogre’s back, scrambling my feet on its skin. My arms lock around its neck. I’m lucky I don’t knock my breath away.
“I’ve got the rope!” Owen yells. Piers and Bennett rush toward him, and I cling to the ogre as it turns to follow them.
Above me, the rope goes taut as all three of the boys throw their weight into it. I slide down the ogre’s back until I’m just above its wrinkly ass. And I thought it stunk from a distance.
Any ordinary rope would have snapped already, but this rope was made for restraining a monster this size. As much as the ogre strains against it, it keeps inching backwards towards the loop in the ceiling. One particularly hard tug by Bennett and the ogre loses his footing, lurching backwards. I lose my grip and fall back … but at the last second, I twist into a roll, keeping myself from landing flat on my own back … or worse, flat under the ogre’s massive feet.
“Black, over here!” Piers yells.
I’m grateful for his voice, as I’m a bit disoriented. I run toward him and stand in the front, grabbing the rope. Bennett anchors us at the back and Owen is directly behind me.
“Heave!” Bennett yells.
We all pull. I slide back into Owen and feel the warmth of his body pressing against mine. I’m weakened from my climb, but Owen’s arms go around me to grab the rope in front.
“Come on, Avery,” he says in my ear. “We can do this!”
I grit my teeth and dig my heels into the earthen floor—drawing out the very last of my strength to finish this fight. Together, we take labored steps back. The noose tightens around the ogre’s neck, pulling upwards now that there’s nowhere else for it to go. Its fingers scramble against the rope, its body stretching to keep up with the strain as the noose pulls tighter. Higher.
My brain is foggy. I haven’t eaten, haven’t slept, haven’t rested for long enough to be doing this much. Poor Owen is propping me up and helping me pull at the same time. Like the ogre, I’m on the brink of collapse.
But he fails first. With a final, gasping, raspy roar—his hands fall slack and his head lolls to the side. We all release our grip on the rope, and the ogre falls unceremoniously to the floor in a motionless heap.
The moment it hits the floor my own knees buckle, but Owen’s arm catches me around the waist. “Damn, Avery,” he says with a laugh. “That was badass.”
I smile weakly and use his chest to find my feet underneath me. My hands touch bare skin. When did his shirt come off too? He takes my elbow and guides me to stand upright.
I look down at myself. I’m covered in scratches and bruises. I’ve lost a few of the academy’s knives. But nearby, an ogre is dead on the floor.
And it was my plan that killed it.
Chapter Four
A plan that, apparently, doesn’t please everyone.
When I look up into the faces on the other side of the glass, I see shock and surprise … and unless I’m mistaken, anger.
“Hey guys,” I say, turning from the glass to interrupt the flurry of black-slapping going on between them. “I think we might have made a mistake.”
Erin, the test administrator, several professors, and Headmaster Novac rush in—only to be stopped by the broken iron gate. Bennett spots them before they can go around to one of the others, and hoists it up out of their path to let them through. They scowl up at him as they pass.
The test administrator looks furious, as do several of the professors. Headmaster Novac simply looks amused. Erin looks as she always does—nervous and pale.
“Are you four complete idiots?” the administrator demands.
I frown and look back at the boys. Piers’ lips have pressed into a thin line. Owen’s mouth hangs open. Bennett is impassive as ever, standing there holding the gate open in case anyone else wants to rush in and criticize us.
But the administrator isn’t finished yet.
“That ogre could have killed you!”
“Yes,” I say, straightening my shoulders. I might be on the brink of collapse myself, but they don’t need to know that. “But it didn’t.”
He just shakes his head, his face growing ever more red by the moment. “That wasn’t the point.” The proctor jabs his thumb over his shoulder at Erin, who glances nervously at us and then the floor. “She’s got more brains than all of you combined!”
“Hey,” I snap back. “Our plan was brilliant, thank you. We killed it. Well …” I glance back at the ogre, which at this point I’m fairly certain is just sleeping, “figuratively, anyway.”
He flounders for words. “If it were up to me—”
Headmaster Novac holds up his hand, and the administrator silences himself midsentence. “The point here, with this particular challenge, was to remind you that not every monster is meant to be faced.”
Each retort I’d prepared drowns in the back of my throat as he continues, stepping forward to admire the ogre from a distance.
“It’s important for us monster hunters to know when we are outmatched,” he says. “Otherwise … there would be none of us left.”
I finally find my voice. “But we weren’t outmatched.”
Novac whirls to me, his eyes aglow. “I see that now … Miss Black.” He looks down and half bows to me. “And it’s also the only reason every one of you isn’t immediately disqualified. If this had gone any other way, I can assure you, you would have been … no matter your parents.”
He looks at me, first, then Piers. “Your scores have been tallied, and you’ll be able to see them on the screen in a few moments. I suppose now it’s just time to wait and see … if it was enough.”
He smiles—a sly, knowing look—at our stunned silence, then walks around us and out the door. We follow along until we get to the outer chamber with the screen, then we wait around while the rest of them file out.
I turn to the score screen, which is being updated as I watch. Names are being shuffled around as the final scores are calculated, the top performing students appearing at the top and proceeding down from there. It’s an agonizing wait. I’m covered in filth from the ogre and running on some reserve power that’s bound to run out any moment.
The names stop shuffling. The boys and I push closer to the screen to find our names. And there I am—just below Piers, but above Bennett and Owen, who’s at the bottom.
The very bottom.
For a second, I’m sure we’re out. Then, with a sudden flicker, the four of us leap up exactly five spots. The names beneath us are struck out—their scores replaced with the word ‘DISQUALIFIED’ in all caps.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, taking a step back. “Holy fuck. We passed! Guys, we did it!”
They all turn to me slowly. Their scowls are back. For one second I forgot I’m at odds with these three … despite the last few minutes.
“Barely,” Piers says, his eyes scanning the last group. My gaze follows his, and I wonder what anyone else could’ve done that got them disqualified … when we didn’t. Piers shakes his head. “I knew it was a trick, and we should’ve run. But because of you and your damn plan, we’re at the bottom!”
He shouts the last word, shoving me in the shoulder as he says it. I stumble backward and almost fall, but Erin catches me.
“So what?” I say, out of breath. I’ve finally reached that point. I’m not sure I have the strength to ex
tricate myself from this girl’s awkward grip. “Barely passing is still passing.”
“Who cares if it’s passing?” Owen mutters darkly. “Don’t you know what happens at the end of the year?”
“They drop the lowest-performing student,” Piers hisses. He points savagely at the score screen. “Because of you, we scored the lowest, and we’ll have to work twice as hard just to catch up with the rest of the class.”
I look at the numbers again. They’re low. A lot lower than everyone else. In all rights … we should be out. If that other team didn’t get disqualified, we would be.
Bennett folds his huge arms, biceps flexing dangerously as if in agreement.
Piers steps closer to me, bringing his face inches away from mine. “If it’s the last thing I fucking do,” he whispers, “I’ll make sure it’s you who gets dropped. I’m not letting you take me down with you.” His blue eyes bore into mine just long enough to let me know he’s serious, and then he turns abruptly away and marches out the door.
Owen and Bennett scowl at me for just a moment longer before they follow.
Erin pats my shoulder. “It’s okay,” she whispers, her voice trembling. I glance at the score screen. She’s in the middle of the pack, probably in no danger of being sent home.
If I could muster up the strength now, I’d jerk my shoulder out of her grasp, scoop up my backpack, and walk out of the room, leaving her there alone. The very last thing I need is a pep talk from her of all people.
She ran.
I don’t care if it was the ‘right’ thing to do. She ran. She left us. I won’t forget that. I’ve no patience for cowards.
But I also have legs like jelly that don’t work right.
The residential wing of Saint M houses both male and female students. By the time we’ve hobbled back upstairs, roommate assignments have already been made … and it looks like I’ll be stuck with Erin for the rest of the year. Under any other circumstances, I might have complained—but I’ve no energy to do that, not now.
To make things worse, the room is very small with no privacy at all; two beds, two desks, and two dressers make up the entirety of the furniture, with just enough room between them to delineate whose is whose.
Erin wastes no time decorating. While I put my meager amount of clothes inside my dresser, she tapes a few posters to the wall above her bed and sets little knick-knacks on her desk like a giddy freshman sorority girl or something. I set my only notebook and pencil on my own desk and watch her exchange her plain white blanket for a flower-patterned comforter.
She glances over her shoulder. “You didn’t bring much?” Her voice is timid.
“Didn’t need much,” I say, looking over the posters of boybands she’s pasted all over her side of the room. “From what I’ve heard, most people like us usually don’t.” We’re a thing of the old world, people with not only a secret, but the solution. Our lives don’t make well for settling down long term. There’s always another monster. Always another hunt.
Erin’s face goes red.
“I just … want it to feel a little like home,” she mutters. I catch her push an unrolled poster under her bed with her foot, trying not to let me see. “Um … I know you might be mad at me, but … would you mind coming with me to the showers?”
I wish she’d just come out and say it, rather than edging along the outside like a beaten dog. “Why?”
“Well, they’re co-ed, too, and …” she trails off as she moves over to her desk, shuffling things around aimlessly. “I … I just …”
“You’re scared of the boys?”
She nods.
I open my mouth to mock her but think better of it. I mean, she’s sort of got a point if earlier was any indicator. She’s so goddamn timid, and she saw how Piers treated me after the fight with the ogre. If one of them decided to pick on her, she wouldn’t be able to fight back. I sigh. I really have no idea why she’s even here in the first place with an attitude like hers.
“Sure, yeah. I’ll be your bodyguard, I guess.” I look over her desk. “On one condition.”
Her face splits into a huge grin. “Yeah, yeah, anything!”
I feel my cheeks flush.
I point to one of her posters—a shirtless man dancing with rain pouring down around him—that vaguely resembles Sawyer. “You can keep all the rest, but take that one down.”
After our showers, we’re on our way back to the room when we run into an older man, one I remember from being onstage while Headmaster Novac gave us his speech.
Erin stops short when she sees him, as do I. He pauses to look us over.
“You ladies settling in all right in the dorms?” His voice is rough, like he’s eaten nothing but gravel for dinner. His face is wrinkled and scarred; one scar extends from his hairline straight down to his chin. His salt-and-pepper hair is thick and short, with a bald line where another scar shines through.
“Yes, sir,” Erin says timidly.
The man turns to look at me, squinting through a completely white eye. “You’re Avery Black.” He’s the picture of the life-long monster hunter, carrying with him the marks of battle.
“Yes.”
“Knew it before I heard them say your name. You’re the spitting image of Riley.” He looks me over again. “Risk-takers, that lot. Looks like you’re one, too. Hope you don’t turn out to be as bullheaded and reckless as they were … but usually, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
With that, he steps around me and walks past us.
Shocked, I glance at Erin, whose face is completely pale again. She takes a shaky hand and pushes some of her wet, wispy blonde hair away from her face.
“What the hell is his problem?” I ask loudly, glancing over my shoulder. The man has already disappeared.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” says a pleasant voice. I turn to see another woman I recognize from the headmaster’s speech heading toward us down the hall from the opposite direction. She smiles at me … something not many of the adults here seem to do very often. “That’s just Professor Helsing. He’s always like that.”
She holds her hand out, and I shake it. “Professor Eve Waldman, at your service.”
She smiles again. She’s got a decently pretty heart-shaped face. Her brown hair is graying at the roots, and she’s got it tied back in a loose bun. For a monster hunter herself, she’s surprisingly mark-free.
“I overheard a bit of that,” she says, glancing back where Professor Helsing left as well. “I knew your parents too, Avery. Risk-takers they might have been, but bullheaded? I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Uh, thanks.” I glance at Erin again, who’s looking at the floor. She seems to just want to get back to the room … and I don’t blame her. I still feel like I was hit by a truck, no, several trucks. It’s all I can do now to stand on my own two feet without Erin’s help.
Professor Waldman must be able to see that too, because she quickly bids us a good night. “Well, I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” she says warmly. “It’s almost time for curfew, and you’ll need your rest.”
Erin and I walk back to our room; she’s much more relaxed now that strangers aren’t trying to talk to her. I stop right outside and she steps in.
“You go on in. I’m going to call my aunt back home.”
Erin smiles. “I’ll take your shower stuff inside.”
I give her my towel and toiletry bag and she closes the door behind her. As soon as she does, I put my back to the wall and slide down to sit on the floor with my legs splayed out before me.
I turn my battered cell phone over in my hands. I only have a few roaming minutes, so I’ll have to make this call count. There’s probably some sort of landline I could use … but I’m really not the type to call home just to chat. I’m a terrible niece, I know, but it’s just who I am.
Hopefully Aunt Trish hasn’t called out a search party for me. I should’ve just gotten the guts up to tell her before I left. I tried, several times, but something in
her sweet, naïve face wouldn’t let me do it.
I couldn’t disappoint her like that. I couldn’t tell her I’d found out and followed in my parent’s footsteps. Not when I know how much it broke her to lose them, to lose her only sister and her brother-in-law in one day.
Calling her takes more gumption than facing that ogre.
So I don’t.
I sit in the dark, silent hall for a long time, staring at the pattern of brick on the walls. This is the life I chose. Whether or not I call, I think my aunt will always know what happened to me. It might be better now, rather than later, to let the space between us grow.
Helsing’s words still echo in my head.
The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
If I am going to end up like them, then maybe it’s best she lost me now. It’ll make the inevitable easier … for both of us.
Chapter Five
The next morning, Erin wakes me up before the start of our first class with the sound of her loudly rummaging through one of her drawers. It’s quite the feat, since given the events of yesterday, I was so deeply asleep that I could have easily slept through to the next century.
“What could you possibly need so early in the morning?” I ask, my voice thick with sleep and unrepressed frustration. I just want to sleep forever and ever, is that too much to ask?
She jumps and little and glances over, an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry,” she says, her eyes swiveling back over to the drawer where her fingers still twitch to pick apart the insides. “I have a knee brace. I shouldn’t run without it, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.”
“Maybe if you brought less stuff, it would be easier to find,” I say, sticking out an arm and patting my backpack affectionately. I didn’t even bother completely unpacking yesterday.
I’m about to roll over and pull the blankets back over my head when, suddenly, my brain registers why she’s up and rummaging around already. I’m leaping up and frantically rummaging through my own bag before I’ve fully come to terms with the fact that I’m out of bed.