by Eden Beck
He’s tall and lanky—scrawny, almost, for a monster hunter. His laugh when he spots me, knuckles bruised and hair a wild tangle, is more akin to a bird than a human.
“What are you laughing about?” I snap, grabbing my things and readying to flee towards the second half of class.
“Nothing, just your face,” the boy says. “What’d you do in there? Wrestle an agropelter?”
“I’ll show you wrestle—Professor!”
Professor Helsing appears in the now open doorway beside this third-year I was about to threaten.
“Black!” he barks, sending the other boy blanching and scurrying out of sight. “Get to class. Now.”
But he doesn’t let me go on my own.
He walks with me, snarling the entire time, and then barges into the classroom with me and practically shoves me into the seat directly in front of Sawyer. It slides back and nearly tips me back into his lap, but Helsing is practically still foaming at the mouth up front.
“You!” His words are few, but laced with venom. “You’re just like them. If you don’t clean up your act, you’re going to end up just like Samson and Riley. You hear me?”
I nod, but he just throws up his arms and storms to the other side of the classroom.
Waldman just stands, shocked as the rest of us, one hand pressed to her chest while the rest of her is pressed flat up against the wall.
Meanwhile, Piers and Owen watch me with smug grins, and Bennett stares impassively.
Professor Helsing’s voice echoes all the way out into the hallway, where I spot several students shooting us curious looks as they dart by. “Reckless!” he shouts. “Self-absorbed! You’ll end up dead and maimed, just like them!”
I’m biting my lip, trying hard to hold back tears and anger alike. The entire class is watching. I meet Erin’s eyes. She’s pale, her lower lip trembling.
“Professor Helsing,” Waldman says finally, interrupting his tirade. “I think that’s enough. I knew Avery’s parents, and that’s not what they were like.”
He looks at her in surprise, like he’s forgotten she’s there. His hair has flopped all over to one side, and a muscle bulges in the side of his neck where it pulses with purple, agitated blood.
“They were!” Helsing snaps. “Reckless, stubborn, their entire lives! Remember when Samson insisted he could fight that manticore on his own? Remember when Riley left her team to hunt down that chimera? Both stupid, irresponsible—”
I can’t stop myself. I hear the shout coming from my mouth before I’m even aware I’m the one doing it.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
Helsing falls silent, shocked, and looks at me.
“I get it. You hate my parents and you hate me. I was locked in a classroom, by the way—that’s why I was late to class. Leave me the hell alone, please.” I turn my face to stare stiffly forward at the whiteboard in front of class. Sawyer immediately reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off and just stare forward, unseeing.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Helsing leaves the room without another word. The final punctuation is the slamming door behind him.
Waldman picks the lesson back up, but we’re all unsettled. It’s eerily quiet, the aftermath of Helsing’s unhinging. I just flop my head into my arms and bury my face into the warm darkness, where I remain until the end of class.
I think Waldman tries to say something as I pass by her desk later, but I ignore her. When I’m out in the hall, Erin hovers near my elbow, following as I stride purposefully to the residence wing. Sawyer sticks to my other side, trying to make me feel better, I guess.
“He’s so wrong about your parents, Avery,” he says. “They were great. Like, those fights he was talking about? Your dad actually took that manticore on his own, and that was only one that your parents fought. Your mom, she left her team because they sucked. She hunted the chimera—”
“Will you shut up about my parents?” I snap at Sawyer. I know he means well, but sometimes too much is just too much. Shock and surprise register on his face, but that doesn’t stop me.
“I’m so tired of you and everyone else talking about them like you knew them, like you were such good buddies with them or whatever. You weren’t. I didn’t even get to know them, so don’t go acting like you did!” I walk faster, leaving him behind. Erin follows me as she always does. A couple weeks ago that might have bothered me, but she’s like a shadow now.
As soon as we get to our dorm I slam my books down on my desk and collapse onto my bed. I run my fingers through my tangle of hair. How did it get to this point?
No. That answer is simple. I’ve been harassed, berated, forced to suffer through all this torment—and for what? Because my parents seem to have affected every person they met in some profound, conflicting way. For Sawyer, they inspired. For Waldman, they were caring. And for Helsing, well, he made his thoughts clear.
“Am I overreacting?” I ask, staring up at the ceiling overhead. Erin doesn’t answer right away, so I glance over. She’s standing at my desk, reorganizing the books I let tumble to the floor.
As I watch, she lays her notes from class earlier on my desk and starts copying them into one of my notebooks. Her hands are shaking, but for once, she doesn’t look afraid.
I sit up. “Erin? You don’t have to do that.”
She looks at me, and she’s wearing an expression I’ve never seen on her before.
“Erin? You okay?”
“That wasn’t fair of Professor Helsing,” she says quietly. She’s wringing her hands, but her voice is calm. “He shouldn’t yell at people like that. And he should’ve been more sensitive about your parents. So should Sawyer, actually,” she adds. She swallows hard. “Someone ought to talk to Professor Helsing.”
I snort and lay back on my pillows. “Yeah. But who’s gonna do that, really?”
She puts her hands down at her side and juts her chin up. “Me.”
My mouth drops open. Before I find any words, she turns and walks out of our dorm, locking the door behind her.
Warmth floods my chest. Whether or not she actually finds Dr. Helsing and tells him off doesn’t matter. Just leaving, just trying, that is enough. She’s gotten so much braver.
At least one of us has.
Chapter Eleven
Halloween morning dawns cloudy and overcast, as it should. I sit up groggily. I fell asleep in my clothes last night waiting for Erin to come back. She’s in her own bed now, but I can see that she was busy last night before she went to sleep. She insisted on copying all her notes down verbatim as she promised, and even brought some snacks from the dining hall and left them on my desk.
She knows me too well. I’ve just gotten used to not waking up early enough to make it to breakfast before PW. The irony of it is that, for once, today I actually did.
It’s way earlier than I normally wake up, but I’m not tired enough to go back to sleep. I had a fitful night, and it’s left me even more restless than I was last night. I get up, get dressed, and grab a bag of cookies from the pile that Erin left. No need to let them go to waste.
The school is eerily empty. I shove my hands into my hoodie pockets as I make my way through the deserted halls. I haven’t opened the cookies yet; the crumpling bag sounds much too loud in the silence.
I’m not really headed anywhere in particular, so as usual, I somehow wind up in the dining hall.
I fully expect it to be devoid of people this early, so I’m surprised when it’s not. A solitary hulking figure sits alone, turning to look when he hears the door open. Bennett stares at me from the only occupied table.
Immediately, I bristle with anger. It is partly his fault I got chewed out by Professor Helsing last night, and his fault that I haven’t been able to pull ahead of them in the rankings.
Bennett stands up, revealing several empty bowls on the table in front of him. Rather than pouring it out of the dispenser like normal people, he carried the whole thing over to the table with him alo
ng with several empty milk cartons. I guess that explains how he stays so massive.
I’m expecting him to make a show of asking me to leave, but instead he just nods in my direction.
He spreads his hands. “Hey,” he says, not unkindly.
Confusion overwhelms my anger.
“What?”
I want to growl or snarl, but it comes out as more of a puzzled question.
He shuffles his feet. “Want to sit with me?”
“I’m just here for coffee.” I walk past his table, but he doesn’t sit back down.
The bar filled with breakfast items hasn’t been maintained yet this morning. That’s how early it is. Yesterday’s stale cereal fills the remaining containers, and there’s no milk or orange juice. There’s still some coffee grounds next to the coffee maker, though, so I start brewing some.
I hear footsteps behind me. A glance over my shoulder shows me it’s Bennett, slowly approaching. I sigh.
“Look, man, can you just leave me the fuck alone right now? I don’t have time for this. I just want to get my coffee and go back to my room.” Really, I want to get a little extra practice in on the course, but I’m not about to tell him that. It’s only Wednesday, after all. Still plenty of time for him and the others to terrorize me before they grow tired of it this week, again.
He stops and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I actually wanted to apologize.”
I press the button to start the coffee and turn to face him, shocked. “What?”
He’s looking at the floor. It’s strange to see someone so big looking so small. His massive shoulders are hunched up to his ears, and he’s nervously shifting his weight and fidgeting. His hands move from his pockets to awkwardly rubbing his thighs, and then back again.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I don’t … I didn’t want to do that to you. And I didn’t want you to get yelled at like that. And I’m sorry about your parents.”
This is the most I’ve ever heard Bennett talk. I study his face. Is he … shy? Now that I think about it, he only really makes eye contact with me when the other boys are around. The whole tough guy thing must all be some kind of act.
“Is that so?” I ask, cocking my head as I survey him a little more. “Then can I ask you something?”
He nods, nervously tucking his arms across his massive chest.
“Why’d you do it if you didn’t want to?”
He gets even more nervous. He looks down, scuffs his toe on the floor, looks up at the ceiling, looks down again … and so on. So goes the bear man.
“I guess … because they wanted me to.”
I don’t have to ask who he means; I know it’s Owen and Piers.
“They’re not bad guys,” he says quietly. “Sometimes they do bad stuff.” He shrugs. “Sometimes I do too.”
His words are simple, but that’s the only thing simple about Bennett. His honesty is refreshing. It’s not so naïve as say, Sawyer’s brand of honesty, but there’s an innocence to Bennett I can’t ignore. I can see it in him now—the belief that his friends, Piers and Owen, wouldn’t be asking him to do something if they didn’t think it was truly for the best.
It’s so misguided, it breaks my heart.
“That doesn’t make what you’ve done forgivable,” I say. “But I can’t say I don’t understand.”
I don’t know why, what’s making me do it, but I step forward and reach up to pat Bennett on the shoulder. Here, so close to him, he’s nearly overwhelming. He’s so tall my head only comes up to the middle of his chest. And he’s warm. It’s like he’s radiating heat I can feel, even though we’re barely touching.
My hand lingers on his shoulder, and for one second, I feel the overwhelming urge to close the gap between us. Chalk it up to the lack of coffee supplying oxygen to my brain, or the way it pains me to see someone like Bennett being played for a fool, I don’t know.
His eyes flicker up to mine, and then to my mouth, and then I’m stepping away, my hand dropping to my side as quickly as it rose to reassure him. All these weeks, Bennett has been nothing but a thorn in my side. Suddenly, he feels like something more.
What that is, I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know.
He’s actually looking at me now. He reaches up and ruffles his dark hair. He’s so handsome right now I could melt. Bear one moment to giant teddy bear the next; that’s Bennett.
I’m rescued from having to confront these budding feelings by the welcome ding of the coffee machine in the corner. Never have I poured two cups of coffee so fast. I don’t know how Erin lives like this, I think, as I’m barely able to use my shaking hands to shove sugar packets and coffee creamers into the pockets of my hoodie.
I pick up my cups and practically run out of the dining hall, but as soon as I get to the door, I hear Bennett call me again. I have to turn around.
“Avery?”
His smile is gone.
“I just … I’m sorry … for what I’m doing to you.”
I shrug. I don’t know how to reply. I realize that this conversation won’t change anything; he’s still going to do what Piers and Owen ask of him. But I understand him a little better now. Maybe that’s all I really need.
Erin is practically freaking out when I get back to the room. She thought I was kidnapped by fairies or something when she woke up to find my bed empty. I cringe a little as I hand her the coffee. Who would’ve thought my greatest challenge here at the academy wouldn’t be the boys, or the classes, or even the monsters—but rather, just waking up early enough for coffee before class.
I ask her how things went yesterday with Professor Helsing, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. I respect that, even though I’m more than a little curious about how things played out. To each their own, especially since I don’t want to tell her about meeting Bennett this morning. Something about it is still too raw, too private. I’m still processing everything.
For now I just settle for thanking her. It’s not every day my little mouse of a roommate stands up to a lion.
As suspected, and duly warned, PW goes the same as always. Piers, Owen, and Bennett’s actions don’t stop, but they don’t make me angry now so much as they make me curious. Bennett’s confession has emboldened me. I was trying to avoid their antics before; now I’m not sure I want to.
I guess I have a thing for monsters … even the human variety.
On the way back into the school from the PW field, Sawyer pulls me aside. I look worriedly for Erin, but she’s confidently striding back inside on her own.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Sawyer says, and I turn my attention back to him. “You’re right. I don’t know your parents. I shouldn’t talk about them like I do.”
He has gorgeous eyes, golden brown like the fur of a mountain cat, or a loaf of bread fresh from the oven. When he looks sad like he does now, his soft lips turned down at the edges, eyes gleaming, I just want to give him whatever he’s asking for. One day, that’s going to get me into trouble, I know it.
“It’s okay,” I tell him genuinely. “I shouldn’t have exploded on you like that. You’ve been a great friend to me, this whole time.” I reach out and touch his arm, sliding my thumb along his skin.
He smiles back at me. He’s let the stubble grow back on his jaw for the first time since school started, and I have a crazy urge to rub my cheek on his.
“You’ve been good to me, too,” he says. He takes his other arm and pulls me toward him.
I’m stiff at first, my eyes shifting through the gaps in the trees around us. I don’t know what I’m looking for—assailants, traps, wayward monsters—but finding none, I finally let myself sink into him. Just for a moment.
He’s always shirtless for PW, and today’s no different. I can smell his soap mixing with the salty scent of his sweat. There was a time, long ago, when I might’ve been grossed out. But this last year, just the last few weeks, have changed me.
I’ve gotten tougher. And yet, somehow, softer too.
I release him and step back. I can’t do that. I can’t get tangled up like that.
Is that disappointment I see in his eyes?
I smile. “I have to shower. I probably smell awful,” I joke, trying to break the spell that seems to have fallen over us.
“You smell fine,” he replies gently, but he takes my hand and starts walking back toward the school. Should I pull my hand away? I can’t make a decision, so I end up walking all the way to the residence hall with my hand clasped in his, my heart threatening to beat straight out of my chest. When he drops my hand at my door, my fingers feel cold, even though my palms are covered in sweat.
“See you in class.” His voice is still soft. He’s looking at me strangely, more intensely.
I nod. I can’t speak. I fumble for the doorknob.
He smiles and turns away. I open my door and stumble through it, kicking it shut behind me. It slams shut so hard one of the wood panels cracks in half.
What was that?
If this was about a monster, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d know exactly what to do. The instinct for killing was bred into me.
But this, with Sawyer, it’s different. There’s no one voice inside me telling me what is right. All my instincts are turned over and jumbled together, like an impossibly tangled ball of string.
“Avery, are you okay?”
Erin stops in the doorway to examine the splintered wood. It’s still in place, held there by the metal frame. She’s wrapped only in a towel and her hair is plastered to her head in long wheat-colored strands.