Enchanted Academy, for me, was an escape.
It wasn’t a place where I needed to be thinking about all of the bad stuff that happened to me before I came here.
Eventually, I heard the door to the suite slam and then Wolf appeared in my doorway.
“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up.
“She left,” Wolf shrugged.
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Wolf shook her head and came into my room. She didn’t bother asking permission. Instead, she threw herself down on some of our pillow cushions, and she looked up at me.
“I might need to request a new roommate,” she said.
“What? Why?”
This was serious.
If Wolf was thinking about asking to change rooms or have Stacy moved to a new place, then things had gotten worse than I could have possibly imagined. I didn’t want to think about the fact that this meant everything could change. What if I didn’t get to hang out with Wolf anymore? What if Stacy and I were no longer friends? What if the new roommate was a disaster?
“Because I’m tired of being locked out.”
“Maybe you can come to some sort of agreement,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, they fell flat.
“Look,” Wolf said. “She’s hiding something.”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’ve known Stacy a long time. She’s not normally crazy like this. She’s not normally obsessive. She did something, or she’s in trouble, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“How?”
“I’m going to search her side of the room. Want to help?”
I thought of the time I searched my own roommate’s side of the bedroom. Belle had gotten trapped in an enchanted box and I had gone through all of her things in order to find her. I felt a little bad about it. It was definitely an invasion of her privacy, but it also meant we’d been able to find her.
But I felt guilty for it.
It was wrong to touch her things without permission.
Now I was facing the same choice, but with Stacy. Wolf looked at me expectantly, and I knew why. She wanted answers, but there was something else.
She was worried.
“You’re scared,” I suddenly said.
“What? No,” Wolf shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. It was a move she’d perfected. There was a problem though: I’d perfected that move, too. You don’t survive being a foster kid without learning how to defend yourself from people you don’t like. One of the best ways to defend yourself was by crossing your arms over your chest and creating physical distance between yourself and the other person.
It had always given me a mean kind of appearance.
But it had done a good job at keeping people away.
“You’re worried about her,” I said, pushing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have pushed Wolf. It really wasn’t my place to call her out, but I knew what it was like to be afraid.
“I’m not.”
“It’s okay to worry about your friends, Wolf.”
“She’s not my friend.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, and as much as I didn’t want to talk about my personal history, I realized it was definitely going to be story time.
“I need to tell you something,” I told her. “I didn’t come from a magical family.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I didn’t come from a family at all.”
“What?”
“I was a foster kid before I came here. I didn’t have a family.”
“What do you mean?” Wolf cocked her head, as though she didn’t understand the words I was using, as though the language I was implementing was simply too wildly insane for her to get.
“Don’t magical people have foster families?”
“Uh, no?”
I sighed.
Of course, they didn’t.
Because magical people probably stayed together.
They probably didn’t get divorced, or separated, or split up.
They probably didn’t ditch their kids.
Didn’t that just sound like something out of a damn fairy tale?
“Well, my parents are gone,” I started.
“What do you mean, gone? Dead?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I think so.” My aunt had told me they were dead. She had sworn it up and down, but like any orphan, I’d always wondered if there was some other explanation. I always wondered if there was a different thing that could have happened.
Was there any chance at all they were still alive?
Any hope at all?
“I went to live with my aunt when I was tiny. Really small. Like, I don’t even remember my mom and dad. Later, I went into foster care.”
It stung to admit that. It hurt that I didn’t remember my mother or my father. It was painful. If there was one thing a kid was supposed to do, it was know their parents. That was it.
And I didn’t.
I couldn’t even remember them.
“Wow,” Wolf said, but then she just looked at me awkwardly. Obviously, she wasn’t sure what to say, and I wasn’t, either. I wasn’t exactly a beacon of openness when it came to sharing my feelings with other people, especially my friends.
“Yeah,” I said. “So, I was just going to say that, you know, sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.”
“Meaning what?” She raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t know I didn’t have parents,” I point out.
“True.”
“Maybe Stacy has a good explanation for what she’s been doing, too.”
Wolf looked at me and considered what I was saying. The truth was that she didn’t have to believe me. She didn’t have to listen to a single thing that I had to say.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said finally. “But Jessica,” she shook her head. “I have a bad feeling. I think Stacy’s up to something bad. Either that, or she’s in trouble. Remember when Belle went missing?”
I rolled my eyes. “How could I forget?”
“You were certain that something was wrong.”
“I know.”
“Well, now I’m certain, and I need for you to believe me.”
I looked at Wolf for a long time. She was a good person and a good friend. She wasn’t the kind of person who was going to lead me astray with something like this. I knew that if she suspected there was a problem, then she was probably right.
But maybe I was right, too.
Maybe there was an explanation that meant we were both right.
I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t have time to worry about it, though, because there was a sharp rap on the door and Wolf and I both looked at each other, startled.
“Are you expecting company?” I asked.
“Nope. You?”
“No.”
We stood up and walked to the door. Wolf’s eyes narrowed. It was safe to say that she bristled as we walked over, but as we neared the door, she calmed.
“It’s him,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Red.”
“How do you know?”
“I can smell him.”
She looked nervous. Obviously having the boy she liked come over to her house wasn’t exactly her idea of fun these days. Fair enough. I mean, I wouldn’t really want Beast to just come over unexpectedly, either.
“Do you want me to send him away?”
“No,” she said. “And Beast is with him.”
“What?!” I practically shrieked, and she slapped her hand over my mouth to shut me up quickly.
Beast was here.
Why?
What were the boys doing here?
What did they want with us?
The knock sounded again. This time, it was more urgent.
Wolf pulled the door open and sure enough, Red and Beast were both there. Red looked nervous and shaken, but Beast wa
s leaning comfortably against the doorframe. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the fact that Red was obviously distressed or by the fact that they had come directly to our room.
“What are you doing here?” Wolf asked.
“I have a problem,” Red said.
“And how did you even get in here?” Wolf asked, looking around. The entire floor seemed to be empty, but that wouldn’t last one. And if anyone saw them, there would be hell to pay.
“That’s what I need to talk to you about,” Red said, but he didn’t get to finish speaking because Wolf grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him into the suite. Beast looked at me, raising an eyebrow, as if to ask whether I was going to pull him into the space, as well, but I glared at him and shook my head.
Nope.
Nu-uh.
Not happening.
After everything he’d done to me?
I couldn’t like him.
I shouldn’t.
My friends were right. Beast was no good for me. He was mean, for one thing, and he was tricky. He was malicious and sneaky. He was cruel, and the worst part was that he did it for no good reason at all. Yeah, it was safe to say he was a bully.
But he was a hot one.
And I kind of hated him for that.
Apparently, he realized I wasn’t going to invite him in, but he didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged and sauntered in anyway, and like an idiot, I closed the door behind him. Boys sneaking into the dorms was bad enough. Getting caught with boys in your dorm room was even worse.
I turned around to see Red and Wolf in the living room. She had her hands on her hips and she was practically shaking, but I didn’t know why. I mean, she liked the guy, right? And he was nice. He was a good person. Not like Beast, who was shooting me curious looks from his new position leaning against a different wall.
“What do you want?” Wolf asked Red. “And you didn’t tell me how you got here.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Red said.
“Why didn’t anyone stop you?” Wolf wasn’t listening. She started pacing, and she threw her hands up. “I mean, I thought this dorm had security. You know, the girls who live here don’t just want boys wandering in. We have an entire lobby dedicated to keeping you lot out.”
“Listen, Wolf-”
“I mean, at the very least, the cookie lady should have stopped you from getting to the stairs. That’s kind of her job.”
“Wolf, please-”
“If you and the other boys want to come into the girls’ dormitory so bad, well, then, we might as well have co-ed dormitories because that’s kind of what’s it come down to, hasn’t it?”
“Natasha!”
He said her name.
Her first name.
Her real name.
Wolf stopped in her tracks. She was no longer pacing. Instead, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him, as though she couldn’t quite believe what he had said. Honestly, I couldn’t, either. She was super tight-lipped with her real name.
She just stared at Red.
Beast looked at me and mouthed, “Natasha?”
I just shrugged.
This was Wolf’s story to tell, but only if she wanted to. The thing about being a magical student at Enchanted Academy was that you had a lot of choices to make and a lot of things to do. There were many responsibilities carried by the students. We all had a lot to worry about. If Wolf wanted to keep her real name a secret, well, then, that was her choice.
“How do you know that name?” She asked him.
“Natasha,” he said again.
“Stop. Saying. That. Name.”
She hadn’t given him permission to call her that and to her, it was a very personal and private name. I knew it was another distancing technique. Again, she was trying to push people away, which was unfortunate because sometimes, when you felt like pushing people away, what you really needed to do was reach out.
“I need your help,” he said.
She just stared at him.
“My grandmother is the woman who makes cookies, Natasha, and she’s gone.”
“We noticed that,” I said, holding up my hand. “She wasn’t there when we came back.”
He shook his head sadly.
“I don’t know where she is, but she left without a trace.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Wolf asked, but there was no malice in her voice. She wasn’t being cold. She was asking a genuine question because she was scared, or nervous, or unsure of herself.
I wasn’t sure which.
“I trust you,” he said simply.
She just looked at him and shook her head a little, like she didn’t quite know why.
“I don’t know anything about finding people,” she said.
He kept his gaze planted firmly on Wolf, but he jerked his head toward me.
“Maybe not, but she does,” he said. “And I could use all of the help I can get.”
Chapter 7
It was a strange feeling, having Red come to her room. Somehow, it didn’t feel invasive the way she thought it would. Wolf felt like she should be upset at having him sneak into the dorms to talk to her, but somehow, she wasn’t. In fact, she thought it was kind of flattering that he’d chosen her, out of everyone at school, to come to for help.
Not that she could help him.
She was just one girl.
She was just one ordinary, normal girl, and she was no one special.
She should tell him no.
She should tell him to get lost, to leave her room.
That’s definitely what she should do.
Wolf didn’t need a guy like Red in her life right now. He was...a complication. She didn’t do complications. She was busy focusing on her schoolwork and passing the worst class of her life. The last thing she needed was to spend time with a handsome boy.
She opened her mouth to tell him to get lost.
“What happened?” She asked instead.
Oh, dragons.
That hadn’t been what she had meant to say, but the words were out there now, and she thought that Red looked...relieved.
He looked almost happy.
“She’s always here,” he said.
“I know,” Jessica said. She was speaking to Red, but her eyes were glued firmly on Beast. Come on, Jessica. Wolf knew that her friend had a thing for the bully, but it so wasn’t cool. What happened to girl power? What happened to rallying together with your girlfriends? Girls against boys, right? Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?
But Wolf knew she was looking at Red the same way that Jessica was looking at Beast, and she knew that they were both in trouble.
“She’s a great cook,” Jessica continued. “And she makes the world’s best hot cocoa.”
“I know,” Red said, and he smiled sadly. “But she’s gone missing, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you tried talking to Helena Hex?” Wolf asked. Perhaps it was wrong to simply ask if he’d talked to the headmistress. Obviously, he hadn’t. Not if he’d come to her for help, but why not?
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“She’s away,” Red said. “Who else am I going to ask? Codsworth?”
He laughed, but the laugh was cold.
“He doesn’t like you, either, huh?” Jessica asked.
“He likes me just fine,” Red said. The way he was looking at Wolf made her feel all tingly and strange, though. He was looking at her like he was mad at Codsworth.
For her?
So, he’d noticed the way the teacher treated her, had he?
And it seemed as though he wasn’t quite happy with that treatment, either.
How interesting.
Maybe Wolf wasn’t quite as alone as she’d always thought that she was, and maybe Red didn’t think she was as invisible as she had often felt.
“So, what happened to Grandma?” Jessica asked.
“I noticed she was missing this morning,” Red said
. “We usually eat breakfast together.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Jessica said, but she was still making googly eyes at Beast, who was making them right back. Wolf felt sick. It was kind of ridiculous.
“Yeah,” Red said. “But she didn’t show up. I went to her room, but there was nothing strange.”
“What do you mean?” Wolf asked. “How was there nothing strange?”
Red shrugged. “There was just...nothing. Everything looked the way it always does, I mean. Her shoes were there. Her hats were there. Her dresses were there. Even her baking ingredients were all right there.”
Wolf frowned. She didn’t like the idea that someone would come after Red’s grandma on school grounds. She really didn’t like the idea that he was sad. Red was a kindhearted boy who deserved to have good things happen to him. He didn’t deserve the stress or the frustration that came from losing someone you loved.
Then again, that was life, right?
Wolf shook her head.
This wasn’t about her, she remembered, and it wasn’t about her messed-up family.
“Okay,” she said. “Uh, well, so...”
She realized there was something she could do.
There was something she could share with Red. It was a way that she could help.
Only her.
No one else could do the thing she could do.
She glanced sideways at Beast. She was almost certain he was a shifter, too, but she wasn’t about to call him out on it. If he hadn’t revealed that, then he had a good reason for it. Either he had a reason, or he wasn’t a shifter like she suspected. Either way, it didn’t matter. Shifters didn’t rat out other shifters. It just wasn’t their way.
She knew that with her eyesight and her incredible sense of smell, she’d be able to help him track down his old granny. She could do it. It probably wouldn’t even take that long. Not once they got started.
Not once they understood what they were looking for.
Wolf looked at Jessica, who luckily, seemed to read her mind. Jessica gave her a slight nod, encouraging her to just do it. She could definitely do it. After all, Jessica had opened up to Wolf about her past.
Why not tell Red?
What was the worst that could happen anyway?
Well, besides him thinking she was a total paranoid weirdo freak.
“What is it?” He asked.
“I’m a wolf,” she blurted out.
Enchanted Academy Box Set Page 16