Fear University

by Meg Collett

  Motherfucker. I might actually cry. What the hell was happening to me? I couldn’t move for the shock, or maybe it was from the pain. A tear tumbled down my cheek.

  Was I dying? Is this what death felt like?

  “Close off the ward!” Numbly I looked up as Dean strode into the ward with hardly a glance at Peg and me. “No one else gets down here. For God’s sake, get them out of that shit, and get this room cleaned up!”

  Hunters and professors alike jumped into action. A couple nurses pushed through from the back of the small crowd and carefully crossed over to Peg and me. As soon as the nurse touched Peg, she let out a wrenching sob, an arm wrapped tightly around her stomach. The nurse helping me pulled me up by my hurt arm and I would’ve yelped in pain if Dean hadn’t looked my way right then.

  He assessed me like a pig at a slaughter auction. Not dead. Not yet. Still his valuable prize. If he noticed how I trembled, he didn’t comment or else wrote it off as a side-effect of killing a ’swang.

  If he knew what was happening to his prize soldier right then, he would’ve been more nurturing. Or maybe he would have cut his losses and packed me off down to the lab, where he could test me over and over again.

  A voice in my head said, Do you feel it yet, Ollie? What if I cut her here?

  The basement. The young blonde girl with a pale round face and trembling lips. Me tied to a chair watching as Max and his father hurt the little girl until it was I who screamed, crying that yes, yes I feel the pain. The worst night of my life. My greatest fear. My greatest nightmare. It would happen all over again if Dean got his hands on me to test.

  He would ask me, Do you feel it yet, Ollie? What if I cut your brain here?

  Jolting me from my thoughts, Dean pointed to a nearby guard. “Get Peg cleaned up and on the first plane out.” The barked order didn’t sound like a compassionate one meant to send Peg back to her family after a traumatic event. He didn’t want her around to shatter his precious control. She might have a hard time keeping quiet about a day-form ’swang trying to eat her baby.

  A day-form ’swang who’d broken into the school. Who had walked amongst the teachers and students. No wonder the university needed those large iron spikes atop a thirty-foot fence. They weren’t only worried about dogs. They were worried about ’swangs that could walk and talk just like us. Dean had lied to every young student here. Luke had lied to me.

  I hissed.

  “Are you okay?” the nurse asked, surprised to see me react.

  “I’m fine,” I snapped, still glaring at Dean, who instructed the discreet disposal of the ’swang’s body.

  The nurse led me into the hall, supporting half my weight as I leaned heavily into her, and sat me on a stool she pulled over. As she went to gather more supplies, I watched the other nurse and guard lead Peg into a private patient room at the far end of the hall. When the door closed, I couldn’t hear her wails anymore. I wondered if I would ever see her again and if she’d heard what the ’swang had said about me tasting like an aswang.

  The pain in my shoulder was enough to keep me from thinking about the ’swang’s comment too much, which was good, because I would have cried. One thought did creep into my mind: I was having a reaction to ’swang saliva. But my reaction wasn’t normal. The ’swang had bitten me and I was feeling it. All of it.

  During all my research in the library, I’d never seen one saliva reaction listed as feeling more pain.

  But then, I doubted any other hunters had been told they tasted of ’swang.

  My nurse came back a moment later with a rolling tray of supplies to stitch me up and a bucket of water to clean me off. I stared at the ground, seething and trying not to scream from the pain cascading through me like fiery waves, while she sponged the gore off my head, chest, and stomach. When I was clean enough, she swabbed my wounds, each swipe making me dizzy enough I almost fell off the stool.

  I tried to distract myself by thinking of something other than the pain, but I didn’t have much practice at these kind of things. So I rocked to hide my dizziness and gritted my teeth. It took every ounce of control I had not to reach over and strangle the not-so-gentle nurse.

  She didn’t numb me before she started stitching up my shoulder and the deeper of my stomach wounds. Apparently, my reputation preceded me. I bore each stab of the needle and brutal tug with flared nostrils and hatred.

  The pain stripped me bare and exposed all my damaged, ruined parts. I’d never felt so raw or vulnerable in all my life. The timing of feeling pain for the first time in my life was inconvenient to say the least. Monsters surrounded me. The pack of people who wanted me dead were circling closer and I could do nothing to stop them.

  For the first time, I understood why Luke harped so much about my inability to feel pain being a weakness. It was. I finally understood. If I was in the woods right now fighting ’swangs, trying to defend my fellow hunters, I would get us all killed. I clamped my mouth around a whimper and prayed it was over soon. Every defense I’d built inside of me was because I couldn’t feel pain. And feeling it now . . . it was like setting off a nuclear bomb in a glass house.

  I was falling apart.

  A growl rumbled low in my throat and I bared my teeth at anyone who passed. But when Dean walked over, his face crinkling up into a sickly sweet smile, the nurse had to hold me down in the stool, her stitching temporarily forgotten as she commanded me to hold still.

  Dean crouched down in front of me like I was a child crying on the floor. “Ollie,” he said, “I can’t tell you how thankful we are that you saved Peg. That was a brave thing to do, but why were you down here?” The question was too pointed to fit into his fake gratitude. When it was clear I wasn’t going to answer—words might break my loosely gripped murderous control—he added, “Whatever reason, I’m glad you were. Now, are you okay? You took a pretty good bite there.”

  The nurse ripped another needle pass through my skin and I hissed.

  Dean’s brows rose. I practically saw him taking in my aggression and violence and accounting it to the ’swang saliva. Let him think what he wanted. I realized then, on that stool, as Dean’s idiotic mustache curled above his widening smile as he categorized my vulnerabilities, that I would kill him. One day, he would die because of me. The violence—the beautiful siren call of it—curled through my blood and whispered to me, the first familiar thing I’d felt in the last few minutes. He’d lied to me and to all the other young students here. The day-form ’swangs weren’t harmless. They were as bad as the night-form.

  “Now, Ollie,” he said, straightening and stretching out his back like he was the one who had fought a ’swang, “I think it goes without saying that you’re not to mention this to anyone. Not Luke. Not Sunny. Not anyone. Got it?”

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Their day-form is a sleeping husk, huh?” I jerked my chin toward the ward, where most of the hunters and professors were rapidly cleaning up. “Yeah, it was real fucking sleepy.”

  Dean blinked at me, and, for a moment, I thought he was about to hit me. But he didn’t, and the disappointment was thick in the back of my throat. I could’ve ripped off his arm and let him bleed out if he’d hit me. When he threw back his head and howled with laughter, I glowered. “I like you, Ollie. You’re funny.”

  He didn’t wait for a response or my agreement not to say anything about yet another attack. As he left, he slapped my injured shoulder hard enough that the nurse squawked in indignation for me—a sentiment that didn’t last long when I bent over and threw up on her white, thickly soled shoes.

  * * *

  Luke came to the now spotless ward to check on me. I didn’t know how he’d heard I was down here, but he stormed into my private room with a growl and a slammed door. Seeing him stalk toward my bed, his gaze predatory, sent shivers down my spine. I tamped down the feeling and looked away.

  He grabbed my chin and yanked my face toward him. My stomach fluttered and I almost moaned. I knew he hated when the uncontrolled side
of him came out, but I couldn’t resist this angry, unhinged Luke who made my blood sizzle and snap in my arteries. He didn’t bother trying to control his rage. “What happened?” he snapped, leaning over my bed.

  “I’m not allowed to say.”

  But those words told Luke all he needed to know. “You fought a ’swang in its day-form?” He released my face, his own paling.

  Not answering, I sat up in bed, wincing as I moved. Luke honed in on my reaction and snarled. He yanked my blankets back and jerked up the hem of my new shirt. Nostrils flared, he took in the gashes across my belly and asked, voice tight with white-knuckled control, “Where else?”

  Still not saying anything, I tilted my head back and pulled down the collar of my shirt. Luke leaned close and sniffed the wound. “It bit you?”

  I nodded. He surged from the bed and paced away. Though he kept his back to me, I knew he was struggling to keep his anger under wraps. A long moment passed before he stalked back to the bed, his eyes unblinking and mouth set into a grim line. “How did you react to the saliva?”

  With pain, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud. Luke wouldn’t connect hearing the ’swangs and feeling pain when infected with their saliva, but he didn’t have all the facts. I did, and I connected the dots. Especially after the day-form ’swang said I tasted familiar. Maybe Hex was right. Maybe I was part ’swang, an anomaly hybrid of some sort.

  I admitted to myself it was the only thing that made sense.

  “Ollie . . .” His voice snapped with warning.

  His leash pulled taunt tonight, and I could cut straight through it with a look. Before, I might have done it just to see him go Hulk. But after today, after another lie—a lie Luke had participated in, after a baby almost died because Dean preferred sheep instead of smart students, I crossed my arms and blinked at the far wall. I can’t live with the lies. Yours and mine, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

  All the things I wanted to say to Luke, I held in. I couldn’t allow any more. I had to separate us, give myself some distance. So that when I left, it wouldn’t be so hard. And if he lied to me again, it wouldn’t sting like this.

  I would have to leave Fear University. That much was obvious. I couldn’t swallow the lies like I’d thought, especially when they came from Luke. But beyond the lies, if I really was part ’swang, this was the most dangerous place to be. To live with people who would want my execution if they knew the truth . . . it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

  Not to mention Luke would hate me when he found out. Hate me and try to hurt me, kill me. Sunny too. Hatter. Thad. Jolene and her nasty friends. I wouldn’t be able to bear that, to see the first real family I’ve had turn on me.

  I was leaving. I just needed to figure out how.

  “You’re not going to talk to me?” I heard his silent threat: I could make you. And we both knew I would enjoy his making me. But I didn’t give anything away.

  He stepped back over to the bed, his hand reaching for me. Touching had always brought us together, and I never minded his hands on me. He’d always made me feel safe, but I pulled away from him and sank deeper in the bed, turning away and pulling the covers up underneath my chin. I clenched my eyes closed.

  Luke’s breathing went wild. His body heat filled the room and scorched me. He was ready to explode, but he held it in, stamped it down. I knew I’d hurt him, but it felt good to hurt him like he’d hurt me. He let loose a frustrated breath and left the room, softly closing the door behind him.

  I wanted to know what he’d told himself to calm down. I wanted to know if he’d pictured his father and all the bad things he’d done to Luke over the years. I wanted to roll over and tell Luke to stop comparing himself to his nasty father. But I didn’t. The first step I took toward distancing myself from him was letting him compare himself to that awful man.

  And it broke my heart.

  * * *

  Later that night, another visitor slipped into my room.

  I was dreaming of ’swangs who looked like walking skeletons when I heard my private room’s door squeak open. A shadow appeared in the threshold—lumpy and misshapen. I surged up in bed, ready to fight, when the intruder said, “Ollie. It’s me.”

  Peg.

  I sighed and relaxed. “Are you okay? Is the baby fine?”

  She crossed the little room to my bed and turned on the lamp. The warm light instantly filled the room and illuminated Peg’s pale, cut face as she sat down beside me. “The baby’s fine.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t thank you enough. You saved our lives.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.” I couldn’t bear her thanks. Not now. Not when I might be similar to the monster that almost killed her and her baby.

  “Ollie, you don’t understand.” Peg shook her head, making the tears stream down her face, and took my hand. “I owe you everything.”

  “Peg, really it’s fine—”

  She clenched my hand tight enough my knuckles cracked in her grip. “I heard what it said.”

  My throat dried up. Whatever saliva was left in my shoulder gave a painful pulse. I cringed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re different, Ollie. I know the truth.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the door and the dark ward hall beyond. There was one night nurse on duty, and she was probably napping in some empty room. “I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”

  I stayed very still in my bed.

  “Somehow,” she whispered, lowering her voice further and leaning closer to me, “you’re part aswang. That’s why that ’swang said that to you, right?”

  She’d made the connection so easily. Even without knowing all my other dirty secrets. But instead of feeling relief, it confirmed to me that if Luke ever knew, he would easily draw the same conclusion. And he didn’t owe me any loyalty like Peg did.

  But I’d trusted Peg from the beginning and she knew the dirty truth anyway. So I told her everything.

  She listened and we talked, exchanging theories—hers from years of teaching and hunting. The hours slipped by, and Peg never wavered in her fervor to pay me back in whatever way she could. If she was disgusted by my alleged heritage, and we agreed there was a chance none of this was true, she didn’t show it. Actually, she seemed excited, but not excited like Dean would have been. She genuinely thought I could serve the cause, that I wasn’t a monster. But even she confirmed what had become my second greatest fear behind Max.

  “You can’t stay here, you know that right? If anyone finds out about you, you’ll be dead. You can’t trust anyone.”

  I nodded at her words, feeling heartbroken all over again. “I know,” I whispered. “I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t tell anyone.” She glanced over her shoulder again. It was close to sunrise, and people would be stirring from their cells soon. “You could leave during winter break and come to my home. We could arrange it so that no one expects anything.”

  “What would your family say?”

  “My husband would understand, and the only other family I have left is an uncle. But he stays up in Barrow year-round.” She took my hands. “Ollie, you saved my life. It’s the least we can do. I’m leaving today to go back home, but I’ll arrange for a flight to bring you to Oregon, where I live. Okay?”

  It was my only hope. If I passed finals and Fields, I could leave during winter break like a normal student. “Dean watches me like a hawk. I can’t let him know something is up. We’ll have to be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful, and you need to be too. He’s dangerous, Ollie. And if he knows about this,” she hesitated, her eyes scanning my body, “he will never let you go.”

  A shiver crept down my spine and wrapped around my ribs, stealing my breath. “I know.”

  Peg glanced over her shoulder again. Any moment now, the ward would be full of nurses and doctors. She turned back to me and handed me a slip of paper with her address and phone number. “Don’t hesitate to call me if anything urgent comes up.
While I wait for you to arrive, I’m going to do some research on this. Maybe we can figure out if there’s anyone else like you.”

  She straightened and stretched out her back. I noticed that her shoulders slumped, and her hands still shook. I stood next to her, careful with my thrumming shoulder, and we hugged. Allies, somehow. “Thank you,” she said into my hair, her voice thick with tears.

  “Thank you,” I echoed back. She was saving me.

  “Be careful, Ollie. Stay alive until break.”

  S I X T E E N

  No matter what had happened on delivery day, I couldn’t miss the study week before finals and Fields. The study week was supposed to be serious and wrought with anxiety that testing brought on. And it was, to some extent. But there was also excitement for the Halloween party and reenactment. The party would be at Tick Tock Bay until twilight, when the reenactment of the Tick Tock Massacre would take place. Afterward, the party would move inside, where it would likely get out of hand and too loud, but the professors would turn their heads so the students could let off steam, especially the first-years who wrung themselves out with anxiety for Fields, which, after an entire semester full of stressing out over it, was days away.

  I wanted to scream that having a party in the bay, in the exact spot hundreds of students and professors had died before, was madness. The professors were flirting with disaster again so the students could feel normal. It didn’t matter if the party moved inside at night, day-form ’swangs could kill the party-goers just as easily before nightfall.

  It was insanity.

  I shuffled from class to class during the study week, participating in the teacher-guided exam reviews, but I didn’t listen. I knew I was ready to ace the exams, but I didn’t care to pass anymore. Good grades wouldn’t matter when I left this place. So when Sunny came to study Monday evening, looking for me when I didn’t come to dinner, she found me in my bed, asleep.