by A. S. Oren
Tiffany clears her throat. “Thank you for sharing. Zack?”
A pencil drops, drawing my attention to Zack as he bends over to pick it up. A chill runs up my spine. He’s by far the hottest guy to ever grace this place, and his smile nearly brings me to my knees every time I see it.
Elle backhands my arm.
“Ow!”
“Stop drooling,” she whispers. “Psychopath, remember?”
Of course I remember, it’s the only thing that keeps me from falling for him. I roll my eyes and fold my arms. “Who else am I supposed to drool over? My doctor? Um, no!”
“Your doctor’s a lot hotter than mine,” she says.
Zack clears his throat. “Zack,” he says, turning his fingernails grey with graphite. “I’m really horney right now.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. Elle pinches me.
“Would you stop doing that? You’re going to give me a bruise.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” she says.
With her palms down, lowering them with a steady beat, Tiffany says, “Settle down. Settle down.”
The new girls stop laughing and soliciting sexual offers, but they continue to stare at Zack, as if he’s a juicy steak. They must be experienced in that area. Heat doesn’t seem to rise to their cheeks the way it does to mine. I doubt they know Zack has little to no experience with girls. At least, I think he doesn’t. Would he ‘explore’ with cameras all around?
I shield my cheek from him and Elle, before turning to the window.
Minutes pass before Tiffany says, “That’ll be all for now.” Over by the door, she holds out an old coffee can I decorated in her office when I was eight. She learned quickly that giving me something to do helped move along our sessions. She was the first therapist I really opened up to.
Zack slips a pencil under his long sleeve and tried to walk past her, undetected.
“Zack?” she says with an authoritative voice.
He lets out an exaggerated sigh, spins on his heel to face her, and says, “I’ve been really good. I’d be even better, if you’d let me keep just this one.”
She folds one of her arms and stretches out the one with the pencil jar. “No.”
Zack gives her the stink eye. “Fine!” He launches the pencil across the room “Go fetch!”, and stomps his way out.
“Okay, maybe Elle’s right about him. A disappointed sigh escapes me. I deposit my pencil, and take a final look outside. No bird.
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Spearwood Boys Volume One Excerpt
Ice
Triton
The pool, in the light of the moon, reminds me of a polished onyx stone. Like a black mirror, it shows only the bad within my soul. A part of me wishes it could show me the true answers to all the things that don’t make sense in my head. I wish it could show me the truth of who I am supposed to be, and who I’m supposed to follow. Then again, that would make life too easy, wouldn’t it?
Kneeling down at the edge of the pool, I place my hand in the water and watch as it freezes with a thin coat of ice. I’m getting better at this technique; I no longer have to depend on frost breath, but this will be a secret all my own. No one else needs to know how powerful I was. A secret I can take to the grave.
I strap two ten pound lead weights around my ankles and stand. I take off my clothes and turn my back to the water. Closing my eyes, I will myself to fall back, breaking the surface of the ice, and plunging my body into its icy depths. The sting of the cold doesn’t even faze me. Ever since I was six, my father has done this exercise with me. I don’t need it anymore, not with me being in tune with the water element.
My back touches the bottom of the pool. The weights stop me from rising again. Finally, no turning back ‘Come on, just take a breath in.’ I may be in tune with the water element, but that doesn’t mean I can breathe under water. I try to turn the switch off in my brain, the one that tells me to keep the air in, but it’s not happening. I just want my confusion and pain to end, but not even my brain can give me the solace I seek. My arms float above me. I close my eyes. I will myself to fall asleep and drift away. It will be like a peaceful dream.
A crash from above me forces me to open my eyes. A person swims toward me. I can’t make out who they are until they are upon me; none other than Dante Mathis. I try to fight him off, as his arms go around my waist, but my strength has always been less than his, even in water. I open my mouth. Large air bubbles explode from it and travel up to the surface. Water rushes into my body. A burst of stinging heat fills my lungs and burns my throat. I smile. Just a minute more and sweet relief will come my way. I fight with him as hard as I can, exhausting myself more, but I manage to keep him under the water.
Another crash comes from above. A second body joins in the fight to take me to the surface. The other person gets behind me, wrapping their arms around my front, forcing my arms down. My world starts to turn black. The burning intensifies. No. I just need a few more seconds. Their feet propel us up. My grip with my mind lessens and fades before they even break through the surface. Thank you.
~*~*~*~
The urge to cough jolts me to my senses. I sit up, as spurts of water burst forth out of my lungs and down the front of my chest. My throat and nose are on fire again. I’m on the ground, near the side of the pool. How did I get here? Why am I still alive?
“Are you fucking crazy?” yells Horace.
My head swivels in his direction. His hair hangs in his eyes—his glasses are missing—dripping with water. He was the other one that jumped into the water to help Dante. The world moves like a carousal. I lie back down on the ground and push my hair out of my face. I swallow and wince, guess my throat will be raw for a little while.
“What’s been going on with you lately, man? You’ve been taking this undercover stuff too seriously. What’s killing yourself going to fix? It won’t bring her back, nor will you see her in Utopia,” says Dante.
I get to my feet in an instant and shove his bare chest. “Don’t you dare speak of her! You don’t know shit!”
He stumbles back a step or two, but continues to stand. He brushes his hair out of his face, and his hands make fists at his sides. I wait for him to do something, anything. Amr comes to stand next to him, placing his hand on Dante’s shoulder. They are all here. How did they even know I was going to be here and what I had planned?
“This isn’t the answer to your feelings. The pain will pass,” says Amr.
My heart constricts. I look at my hands. I can still see the blood on them, her blood. It’s my fault she died. She died trying to save me. “I don’t want it to pass. I want to die so that I don’t have to feel it anymore.”
“Dying over the memory of some girl isn’t the answer, Triton. It’s never the answer,” says Horace. The anger has left his shoulders, as he takes a step toward me. I move away from him.
“How would you know? None of you would understand; you’ve never been in love.”
I move past them and to the spiral staircase leading down to the library. A hand on my arm stops me from moving further out of the Cabin. “Promise me you won’t try something like this again. We need you,” says Dante.
I pull my arm out of his grip. “Yeah, I know. You need me to stay undercover, because none of you had the balls to keep working for Roseman.”
“I’ll go back with you to our dorm,” says Horace. He steps up to my side.
I send him a glare. It all fits now: how the others knew I was here. He snitched to them. “Don’t bother. You’ve ruined my life enough for one night, King. You couldn’t just let me die.”
I move down another flight. They follow. “Don’t forget our vow. We are to protect the female shifter. She will be here by sun up!” Dante calls after me.
“Of course. I was born to protect her, wasn’t I? Like we all are.”
Her
The door to my room closes behind me, and a sigh escapes me. My shaking hand turns the lock of
the handle. At least none of them can bother me now. I doubt they would try to anyway. Dante got his point across. I have to stay around to protect the female shifter and guide her. It’s the born right of all of us. I press my back against the door and slide down it until I hit the floor.
Born to protect some girl I don’t even know. Who they say doesn’t know of her origins. How the hell did that happen anyway? Was she born to an Outcast or something? My thoughts stray away from the female shifter. All I can think about is . . . Her.
Anna was the light on the horizon. She gave me hope and made me want to continue with the life that has been forced upon me. We weren’t meant to be together, but we didn’t care. On different sides of the war, she was Juliet and I was Romeo. I’m a Dragon shifter and she a slayer of all things paranormal. She had been placed inside our group to lure one of us.
The summer we went to the cove, for a training vacation, was the summer she was set into action. She worked her way into the group. Dante took to her right away, bringing her into the group, but it was me who she fell for. We thought she was just a normal human girl; someone to have fun with over the summer, before we were to enter Spearwood for the first time. An ordeal we’d been training for since we were six.
She was my first kiss, and the first girl I can say I fell in love with. Eventually, she came out to me about the real reason she had become the group’s friend. I asked her if becoming my girlfriend was also on her ‘To Do’ list as an undercover agent. To say I was angry would have been an understatement. I felt betrayed.
Then . . . She cried, and I fell apart. I never wanted to see her cry with tears of sadness again. I took her into my arms and held her close. She felt so small. As if she would break, like a China doll, if I put too much pressure on her. I knew she wouldn’t break. She was one of the strongest women I have ever known: that I may ever know again.
I move to my hands and knees and crawl the short distance to my bed. There are hundreds of ways I could kill myself—several of them include methods that the others couldn’t stop—but I know that they would all be futile. As long as the female shifter lives . . . I will always be saved from death in one fashion or another. The ones with the Vox mark can never take their own lives in a selfish way. We must live to watch after her, especially since we are her age.
Lying on my back, I can almost feel Anna next to me. Her head on my chest; the smell of her cherry blossom shampoo fills my nose. We never did anything while in bed together. I guess neither of us were ready. Together, we would lie in the hammock outside of the cabins we stayed in. The stars always looked brighter there—at the Cove—”Like tiny diamonds,” she whispered once. The warmth of her breath moved against the skin of my neck and I would look at her. Her lips brushed against mine, sending the warmth of a jolt down my spine.
“I miss you. Why did you have to die? Why couldn’t it have been me? It should have been me. I was the intended target.” I move to lie on my side, pulling my pillow close to my chest. I wish it smelled like her, but she has never been in this room.
The unwanted tears course down my cheeks. I can’t kill myself and I didn’t die instead of her. How am I ever going to make it through this all? Especially when it comes to having to do it all without her.
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Table of Contents
Previously On Spearwood Academy
Brother Dearest
Escape
The Memories in the Walls
Depletion
Sisters
Spearwood Recoil
Liar
Fake it
Been Around, Apparently.
Cabin Bound
One Night
Cocoa