Crash Course

by Ivy Hearne

  But wait, that tiny little voice in the back of my mind that irritated me so much whispered. Who on campus would be a better scapegoat than Ms. Hush? Especially if she really is a former member of the Lusus Naturae?

  I frowned at the empty stage, trying to follow that train of thought, that small niggling of intuition telling me that something here wasn’t right.

  As I stared at the stage, Mr. Jamison came stalking onto it again. With a scowl, he made his way back out into the auditorium audience.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Angelica said, giving me a little shove and jolting me out of my brown study.

  We made our way out of the row of seats just as Mr. Jamison walked up the aisle.

  “Is this yours?” he asked, his tone oddly intent as he handed something to Angelica. She took a nondescript pen from him and glanced at it.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said, handing it back to him.

  “Hm. Never mind, then,” he said, rushing toward the exit.

  He’s acting so strange, I thought as I stared after him.

  “We have the rest of the morning free,” Angelica continued. “Want to go grab coffee at the diner?”

  “Let me see if I can find Tony first,” I said distractedly. “I think he and Davis Carruthers were friends.”

  There. That would give me an excuse to talk about what was going on more than I might if it were some random stranger who’d been murdered on campus.

  I shook my head. Like there was any such thing as talking too much about an event like this.

  Still, every bit of intuition I had was screaming at me to be quiet, to not let on just how interested I was in what was going on.

  That same intuition got me involved in sending Santa Claus back to hell, I reflected wryly. Following it might not be my best idea ever.

  OUTSIDE, I CAUGHT SIGHT of Tony striding toward his dorm and jogged over to catch up with him. “Hey! Wait up?”

  Tony paused, but barely long enough for me to catch up.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, hoping my real concern came through my voice.

  Tony shrugged and shook his head. “They’re so busy fighting over who gets blamed for it that they don’t even care what happened to Davis.”

  He was right, I realized. Whatever had been going on among the faculty members in there, it had nothing to do with Davis and everything to do with themselves.

  “You want to go get coffee or sit somewhere and talk or something?” I didn’t really know what I could say to even begin to make him feel better, but I felt like I needed to do something. I wanted to do something.

  But he shook his head. “No. I can’t be around people right now. They’ll all just want to talk about it like it’s the latest sensation. Something out of a tabloid.” A muscle in his cheek jumped as he gnashed his teeth. “I know we’re supposed to accept that death happens to hunters.” His hands fisted into balls at his side. “But it’s supposed to happen in a fight for what’s right. There was nothing glorious about the way Davis died. Nothing.”

  I reached out to touch his arm with my fingertips, and he flinched away. I dropped my hand, but I had to say what I was thinking. “We don’t know that he wasn’t fighting for something good and right.”

  He spun on me, his tone vicious. “And if those idiots who run the school don’t figure out how to investigate it better than they already are, we never will know.” He gasped, the sound almost a sob, and shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just... There was nothing dignified about that. It was simply...”

  “Ugly death,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah.” He looked around at all the students making their way to different parts of the campus to spend their free morning. “And right now, I don’t know that I believe any of it—any of this—is worth it.”

  “It is,” I said. “I have to believe that all of this is worth it. Otherwise, the Lusus Naturae would take over everything. And then they’d wipe out humans.”

  “And would that be such a terrible thing?” Tony asked bitterly.

  I stared at him, open-mouthed, unable to believe what he’d just said.

  “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m not thinking clearly this morning. I haven’t been sleeping well.” He reached down past my wrist to give my hand a quick squeeze. “I’m going to go upstairs and see if I can get a nap in. I’ll be in touch later, okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay. Sleep well.” I hesitated for a second, then stood up on my tiptoes to brush a kiss across his cheek. “Feel better. And if you ever want to talk, just let me know, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He gave my hand another squeeze and then turned to head into his dorm. I frowned as I watched him retreat.

  When I turned to walk toward my own dorm, I discovered Souji standing about twenty feet behind me, watching me with that enigmatic feline gaze of his.

  He loped away before I got close enough to say anything.

  Ugh. “Boys,” I sighed in irritation before heading up to my room—where I planned to avoid socializing with or even thinking about any of the boys in my life or their emotional responses to recent events.

  ONCE I GOT UP TO MY room, I stared around at the emptiness, wondering if I should go find Angelica, after all.

  But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to spend time with other students. I wasn’t as despondent as Tony, but I didn’t want to listen to everyone speculating about what had happened to Davis and how, either.

  Instead, I pulled out my parabiology textbook and opened it to the section on wraiths. Skimming through the chapter, I found the information on their usual methods of attack.

  Wraiths are indirect killers, the text noted, more likely to induce a victim to commit suicide than to attack directly.

  The image of Davis’s body, hacked in two, flashed through my mind. That was so strange. Why would Ms. Hush go through the trouble of cutting him up?

  I read some more. That was all the text had to say about wraiths killing—but it went on to discuss the long history of fear surrounding wraiths because of their self-defense mechanisms.

  People were terrified of wraiths because they hid so well right out in the open.

  That definitely fit what I had seen with Ms. Hush. Once people realized she was here, they got really strange about her.

  Like Mr. Jamison, for example. He was absolutely insane about her—and about Ms. Gayle’s connection to her.

  With a sigh, I went back to reading about wraiths, hoping to find something useful.

  I was still reading when two adult hunters showed up at my dorm door.

  Chapter 9

  At the unexpected knock, I opened my door to find an official-looking group standing in the hallway, including Ms. Gayle, Mr. Jamison, and two other people I did not know.

  “Miss Deluca,” Ms. Gayle greeted me.

  I leaned against the door jamb, blocking the entrance into my room. “Hi. How can I help you?” I said.

  Ms. Gayle looked past me as if expecting me to be trying to hide something in my room. “We are beginning the investigation into Davis Carruthers’s death. It’s being undertaken by a joint task force.” I noticed the tiniest hint of an eye roll when she said the words. “Mr. Jamison will be participating, as well as Mr. Souji and Ms. Patel.” She gestured

  “Mr. Souji?” I blinked.

  “Yes, this is Souji Kaito’s brother, Reo, and his partner, Laxmi Patel.”

  Souji Reo. My face flared up bright red as I made a humiliating realization.

  I’m an idiot.

  Souji was my hunting partner’s last name. Not his first name. Because he was Japanese, and their family names come first.

  All this time, I had been calling him by his last name.

  Of course, so had everyone else

  Still, I felt like I should have known. I was his hunting partner, after all. We were supposed to work together constantly.

  Not for the first time, I was hit by how unnecessary Souji’s dete
rmination to stay in his panther form was—and how difficult it made some aspects of our training.

  I covered my embarrassment by inviting them all into my room. Erin and I had only two chairs, one for each desk, so I didn’t even have anywhere for everyone to sit, unless they wanted to plop down on my roommate’s bed.

  I wasn’t going to offer that, though.

  However, I did choose to perch on the edge of my own bed. The two hunters took the desk chairs, while Mr. Jamison stood beside them—it looked like he was taking the opportunity to tower over them, something he could do only when they were seated, and he stood.

  Ms. Gayle, on the other hand, drifted over to the window and stared down at the ground below, as if she were trying to ignore the entire proceedings.

  “We have a few questions to ask you,” Souji’s brother—also Souji, I thought in irritation—said.

  “Okay. I also have some things that might be helpful that I’ve noticed,” I suggested.

  “We’ll get to those in a few moments,” the second hunter, Ms. Patel said.

  As my Souji’s brother—I decided to call him Reo in my head, just keep them separate—leaned forward, I examined his face for similarities to Souji’s.

  I thought I could see it, but I’d only ever seen Souji in his human form once. I’d be more likely to be able to see similarities in their panther forms.

  “Tell us how you came upon the body Friday night,” Reo said.

  “Tony Eckles and I were out for a walk,” I said. I began describing everything that had happened—leaving out the kiss, though. That wasn’t really any of their business. I simply said that I’d stepped off the path accidentally and stumbled over the body.

  “Okay,” Ms. Patel said. “What are you doing out in the woods that late?”

  “I told you, I was out for a walk. With Tony.”

  “Yes, but why there?”

  “I wanted to stay inside the Academy’s wards.”

  “And you say you stumbled off the path?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm.” She scribbled something on the notepad in front of her.

  “And where was your hunting partner during this?” Mr. Jamison interjected from his spot next to Souji’s brother.

  Reo flashed an irritated glance at him.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was on a date. I don’t usually take my hunting partner with me on those.”

  Never mind that it was one of the only dates I’d had, and Souji had ended up hanging around at some point on all of them.

  “What did you think when you found the body?” Ms. Patel said.

  “I vomited. I wasn’t really thinking much at that point.”

  “Your classmates tell me you spoke to your parabiology instructor on the way to the auditorium this morning,” Mr. Jamison interjected again.

  “I did.” I knew I sounded defensive, but something about him was getting on my nerves today. Okay. Everything about him.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “What exactly did you talk about?”

  Why did that matter? It wasn’t like she was going to announce it to me if she had killed Davis. “We discussed the fact that I’m having an easier time focusing on her than some other students are,” I said. I shrugged. “That’s all. We were tying it into our parabiology lessons.” I gestured toward the textbook, still open on my bed.

  “I see.” As if not to be outdone by the other hunters in the room, Mr. Jamison jotted down notes in his own notebook.

  The hunting partners glanced at each other. “You said you had some ideas that we might find useful?” Reo asked.

  “Yes. I saw the body when they brought it up out of the ground,” I began.

  “From under the snow,” Mr. Jamison corrected, his tone harsh.

  I glanced at him and frowned. “Okay. Out from under the snow. It was in two pieces.”

  “Yes,” Ms. Patel prodded me when I stopped speaking.

  “It’s just that my date, Tony, is friends with Davis. Was friends with him, I mean. And he says that Davis stayed in his centaur form on campus.” I waited for them to pick up the thread of my thought. But they all just stared at me. I inhaled, ready to continue what I was thinking. “So I’ve been wondering, why would his body be human in both halves?”

  Reo squinted at me and chewed on his bottom lip. “What significance do you think that might have?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It just seems like it would be difficult for someone Ms. Hush’s size—”

  “Whose size?” Mr. Jamison asked.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to remember the parabiology instructor’s name. Ms. Hush is just what I call her.”

  “Fair enough,” Reo said. Ms. Patel nodded, too.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “someone her size would have an awful lot of trouble overcoming a centaur, wouldn’t she? Especially one who usually used his horse half?”

  Mr. Jamison flipped his notebook closed with a snap. “I don’t think you have any idea how strong a wraith can be,” he said dismissively.

  I frowned. “No, but my textbook...”

  “Doesn’t give you all the information you might need,” he interrupted again.

  This time, even the off-campus hunters frowned at him.

  “Thank you,” Ms. Patel said to me. “We’ll definitely take that into consideration.”

  But I was absolutely certain they wouldn’t. Not given the way they were getting ready to leave.

  “Just do me a favor, would you?” I asked. “Ask Tony about it. He’s the one who told me that Davis never used his human legs on campus.”

  “We definitely will,” Reo said. “Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.”

  Part of me wanted to howl in frustration. They were planning to continue investigating, but they weren’t taking everything into account. I was sure of it.

  Mr. Jamison stepped out of my room first, all but slamming the door open. Ms. Patel followed him out. Reo, on the other hand, gestured Ms. Gayle out first ahead of him, hanging back to speak to me. He turned his back to the hallway and dropped his voice. “Would it be okay if I came by to talk to you about my brother later?” he asked.

  “Of course.” I almost instantly regretted my hasty answer. I suspected Souji wouldn’t appreciate me talking to anyone about him.

  Still, maybe I could learn something more about my own hunting partner from a family member.

  “Tomorrow for lunch, possibly?” he asked.

  “Sure. I’d like that.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Kacie,” he said.

  “You, too,” I said as he left my room.

  I shut my door behind them and stood there staring at the floor for a long moment.

  Mr. Jamison was determined to blame Ms. Hush for the murder. And I really didn’t think Reo and his partner were paying careful attention to all the possible factors.

  I couldn’t be sure there were going to follow up on the information I had given them.

  I really didn’t want to get involved.

  I heaved a sigh. More than that, I don’t want Ms. Hush to go to hunters’ prison for something she didn’t do, just because she’s a wraith and people don’t like her.

  No. I was going to have to start my own investigation, whether I liked it or not.

  I grabbed my phone from where it sat on the desk and sent a text to Angelica:

  Hey. Can I ask you some questions about centaurs?

  Chapter 10

  We agreed to meet at the diner, but when I came out of my room twenty minutes later, Angelica was leaning against the wall in the hallway.

  “I thought we were going to the diner,” I said, surprised to find her waiting.

  “Oh, yeah. But I was nearby on campus and thought I’d go ahead and meet up with you here instead.”

  It seemed odd but plausible.

  “Okay. Maybe I can ask you some questions while we walk?”

  “Sure.”

  “What sorts of things might make a centaur shift
involuntarily?” I asked, figuring I might as well get straight to the important stuff. It wasn’t like Angelica wasn’t going to figure out why I was asking her questions about centaurs. Not with the dead student on campus.

  “There are some things that can do that,” she said. She glanced around, looking worried. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Okay. You can tell me anything, Angelica. We’re friends, right?”

  She nodded. “Actually, I need to show you. Can you come with me?”

  “Of course.” Her tone was worrying me a little.

  “Oh, good. I think it might be important, but I don’t know for sure. I really want your opinion.”

  I frowned. “Is it something we should tell the investigators? They have two hunters on campus now looking into Davis’s death.”

  Angelica stopped and tilted her head as if considering. “No. Not yet. I really want to know what you think first. It may not even be important. I’d hate to bother them for nothing. Maybe we should see it first.”

  “Okay. I’ll come with you to take a look at it.”

  Angelica led me toward the edge of campus. “Is this where you went on your walk with Tony on your date the other night?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, we were more toward the north side of campus.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Maybe you should tell me where it is you’re taking me,” I suggested.

  She nodded. “It’s up by the old well house, behind the gym.”

  I followed her around the edge of the gymnasium, to the far side of the well house. “I thought this building was shut down ages ago.”

  Angelica nodded. “It was. That’s not what I want you to see. Come here.” She waved me over and pointed toward the ground. “Down there.”

  I bent over, peering at the dirt. “I don’t see anything.”

  Something sharp jabbed me in my upper arm, and I cried out just as Angelica’s hand came down over my mouth.

  Everything swam in front of me. I tried to ask what was going on, but all that came out of my mouth were strange, elongated noises that had little to do with language. My limbs went numb, and I could have sworn that Angelica caught me with someone else’s hands.