“So, he seems fun,” I whisper to Donovan with a grin.
He returns it with a wicked smirk. “Just wait. You’ll see why this is one of my favorite classes.”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise, wondering why Donovan would enjoy a class taught by a grade A asshole. My curiosity is quickly answered.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Harris is a horrible teacher who relishes in making students feel stupid. He likes to catch students who look like they’re distracted or lost and make a spectacle of them when they don’t know the answer. Donovan feeds into that, looking as bored and distracted as possible, but every time Mr. Harris calls on him-- not only does Donovan know the answer, but he words it in a way that it’s obvious it’s sailing right over Mr. Harris’s head. Turns out, Mr. Harris’s scalp turns a bright red that I’m pretty sure is unseen in nature when he’s frustrated.
Mr. Harris switches to me with a knowing smirk, sure that he can shame the new girl. Unfortunately for him, I was right and the class is covering material I learned a month ago. My answers aren’t quite as robust as Donovan’s, but they’re always correct.
By the time the bell rings, the class is snickering and Mr. Harris is purple. There’s a small voice in my head wondering how good of an idea it is to piss off my teacher, but most of me is too pleased over dropping that puffed-up, jackass down a few pegs. I hate bullies.
“Mr. Alvarez. Miss Santiago. To my desk, now!” Mr. Harris hisses.
Donovan and I trade mock surprised expressions before gathering our things and heading toward the front.
Mr. Harris glares at us, which loses most of its impact since he has to look way up to meet Donovan’s eyes. He snarls, his thin lips tight against his teeth, “I don’t know what the two of you did, but I won’t tolerate cheating in my class.”
“Mr. Harris, sir,” Donovan starts with such feigned reverence that the mockery practically dances in the air. “I don’t know how Callie or I could possibly cheat on problems you, yourself, made up on the spot for the class. It must be your uncanny teaching abilities that made the complicated equations so easy to figure out.”
Mr. Harris looks like he’s ready to explode, because he can’t very well say that he’s a crappy teacher, so there’s no way we should’ve been able to figure out the problems. After several hilarious, calculating seconds, he squints menacingly and warns, “I’m keeping my eye on both of you. Now, get out of my class.”
Once we’re out the door, we crack up like crazed hyenas.
“That was… amazing,” I wheeze.
“At least twice a week, I get to drive that fuckwit up the wall.” Donovan sighs with relish. He walks with me down the hall to where, I think, my next class is. Students split quickly to get out of his way.
“One time he tried to mark my answers wrong on a test even though they were right,” he tells me while looking over my shoulder. He places a hand high between my shoulder blades and steers me left, instead of what I thought was a right turn.
“I got in contact with one of the math professors over at Oregon State and asked her to review it. When I told her why, the professor was more than happy to help. She personally contacted Mr. Harris and reamed him, warning him that if she heard of anything like this happening again, she would personally talk to the education board about getting his certifications revoked for misconduct. He hasn’t done anything like that since, but he’s doubled his efforts on trying to catch me.” He says the last bit with finger quotes.
“Wow, he really is a miserable, little man,” I lament.
With Donovan’s help, we reach the door to my next class. He leans down, hand braced on the door. His nearness is less anxiety inducing than before.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he murmurs with that wicked smirk.
I nod gamely.
“Mr. Harris can keep gunning for me all he wants.” His smirk turns into a grin. “Nephilim have near perfect memory, and I’ve already read the whole book.”
Chapter 4
Kaleb
I’ve just sat down in my seat when Callie walks through the classroom door. She looks substantially better since I saw her earlier this morning, her dazed and anxious expression replaced with an amused smile. Whatever Nolan did seemed to have worked.
Guilt and an uncomfortable hint of envy weigh heavily in my stomach. It should’ve been me that realized Callie had too much. That it wasn’t the right time to try to piece out what she was going through, especially after what Donovan pulled.Faex,today is her first day at a new school-- in the middle of the semester. It’s not like being the new kid isn’t hard enough, and I was too consumed with the anomaly of what she is to consider what this information was doing to her, and all too ready to have her pour her heart out me.
How am I supposed to help spirits so troubled that they can’t let go of the mortal realm, if I can’t seem to catch what should be obvious? Learning that the world and her part in it is far beyond what she could’ve imagine and she’s been essentially lied to her whole life, should probably be parceled out slowly from people that she’s grown to trust-- not complete strangers she met that morning. It was my decision to bring Donovan along, and I should’ve known better. Donovan is about as subtle as a furies demon.
I groan quietly and rub the space between my brows. I’ve never seen someone shut down like she did this morning. She didn’t disappear long, only a moment or two, but it felt like hours watching helplessly. Neither touch nor sound seemed to pull her out, and when she did finally return, she was far from the “fine” she claimed to be. It was more than shock over what she’d seen. She was gone, lost in something beyond us, her lovely face carved into a frozen state of fear. Clearly, something awful had happened to Callie in the past, and her suffering calls out to me. I need to help her. It’s what light nephilim are meant to do.
Well, light nephilim are meant to help souls move on, but that often entails helping them through whatever trauma keeps them anchored here. Why should I limit myself to the dead? What’s so wrong with helping souls that are still among the living?Deodamnatus,maybe if more nephilim concerned themselves with helping the living, there’d be less traumatized souls to counsel into moving on, or even better, less souls that had to be forced to move on. Souls weighed down with anger, guilt, or despair don’t tend to do so well when they face Peter at the gates of heaven-- or so I’m told.
I watch Callie take a deep breath, push up her sleeves, and walk over to Mrs. Mills, who’s writing today’s important notes on the whiteboard. She whispers something to Mrs. Mills, who in turn smiles brightly back at Callie and takes the paper she hands her. Callie’s shoulders slump in relief while they walk over to Mrs. Mills’ desk, and I wonder what her first class was like.
I’m somewhat surprised to see her in this class, not because I assume she’s dumb, just that AP Psychology isn’t really all that popular-- evident by the two thirds full classroom. We barely have enough students to keep the class from being cancelled. I wonder if her interest in Psychology has anything to do with what happened this morning. Do those moments happen to her often? Is she trying to self-treat? God, what has happened to this girl? Is any of it tied to what she learned this morning?
