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We laughed, and I savored the feel of it. This whole friend thing was new to me, and their acceptance was powerful. Enough so that I felt it as a physical sensation, like a warm balm.
I was still riding that high when my eyes caught on my new roomie.
I flagged her over, and my friends gave me appropriately shocked looks. “Yo, Miss Congeniality,” Yasuo mumbled to me. “Who put a nickel in you?”
“New roommate?” Emma guessed.
“Two points to farm girl. ” I scooted over to make room for Mei-Ling at the end. I wasn’t about to make her sit next to the posse of statuesque Valkyrie at the head of the table.
Yas took the opportunity to snag an uneaten roll from my tray. “You gonna eat this?”
I waved it away. “Take it. And, how are you not, like, five thousand pounds?”
“Growing boy,” he said, chewing over a mouthful of bread.
I greeted Mei as she sat down. Her eyes looked puffy from crying, and I asked earnestly, “How are you?”
But the tone of her reply was all business. “Fine,” she said, “thank you. ” Her expression was unreadable as she nodded a cursory hello to my friends.
I suspected the vampires wanted me to look out for Mei-Ling, but it sure seemed like she needed more of a sense of urgency if she was going to look out for her own self.
With a shrug, I did the introductions. “This is Emma and Yasuo. ”
They were looking at me as if I’d grown horns, and I had to suppress a smile. There were two things on this island that I loved: eliciting emotion from Emma and catching Yasuo off guard.
“This is Mei-Ling,” I said. “I’m showing her the ropes. ”
Yasuo finally closed his mouth. But then he quickly opened it again to ask, “Isn’t that your Proctor’s job?”
Our new Proctor. Shudder.
Emma and I exchanged a charged glance. Then I looked at him with a raised brow. “Have you met Kenzie?”
“She’s no Amanda,” Emma said.
“Nobody is,” I agreed quietly.
Mei gave us a flat look. “Is that one of our instructors?”
“No,” I said. “Kenzie Samuels is the Proctor on our floor. It’s sort of like…”
“Like a dorm mother. ” Yasuo guffawed at his own joke.
I ignored him. “She keeps an eye on things. There’s one assigned to each floor. ”
Emma leaned in. “I heard the Guidons call her Killer Kenzie. ”
That was the last thing Mei needed to hear, so I rambled on, explaining, “Proctors are always older girls. After Acari, you become an Initiate, and then comes Guidon—”
“If you live that long,” Yas muttered, and I kicked him under the table.
“Then finally you become a Watcher. You’ll meet some of those, too. ”
“How long will that take?” Mei-Ling asked.
Yasuo laughed at that, and I cut him off. “A few years, maybe. I’ve never really asked. ”
Mei’s eyes were void of emotion. Was she registering all this, or was she about to snap?
