Marrow blinked. "What?"
"And you smell like old cheese!" another student shouted. "Like unwashed gym socks and despair!"
"Your 'Purity' speech is boring!" a vampire yelled. "It's repetitive! Get a new writer!"
The roast began.
It wasn't organized. It wasn't planned. It was organic. It was hundreds of stressed, tired college students realizing that the monster in the suit was just... a guy. A sad, pathetic guy who had tried to ruin their semester.
"You audited the Knitting Club!" a witch screamed, shaking a half-finished scarf. "Who audits knitting? It's yarn!"
"You banned spicy food!" a dragon shifter roared, blowing a puff of smoke. "That is a hate crime against my people!"
"Your hair is a toupee!" someone shouted from the back.
"It is not!" Marrow shrieked, clutching his hairline. "It is natural volume!"
"Take it off! Take it off!" the crowd began to chant.
Marrow faltered. He took a step back. The "Void" around him flickered and died. He couldn't focus. He couldn't draw power.
A Null feeds on strong emotions. Fear. Anger. Despair.
But he couldn't eat ridicule. Mockery was too sharp, too erratic. It didn't feed him; it cut him.
"Stop it!" he wailed. "I am your superior! I am the Dean!"
"You're a bureaucrat," Arthur said.
The crowd quieted as the Librarian stepped out from behind a statue of the Founder. Arthur looked immaculate. He was holding a clipboard. He walked up the steps until he was standing eye-to-level with Marrow.
"And according to the Board of Directors bylaws, Section 8, Paragraph 2," Arthur recited, pushing his glasses up his nose. "'A Dean may be removed immediately if they lose the confidence of the student body.'"
Arthur gestured to the jeering, laughing, glitter-covered crowd.
"I think the confidence is gone, Dean."
Marrow looked around. He looked at the phones recording his humiliation. He looked at the laughing faces. He looked at the Enforcers, who were currently hiding behind the bushes, refusing to engage.
He looked at me.
"You ruin everything," he whispered. "You chaotic, messy, broken little mistake."
"I know," I smiled. It was a sharp smile. A wolf's smile. "I'm the Circuit Breaker. I break things that need breaking."
"This isn't over," he hissed. "The Board won't fire me. I make them too much money. I keep the peace."
"It is over," I said, stepping closer until I was right in his face. "Because we're not just a pack anymore, Marrow. We're a Union. And we just voted you out."
Rhett stepped up beside me, crossing his arms. "Pack your bags, Dean. You're evicted."
Marrow looked at Rhett. Then at Kai, who was casually growing poison ivy over the Dean's shoes. Then at Lucien, who was checking his watch.
He realized, finally, that he wasn't fighting a war.
He was losing a popularity contest.
And for a narcissist like Dean Marrow, that was a fate worse than death.
