The usual struggles, headaches, stress. And one girl like a light in adark cavern…
“Fine,” I said.
“Right. Talk soon.”
We ended the call and I pulled up the text thread with Octavian. To my shame, the last time we’d spoken was back in June.
Hey, Tav. Just checking in.
Too obvious. Octavian was a genius who’d graduated from CHA two years early. I backspaced and tried again.
My roommate is a motorcycle-riding vampire. Did Camby give you a werewolf? Let’s compare.
No answer.
I sighed, put my phone away, and added worry for my brother to the teetering stack of stress, then trudged my way to world history.
Professor Callister was a stiff, no-nonsense teacher with a gray beard and gray suit to match, who—much to my horror—cold-called students to read aloud from the text. I sat through class, flirting with Tessa Carlyle and pretending I wasn’t about to puke. This wasn’t history, it wasThe Hunger Games, and any second now, I’d be called as tribute.
Halfway through class, my number came up.
“Mr. Mercer. Top of page forty-seven, please. Royal Commission on the Employment of Children…”
Shit, bollocks, fuck.
I leaned back in my chair, spinning my pen over my knuckles, and pretended I hadn’t heard him. When the silence stretched, I glanced around. “Sorry, me?”
Callister frowned. “Unless there’s another Orion Mercer in the class?”
“Oh no, Professor. I’m one of a kind.”
The class chuckled appreciatively. Callister sighed. “Page forty-seven.”
“Right.” I looked down at the text and tried to focus. The words danced on the page, and my brain stumbled along, three steps behind.
“The…uh…Confession—sorry, the Commission established…”
Humiliation burned my skin.
Nope. Try again.
My pen spun as I scanned the paragraph for context clues. Seconds ticked by. The silence grew uncomfortable, then excruciating, but I got the gist. Barely.
“Mr. Mercer?”
I tossed my pen down and sat back. “Basically, they made new rules about factory child labor.”
“That’s a summary. Please read—”
“I’m just trying to save us all some time,” I said, beads of sweat rolling down the middle of my back like crawling insects. “Parliament decided toddlers should only work fifteen hours per day. Ten, tops. Certain cell phone factories have yet to get the memo.”
Another round of chuckles from the class and another scowl from Callister.
“Orion, you were tasked withreadingwhat’s printed, not to editorialize it.”
The class was entranced by the standoff, waiting to see how far I could push Callister so early in the year. Waiting to see what I’d do next. The jokester using his elevated status as prince of the school to fuck around when I wanted to scream. To run out of the room or slam my head into the desk until my stupid fucking brain justworked.
Just when the silence verged on not being funny at all, Harper cleared her throat and began to read.
