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“I’m counting on that.” He takes a step back just as the bell rings. “Better get to class. Haven’t you heard? Mr. Val is a prick.”
I glare at him before turning slowly and heading to class. At first, I move away from him at a fast walk, but by the time I make it through Mr. Val’s door, I’m running. I come to a stop, slightly out of breath, and realize Mr. Val has been waiting for me. I glance at the students on my right, and find they are staring at me, too. Natalie appears over-zealous.
“Miss Silby,” Mr. Val says, his tone patronizing. “So good of you to join us. You’re late.”
I look behind me. I’m not sure what I expect to find there—maybe my excuse? I open my mouth to defend myself. “I was—”
“Running,” Mr. Val finishes, raising a brow. I feel like we are facing each other in a duel and I know I’m going to lose. As Mr. Val moves to pick up a stack of papers on his desk, he says, “Two days of detention.”
“What?”
His eyes cut back to me. “Do you want a third?” Snickers escape from somewhere in the room, and Mr. Val turns his terrible gaze on the class. “Would anyone like to join Miss Silby?”
The class is silent.
“Take your seat.”
I keep my eyes on the floor as I find my desk and slide low in my seat, shoulders weighed down with humiliation.
This day can’t get any worse.
Mr. Val begins the lesson. His voice grates like the chalk squeaking against the blackboard as he writes. With each sh
rill stroke—the sharp turn of a seven, the swift cross of an X—Thane’s words run through my head. Where’s Vera?
Vera.
The dead girl has a name.
She is well-known. Missed.
I wanted to find the coin before but now I’m desperate.
Who is Thane? Who are these people hunting me? Is he one of them?
I should have been more careful, shouldn’t have let my fear get in the way of my rules. I used to think if I could get rid of the thread, I could be normal. I tried pulling it out once. There’d been too much blood. Too much pain. Mom found me. I lied and said I cut my hand. The thread is part of me as much as my blood and my veins, and it responds to my fear and my anger...as if it’s attached to my heart.
And that makes me afraid. Because I’m tempted to lose control, open my palm and let the thread sprout like a flower and dance, twist, twirl, thread through Mr. Val’s back, twine around his soul. He’d fall to the floor, dead.
He’d be gone—that mundane suit, the wrinkles on the bottom of his jacket, that thick mustache. Gone.
And there would be Thane with his coal-black eyes and ever-present smirk, asking me “Where’s Mr. Val?”
“Miss Silby,” Mr. Val’s voice cuts through the air. I jump in my seat and meet his stare. “What is the value of y?”
My brain scrambles and my tongue feels thick and swollen in my mouth. My gaze slides to the problem on the blackboard. It looks like a foreign language. Worse, Mr. Val’s black eyes don’t move from mine as he waits for an answer.
I think through what I’d been doing before I was called on.
Oh. The thread.
A thing just as alien as the problem on the board.
Mr. Val’s eyes remain on me, even when he calls on someone else. “Miss Rivera.”
“One,” Nat answers smugly.
“Correct.”
