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“No, a junior.”
“Good. At least you don’t have to start your last year of school in a new place. Where are you from?”
“Chicago.”
“Why did you move here?”
The question makes my stomach churn.
“Things…got complicated.” A weak response, but an answer. I’m relieved when Shy nods and doesn’t ask me to elaborate. “What about you?” I ask quickly. “Have you always lived here?”
“My whole life.”
Surprising. Somehow, I can’t see this being the only place he’s ever lived. His smile seems sad, too, and I wonder if he feels trapped like I feel trapped.
We approach Walcourt, which is shaped like a rectangle with large square columns running the length of a cement overhang, and ugly white pipe rails zigzag to the doors. Inside, the place smells like must and mold. The white floor looks yellow under fluorescent lights.
We walk midway down the hall and Shy’s eyes capture mine before he nods to a door on my right.
“That’s Mr. Val’s class. Just to warn you…he’s a bit of a prick.”
So that’s why he laughed earlier. Great. Shy steps back and then twists toward the door. He knocks and doesn’t wait for a response. I hear a deep, stern voice.
“Mr. Savior. What can I do for you?”
“I apologize, Mr. Val. I’m showing a new student around campus.”
Shy opens the door a little more and now Mr. Val is visible. He has a thick, brown mustache, brown hair, and wears a brown suit. He stands behind his desk, a piece of chalk in his hand, mid-lesson. I meet his gaze last and find him staring at me, eyes as black as a night without stars. I can already feel his disappointment in me, like he’s set the Earth on my shoulders and watched it roll off into space.
The only thing that makes me feel any better is that he looks at Shy the same way.
“This is Anora Silby.”
“Ah.” He places his chalk in the metal holder, dusts off his hands, and reaches for a clipboard on his desk. “Yes, Miss Silby. Come in.”
Shy takes up half the doorway, but I brush past him. Heat rushes to my face, and I can’t figure out if it is from being on display in front of twenty students or from the slightest bit of physical contact with Shy.
“You’re excused, Mr. Savior. I’m sure if Miss Silby needs your services, she will find you.”
The class snickers. I glance at Shy as he mouths the word “prick” before closing the door. I nod—a grin growing on my face.
“Miss Silby.” My smile quickly fades, and I snap my head toward Mr. Val who clears his throat. The students behind me laugh again. “It’s a good thing Mr. Savior isn’t in this class. It already seems he is proving too much of a distraction.”
Mr. Val hands me something that looks more like a work manual than a syllabus, and a massive trigonometry book, then directs me to one of the only seats left in the classroom—front and center. As I take it, I notice a girl with long dark hair staring daggers at me. Our eyes meet, but her expression doesn’t change. The only reason I’m okay with it is because she’s actually alive. I can deal with living bitches—but not dead bitches. There’s a difference.
I pull out my notebook and try to catch up on what I missed in Mr. Val’s instruction, and look through the syllabus. As if I need any more confirmation that my time at Nacoma Knight will be trying, I find that we have quizzes every day.
Sighing, I glance up to find the dead girl from Emerson Hall outside the window peering in. Her head dangles to the side, partially decapitated. Blood covers the collar of her sweater, drips from her nose and the corners of her eyes. My whole body suddenly feels prickly, l
ike I’ve been wrapped in a blanket of spiders, their tiny legs skittering across my skin.
As if she senses my gaze, her sideways eyes snap to mine and her colorless lips pull away from her teeth in a crooked, black-blood smile, and I know that she’s come to search for me.
I look away and focus on my desk, but the dead girl’s gaze heats my skin like the sun.
Please let her lose interest in me.
If she doesn’t, I have a one-way ticket to the psych ward.
