Spearwood Academy Volume Two (The Spearwood Academy Book 2) (2 page)

“There is a lore when it comes to females in the families.
It’s said they aren’t born because of a curse. The curse is that they come into
their powers before they’re fifteen. That the transformations are actually
painful for them. There’s never been anything said that will stop it, until
now,” says Dante.

“If females aren’t born into the families, how did I slip
through the cracks?”

“Perhaps you were born to an Outcast. It’s rare, but
occasionally Outcasts have children that carry on the dragon powers,” says Horace.

“Don’t talk about things you have no idea about,” says
Bullock. It’s the first thing he’s said since we got back from the cave.

The tension in the room rises to a suffocating level. “I was
just suggesting it as a possibility,” Horace shoots back. I have never heard
him get aggressive before.

“We don’t know how you came about, Fire, or who your parents
are. We’ll find out somehow.” Dante interrupts both of them before a fight can
break out.

“How did that Royal even find something like that, though?”
asks Triton, pointing to the crystal hanging around my neck.

I play with my food. “That’s what I want to know.”

“What did Perlow and him say?” asks Amr.

“Perlow wanted me to take it off and give it to him and the
Royal, or Paden, put him in his place and made him stand down. It was
interesting to watch. After Perlow walked off, I tried to return the crystal to
him. I don’t want to owe him anything, but he refused to take it back. He told
me to consider it as a payment.”

“Payment? For what?” asks
Mirren.
I
look at him, its odd having him take interest in something I’ve said.

“For choosing to attend Spearwood.”

Bullock shifts in his seat, but says nothing.

“Cryptic much?” says Amr.

“Why did he give it to you in the first place? It can’t be
just for that. Royals always have ulterior motives,” says Bullock.

“You haven’t heard? He is determined to make me love him. He
wants my hand in marriage and I turned him down. It only seems to have made him
more determined.”

“You turned down a Royal?” Bullock asks, as if I’ve spoken a
different language.

I shrug. “I’m new to this world. I’m not going to jump
because someone in a shiny suit tells me to.”

“You must be stupid then,” says Mirren.

“So I’ve heard.” I return to playing with my food and taking alternating
bites.

“How do you know that guy, the dragon that greeted us?” asks
Horace.

I stiffen. I don’t want to talk about Hansen. “We went to
school together back in Bellingham. He was a year older than me. Here, I’m
average when it comes to the grades and school. There, I was considered a
genius. By the time I should have been in first grade they had me in third and
by the time I was supposed to be in third I was in sixth. Hansen was in the
third grade class.”

I play with my food more. The day I first met him plays
around in my head. It’s the first time a boy ever made me cry.

I sat on one of the wooden swings, it had been my first day
in third grade class. All the kids were older and taller than me. I didn’t
understand why I couldn’t be in the first grade class with the rest of my
friends. Hansen came up to me and pushed me off the swing and into the
woodchips below.

I started to tear up from the initial shock. Wood poked at my
skin and scratched up my hands.

“You think you’re better than us,
cuz
you’re smart. You don’t know anything.”

I stood. A few tears had gone down my cheek, but I had
stopped crying. “I don’t think I’m better than you.”

Like vultures, the other kids circled around. “You’re lying!
You do think you’re better than us. Or the teachers wouldn’t give you all the
special tickets!”

Special Tickets were a reward system. At the end of the
quarter, you could bid on toys or books with your tickets and be able to take
it home.

“Yeah, she does get all the tickets!” yelled a girl in the
back.

“I won’t try to get the tickets anymore, promise!”

Hansen just laughed, before he picked up the swing and swung
it at me. I didn’t have time to dodge, before I knew it, I was back on the
ground with a bloody lip and a missing tooth.

“He gave me a bloody lip or bruise on more than one occasion.
He turned the other kids against me; to be friends with me was like
volunteering to catch a disease.”

“He hurt you and the teachers did nothing?” asks Triton.

I shrug. “The school was small. I don’t think half the
teachers were actually certified. Most just read from the textbooks. They said
it was his way of showing affection, that he liked me or something like that.
And people wonder why some girls always go after and stay with women beaters,”
I mumble the last part under my breath.

I put the bowl down. “Eventually, he made me hate school. I
gave up. I wouldn’t talk or do anything. Some days, I would even runaway and
hide, so I wouldn’t have to go. My father tried everything to get him out of
the school, but nothing worked. He even went as far as to talk to his aunt, but
she didn’t speak any English. The school told him they would keep us separated
at recess and they changed my class, but the teachers could care less. They were
more interested in getting in their afternoon cigarette and local gossip, than
to make sure I was safe. I was just one kid in a group of many.”

“So what happened?” asks Dante.

“One day, shortly after I had turned nine, they bumped me up
to the sixth grade class. I was on the playground. He came up behind me with a
group of other kids and they circled me. He pushed me down and told me that
with my bushy hair and pushed up nose that no one in their right mind could
ever love me.” I laugh at this.

“At that time, I was a hopeless romantic. Like most little
girls, I was in love with the idea of love. I had my
Disney Beauty and the
Beast
themed wedding all planned out. Hearing him say those things, made me
snap. I guess you can thank him for creating the short fuse I have now. He was
only a little bit bigger than me. I tackled him to the ground and punched him,
twice. A few weeks after that, my father decided to homeschool me and pulled me
out.”

“Well, at least you didn’t have to deal with him anymore,”
says Amr.

I shake my head. “Oh, I dealt with him. Any time I left the
Orchard, he was around, like a shadow. At least he was, up until last year,
then he upped and disappeared. Now I know where he went. I always hoped he was
in
juvie
.”

“If he’s only a year older than you, how can he transform
into the full dragon form, and why did he seem to be friends with the Royal?
Royals only make friends with other Royals,” says Bullock.

“How should I know? You know as much as I do.”

Dante rubs his face. “We should get some sleep. We have to be
up early tomorrow, in order to make it to breakfast on time. There should be a
bedroom for each of us on the third floor.”

Someone
knocks on the door. I rollover and moan. I’ve never been more comfortable in my
life. I’ve slept in a bed before, but never for an entire night, always during
the day, or for an hour or two after dawn. The bed I’m in now has the right
amount of firm and soft and the blankets have the sweet scent of lilac
engrained in them.

The
door opens. “Avvi, it’s time to get up, we have to go,” says Amr.

I
cover my head with one of the pillows. “Five more minutes. I want to live in
this bed.”

“Nope,
we’re on a time crunch. We still need to get our P.A.s and uniforms before
going to the dining hall. C’mon, or I’ll have Triton dump water on you.”

I
sigh and toss the pillow and blankets off me. I’m still in the sleepers Horace
let me borrow. “Fine, I’m up, see?”

I
follow Amr down to the first floor. The third floor is a maze of hallways. Too
many rooms to count line the walls.  I try to comb my hair with my
fingers, but they do little in the way of taming my golden curls. I yawn. “I
wish we didn’t have to go back now. I could use an actual day off.

Amr laughs.
“I think we all could. We’ll have to wait for Saturday.”

“I
have tutoring with Bullock on Saturdays, that’s not a day off.”

“Yeah,
but now he’s part of the group, so we can all come here for that.”

I
stop walking. “Yeah, why are they part of the group now? Dante said he would
tell me last night, but that never happened.”

“Uh,
well that’s sort of a complicated question.”

I
lift an eyebrow. “It is?”

“Yeah,
best for Dante to address that one.”

“Well,
let’s go find mother duck then.”

He laughs.
“He’d hurt us if he knew we called him that behind his back.”

“Let’s make sure he doesn’t find out then.”

We
step off onto the first floor. The guys sit straight up when I enter the living
room. Their dilated eyes look at me. I take a step back, something is off with
them, big time.

“What’s
up?” I ask.

A
pair of arms go around my waist and I’m pulled backwards into someone’s chest.
Only Triton wears that kind of cologne. What the Hell?

“Whoa!”
I say, pulling out of his arms and taking a few steps away from him, only to
trip and fall on the couch. Right into the lap of Bullock. His hands land on my
hips, bracing me.

“Hello,”
he whispers in my ear. His voice husky, with none of the snarky attitude it
normally has. Soft warm lips graze my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. A
flush floods my face and I leap off his lap.

“Okay,
what’s wrong with you two?”

“There’s
something different about you, Princess,” says Mirren, he stands from an arm
chair. I swallow hard.

“And
that is?”

“You
smell good, like the ocean,” says Dante. He walks in from the kitchen area.

“No,
she smells like oranges and vanilla,” says Horace.

“I
haven’t even taken a shower today! Knock it off, guys.” I try to get to the
door, but Dante has moved to block it. I feel like a deer surrounded by a pack
of drooling wolves.

“I
could help you with a shower, Avalon,” says Dante.

He
did not just say that, did he? My face will melt off from how hot it has
gotten.  I don’t think it can get any hotter. “Stop it, Dante. You’re
freaking me out.”

“You
heard her, knock it off, Mathis,” says Bullock. He stands from the couch and
gets into Dante’s face.

“She
didn’t ask you to speak for her,” says Dante, before shoving Bullock. Bullock
barely stumbles, he shoves Dante back.

“Stop
looking at her, Lennox!” yells Horace.

“Make
me, King!”

I
turn just in time to see Horace punch Triton in the jaw. I have to get out of
here, they’re going insane.

“Avvi,
this way!”

Amr
stands on the other side of the couch. He holds his hand out to me. He’s the
only one I can trust right now.  

I
leap and do a double jump over the couch. I grab hold of his hand and he
steadies me. We head for the door. Mirren steps in front of it. “You’re not
taking her anywhere.”

Amr
moves his hand, a wooden chair that is sitting in the corner of the room goes
flying. It wraps itself around Mirren’s body. While he struggles, we move past
him and Amr opens the door. It slams close behind us and he points his hand at
the cabin, the wood grows over the windows and seals the door. They bang on the
door.

“He
has her!” Dante yells.

We
run to our horses. “That won’t hold them for long, we need to get out of here
before they can catch up.” We climb on the horses faster than I thought
possible and urge them into the forest.

“What
was wrong with them?” I yell to Amr.

“Hell
if I know!” Within minutes we’re shooting out of the forest. I feel bad for
Maryanne. So much running can’t be good for her.

I
look behind us every few feet, but don’t see them coming after us, yet. I can’t
shake the creepy feeling. Why were they acting like that? Why isn’t Amr
affected?

We
stop at the edge of the Rose Garden and get of the horses. “We should go to the
infirmary, maybe there’s something wrong with you,
the
guys said you smelled different to them.”

I
shake my head. “Dante will figure that we’ve gone there, my apartment has a
lock, only I can get in, we can hide there.”

We
skid through the halls of the school. Every boy I pass tries to grab or speak
with me, it’s beyond unnerving. My heart should be in a humming bird, it has
never worked so hard in my life.

We
get to the dorms and the door to my apartment. I put my hand on the knob and
turn, but it doesn’t budge. I frown. “Why isn’t it opening?”

“You
don’t have your P.A.” says Amr, as the thought dawns on both of us.

The
door leading into the dorms opens. Three boys step inside, I don’t know them.
“Hi,” they all say in unison. I’ve stepped out of fantasy reality and have gone
straight into horror.

“Damn
it, open!” I press against the door with all my and Amr’s weight. It doesn’t
even groan.

The
three boys step closer. “You smell good, like chocolate,” says the middle one.

The
one to the left shakes their head. “You’re an idiot. She smells like lilies.”

“Freshly
baked
snickerdoodles
,” says the third.

“Enid!”
I yell, as a last resort.

The
boys inch closer and Amr steps in front of me. The door knob begins to jiggle
and I let go of it with surprise. The door opens and Enid looks at me. “Yes,
Avalon, how may I be of assistants?”

I
grab Amr and pull him into my living room. I slam the door closed behind me and
let out a breath as I hear the beep, signifying that the door has locked.