Page 110 of Endless Anger
He stares at me silently for a beat, then chuckles. “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to share those details with the public. Although if you’d like to come by my office sometime, perhaps we could discuss that and your enrollment in the Curator program. I’d be happy to invite your sister along as well, since we used to have our own little meetings back when she was a student.”
There isn’t time to question that comment, because I feel Lucy’s eyes swing to me, accusation lacing her irises before she even says anything.
“Yourwhat?” she demands.
“It’s not exactly what it sounds like,” I say, scratching the back of my head, even more inclined to just stab this motherfucker, although I don’t think Lucy would forgive me for such extreme measures.
Then again, with murder throbbing in her gaze, maybe she wouldn’t mind right now.
Dean Bauer claps me on the shoulder, squeezing tight. “I’m just happy to see yet another founding family member join the ranks of Avernia’s best and brightest. We certainly don’t have the issue of recurrent crime amongthosestudents.”
I smother a laugh of disbelief. It’s hard to tell whether he’s being serious, though something tells me he knows far more than he lets on. There’s no way he’s unaware that it was likely Curators who killed Celeste—that has to be why they’re suppressing the story.
The way he keeps trying to pin things on Lucy, though, makes me uneasy. It’s part of the reason I want to get closer to Curators like Beckett Dupont, who seems to live and breathe gossip, if not also violent crime.
Hence the obviously orchestrated attack earlier, in which some student slashed me with a knife as I made my way back from the forest.
All I’d wanted was to check on the box I left out there. It’d been right in the spot I hid it, proving the one Lucy gave me was a poorly constructed replica. And I’m trying to understand how and why it showed up at all.
It feels like we’re being watched, and I don’t like that.
My assailant got a few slices in before I was able to regain my footing and smash their hand with my boot. But they ran before I could yank their ski mask off and reveal their identity.
Though all I really needed was to see the flowery theta symbol on his jacket to know who’d sent him.
I’m not sure what Beckett’s angle is, especially since he’s trying to recruit me, but it makes me think violence is much more engrained into the livelihood of this school than any of us realize.
How else would they be able to get away with so many missing students and unexplained deaths?
The people who pay to go here want to trust the administration. If the powers that be are good enough at covering their tracks, there would never be any reason to question anything.
So they promote their superstitions, distort history, and pick out vulnerable students to blame for their shortcomings. That way, if something seems off, it’s nottheirfault, but the fault of the entities they’ve painted as enemies.
Even an entire bloodline.
Though I’m still notfullyconvinced of a supernatural tie-in, I can’tdeny the email I received months ago freaked me out. I opted out of attending school here in the first place to keep Lucy safe, but the anonymous sender indicated that as tensions mounted among the higher-ups, even those distantly linked to the Andersons could be in trouble.
Especially if they stood out too much.
If dissension was going to become a capital offense, Lucy would not survive.
That’swhy I came. I could not have lived with myself if something happened to her.
Lucy’s boots scuff against the pavement, and she clears her throat. Her smooth, delicious throat that I’d love to sink my teeth into again, which is why I need the dean?—
“Mr. Bauer,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “If you’re done with me, I’d like to be on my way now.”
“That’sDeanBauer,” he snaps, lifting his arm to check the bulky Rolex on it. “Though I suppose it is rather late. I’d hate for you to be able to blame your poor attendance in class tomorrow on me.”
She doesn’t respond, even as he rakes his gaze over her form, noting her disheveled state. Luckily, none of the blood from me seems to have gotten on her despite our little rendezvous, so she doesn’t really look suspicious.
I, on the other hand, have a bandaged wound peeking out of a hole in my shirt, but neither the dean nor the police who showed up seem to notice.
“Try to make it through one week without causing trouble,” the dean tells her. “There are people in positions much higher than mine who don’t exactly take well to constant disruption. Especially from someone who has already proved to be an issue.”
Lucy snorts, spinning on her heels so she’s facing the dorms. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,Mr.Bauer.”
As she stomps off, I take a step toward her, but the dean holds an arm out, halting me. “So, Asher. Now that you’ve had time to settle in here, what is your real opinion of my school? Your sister picked a good one, eh?”
