Page 55 of House of Pain
If it weren’t forher, he wouldn’t have suffered.
Blaze had to make Alecto pay.
21
On Monday morning, Blaze was slowly dozing off, his head swinging forwards as Professor Namiad’s voice floated further and further away.
Before Blaze could fully doze off, someone shoved him in the shoulder, and he jerked awake. Andro’s bitter-coffee eyes were staring at him with an amused shimmer.
“What the fuck?” Blaze growled, clearing his throat.
“Are we going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”Blaze rubbed his palms over his face, desperately needing to wake the fuck up.
“About you going allheroand literally smashing Matias’s face the other day?”
Ah.
Blaze glanced at the professor, now diving deep into a conversation with a redhead student at the very front of the classroom.
“What is there to talk about? You were there. You know what went down.”
Andro rolled his eyes. “Give me a fucking break. You know damn well what I mean.”
“No. I really don’t.”
Maybe if Blaze pretended Andro would let it go.
He really didn’t want to think about what happened that day.
But Andro wasn’t the one to let go, that mouthy little piece of shit.
“You’ve fucked with her since she started at Venefica,” Andro whispered.Loudly.Val, sitting on Blaze’s other side, stirred. “One would assume you’d be glad others were fucking with her too?”
Blaze rubbed his jaw, tipping his head to the side to steal a glance at Alecto sitting a few rows down, scribbling one of her illustrations in her notebook.
It was always the same scrawny-looking girl with an oversized head and large doe eyes that were hollow and empty. The only thing that changed was her outfits and poses.
Fucking weird.
“She’s mine to fuck with,” Blaze finally answered, bringing his gaze back to Andro, “and I don’t like others messing with what’s mine.”
Andro chuckled, shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair.“We all are fucked up, but you are on another fucking level.”
Blaze flashed him a half grin and returned his attention to Professor Namiad at the front of the auditorium, now speaking to the whole classroom.
“Anyone care to answer?” she asked, glancing from one student to the next.
Blaze didn’t even know what they were talking about in today’s Forbidden Arts lecture. When her gaze landed on him, she very wisely moved on.
“I don’t know whether I should be glad that none of you pay attention in my class. At least it means none of you are interested enough to dabble in the forbidden magic,” she said, crossing her arms. “Or maybe I should be worried because if one day you encounter a witch who practices Fanhy, you’d be dead in an instant. And all because you didn’t pay attention when you should have.”
Blaze exchanged glances with Andro and rolled his eyes.
The dramatics.
Professors at Venefica seemed to be out of touch with reality.
