Page 32 of Serpentine Valentine
––Napoleon Bonaparte
Lex
I knewthey’d call me into the Acheron University Police Department before I’d gone after Jerrod, and it was almost disappointing when they did an hour after the first photo of him in the boatshed was posted to social media.
They were so predictable.
I wasn’t surprised when they brought in Jerrod to try to identify my voice and frame, either.
He looked beaten but not too badly. He was lucky I’d kept a stern grip on the violence churning inside me. He was lucky I was theatrical enough to enjoy the song and dance of its aftermath.
“Is this one of the girls who attacked you?” the officer prompted him when he only stared at me.
“I already told you, Officer Ponce,” I said silkily in my normal pitch. Last night, I’d spoken to Jerrod in a high, lilting voice like a girl. I liked the contrast between its softness and my violence, and it made for a gooddisguise. “I have an alibi for the time of the assault. I was eating dinner with my sisters at the Maenad, and then I went to Mathieson Library to study.”
Jerrod’s frown deepened. “They were wearing head coverings. But she doesn’t sound like the bitch who attacked me. Besides, that girl was bigger, taller.”
“She’d have had to be to get a shot at you,” the officer said, blowing smoke up Jerrod’s ass because some fancy lawyer was no doubt waiting outside.
Jerrod didn’t smile, at least.
I stared at him impassively, but I was delighted he’d exaggerated his attacker’s stature. I’d guessed he would. What six-foot-four varsity rower wanted to admit a five-foot-eight girl who weighed one hundred and forty pounds had put him out on his ass?
Pride was so predictable.
I should know. It’d led to my downfall too.
They ushered Jerrod out and left me alone in the observation room to sweat it out.
I didn’t sweat, but I did enjoy the quiet and the solitude.
Finally, the door beeped and swung open to reveal Mina Pallas.
I had to fight back the triumphant smile that threatened to overtake my expression.
“Hello, Alexandra,” she said coldly as the door closed behind her, and she took a seat across from me.
“Hello, Mina,” I responded easily. “I wasn’t aware you’d taken up police work.”
Her smile was thin and ugly. I liked it on her.
“Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” she demanded. “Because you know if you step even an inch out of line, I’ll have you expelled from Acheron without blinking an eye.”
“Oh, what a surprise!” I pressed my hand to my breastbone in exaggerated shock. “I never would have guessed you’d take any excuse to kick me out. Not when you gave every sign of support and understanding after Professor Morgan raped me on Halloween.”
She flinched at my words, fingers curling into her palms on the top of the metal table before she hid them in her lap.
I didn’t let the toxicity in my blood, that thick black sludge of hatred, alter my expression at all. I’d become adept at hiding all the pain, all the wonderful rage that boiled and churned in me as if my body was a cauldron mixing the poison of death.
“Do not spread that toxic lie, Lex. I’m warning you.”
I held my hands up in supplication. “Consider me warned. I know you won’t let anything risk your precious career. How are talks going with Cambridge?”
For one precious moment, shock and fear seized her features before she smoothed them clear. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I assure you I am very happy at Acheron.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
“Then why did you insist on coming back?” she hissed, leaning forward to bare a feral kind of grin at me.
