Page 1 of Fortune Academy: Year Two
“If Orion writes you another poem, I’m going to shoot myself in the fucking face.”
This was the latest in a litany of complaints from Trevor, the son of Poseidon, and one of the unhappier Demi members, given the hit to his powers that made him guzzle the Academy’s water bottle supply like his life counted on it.
Well, it kind of did, being that the Academy was nowhere near shorefront property and it was Orion’s magical feeds that had been fueling his life-force up until now. When I had initiated our Virtue bond to begin forming, I took away his ability to feed on others. All he wanted was me, and, well, I wasn’t putting out.
My bad.
“Seriously. You need to fix this shit,” Trevor said, crushing yet another plastic bottle and tossing it into the recycling bin. Because yeah, the Academy required blood for registration and forced its students to fight to the death, but they sure as hell recycled.
I adjusted my backpack and leaned against the wall, accepting that the Demigod was clearly not going to get out of my way. Not that I was in a rush to get to another class designed to torment me into fully Awakening.
Yeah Awakening. That thing I have to do to remember what I am, why I’m here, and how I’m going to save the world.
No pressure.
Trevor pulled another bottle from his gym bag and started guzzling while giving me his best glare.
I fanned myself with the offending poem, then grinned.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Trevor asked after finishing off his bottle and wiping his mouth.
I waved the parchment in his face.
He groaned. “It’sscented? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Someone snatched the poem from my grip before I had a chance to torment Trevor further with the level of depravity I was forcing on Orion. I had a plan of torment for all my bullies and I was reveling in every second of Orion’s punishment.
“That’s enough of that,” the daughter of Athena scolded as she stepped between us. Her once luminous braids now stood out in frizzy patches against the hallway’s unforgiving lights. “It’s bad enough that you took away Orion’s power that sustained the rest of us. Now you’ve demoralized him into a sniveling romantic.” She opened the letter and frowned at its contents. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or throw up.”
Trevor snorted, then winced as the pressure made his dry nose start to bleed. He wiped away the crusty blood with the back of his hand. “How long are you going to let this go on? Can’t you undo whatever spell you cast on him already?”
“It’s Hendrik we should be talking to, not his pet,” she said with a sneer.
I tried not to take the insult seriously, but it stung anyway and I couldn’t help but glance down at the Blood Stone that hung around my neck like a noose. It was steadily feeding on their misery with delicate red and purple tendrils that lingered in the air, slowly filtering into the stone. Luckily they didn’t seem to be able to see the drain that would help me pay back the blood debt I owed the Dark Mage. Hendrik was my worst bully of all and until I figured out how to keep Olivia safe, I was going to have to play along with his demands.
“Whatever,” I snapped, hating how defensive I sounded. I shoved off the wall and straightened, staring Ally down. Even without her muscles and lean stature, the daughter of Athena held herself with a sense of confidence that magic couldn’t take away. “If both of you would kindly move, I would like to get to class.”
Ally crumpled the letter and threw it at my chest. It bounced off and rolled across the floor. “I don’t think so. You’re going to fix this with Orion and you’re going to fix it now.”
“Yeah,” a male voice chimed in.
Furrowing my eyebrows, I searched for the source. “Zero?” I asked. The son of Zeus usually had a booming cadence to his voice that went along with his powerful presence, but he was nowhere to be found and he sounded somehow distant.
Ally sighed. “That’s what I meant. Even Zero has been impacted. If this goes on much longer, it’s going to be more than just a practical joke. You could seriously impact our standing at the Academy.”
A sharp jolt of electricity made me jump and a shimmer of a silhouette flashed briefly at my side. My eyes widened. “He’s… invisible?”
“Yep,” he said, not sounding too aMused about it. “Makes raising my hand in class a challenge.”
“Like you ever raise your hand,” Trevor grumbled as he rummaged in his bag, producing empty water bottles. He scratched away a dry scale forming at his neck and cursed. “Dammit. I’m out.”
Ally took me by the elbow and began to drag me down the hall in the opposite direction that I needed to be going. I could have used my supernatural strength to stop her, but being around them only fueled the stone more. By the dim light in its core, I was nowhere near filling it up completely and could use all the power I could get.
“I signed you up for a new class,” Ally informed me as she took me down the corridor. Poor Olivia would be looking for me, but I was doing all of this to make sure she survived our sophomore year.
Yeah… it had only been a few weeks for us, but an entire year had passed for the outside world. I didn’t even want to dwell on the repercussions of that, especially knowing that Dante was on a mission. An entire year had passed for him. Would he have forgotten about me?
“I thought she’d be more reluctant,” came Zero’s comment.
