Page 12 of The First Trial
‘Books.’
‘Just books? That’s it?’
‘Yup.’
‘Why do you have so many?’ she complained.
‘Because I like to read. You might want to try it sometime.’
Her face went from bright red to a deep purple in her self-righteous anger, and I worried she might actually pass out if I wasn’t careful. Thorne noticed, too, and hurried to help her with breathing exercises to get her heart rate back down. He was always keeping the peace, and while I was generally grateful, sometimes I wished he would just let her explode. It would happen eventually, anyway. A person could only hold so much in before they burst.
‘You two are as bad as each other,’ he chuckled, somehow finding amusement in our feud. ‘Now stop bickering. I haven’t even had my coffee yet, and I’m starving. I don’t want to play referee all morning. Now let’s be friends again and get these suitcases where they need to be.’
It didn’t escape my notice when she winced at the label, the exact opposite of the one she wanted. A laugh bubbled in my chest, but I held it in. Thorne was right. This wasn’t the time to rile her up, and I wasn’t entirely cruel. While I objected to her feelings for him, she was still a friend, and I didn’t want her to get hurt because of it. That was just another layer of why she needed to just let it go.
We all piled into the elevator, and it was a tight squeeze with my oversized luggage. Unfortunately, I ended up squished between the suitcases and Enid, her body pressed against mine in what many would have considered a provocative manner, except it just made me want to crawl out of my own skin. Her nipples even pebbled through her shirt and brushed against my side, but there was no space for me to move away.
She blushed, a pretty pink colour I might have found adorable on another woman, but I was never the kind of guy to go after a friend’s sloppy seconds, least of all her, so I pretended not to notice. I wasn’t a gentleman by any means, but I tried to be as polite as possible when I wasn’t ribbing her. She misinterpretedit frequently, to the point where I thought she actually believed I sniped at her out of jealousy since she was fucking Thorne and not me, but that was as far from the truth as she could get. Although if I were to fuck a man, he would have been my first choice. Pity I was straight.
I could see Thorne holding in his amusement as he watched us like we were his own personal sit-com. I levelled him with my best glare, but he only wiggled his eyebrows in response.
Bastard.
The walk to the youth dorms from the university campus was a vaguely pleasant one. There was a comfortable silence between the three of us as we trudged along, the only sounds those of the whispers we could hear from open windows and the wheels on the suitcases on the path, with the occasional scratch when one got caught on a loose stone.
Each of us ignored the looming height of the strange new structure, though it was difficult to when it was blocking out the sunlight from what would have typically been a sunny, warm morning walk. The shade wasn’t bad, though. The weather was still hot enough from the last dregs of summer, so the sudden chill was unusual for this time of day, but not entirely unwelcome.
The world brightened for me again when I saw a familiar head of dark green hair, chosen because it was literally the colour she was named after. Well, she was named after the plant, but they all shared the same name. Juniper was dragging two large suitcases behind her, both of them practically dwarfing her short frame with their sheer size. It was a comical sight, though my concern over her struggling with such large bags overshadowed any humour I found in the situation. I could tease her about it later,aftershe was situated in her new room.
I picked up the pace and caught up to her quickly, Thorne and Enid hurrying along behind me. I grabbed one of her suitcasesfrom her grip before she could protest, ensuring no physical contact was made, but she simply wiped perspiration off her forehead, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and smiled, though she aimed it straight ahead to avoid setting off the curse.
Did her eyes flicker to Thorne? Of course. Did his flicker to her? You bet.
Did either of them notice? Of course not.
‘Thanks,’she whispered into my mind. I was still trying to wrap my head around that. I wasn’t going to complain about being able to communicate with her in a way that didn’t put pressure on our curse, but I certainly wasn’t going to just accept it for a blessing, even if that was exactly what she was doing.Blessings, in my experience, were usually a disguise for something more nefarious.
Still, I didn’t see any harm in taking advantage for the time being, as long as we were cautious. I meant what I said before. We didn’t know if anyone else was experiencing a similar phenomenon. I didn’t want us to accidentally give away our secrets to someone we didn’t know was eavesdropping. We were going to need to test the people around us to ensure our mental connection was closed and private. Just between us.
We could definitely have some fun with it, though.
Professor Sweeney greeted us as we entered the dorm building, a crowd of middle schoolers accumulating behind her to gawk curiously at the new arrivals. A few of them waved when they recognised us, eyeing our luggage with keen-eyed interest. Most of them were unaware that we were still pursuing our own educations, their pre-teen minds focused solely on their own paths, so they assumed we were merely teachers. I knew for a fact that they thought I lived in the faculty village, and I hadn’t done a thing to dissuade them. There were a few girls in my class who liked to flirt, and while I didn’t acknowledge it, I also wasn’toblivious. High-pitched giggles and not-so-quiet whispers as they gossiped about me,during class,I might add, did not leave any doubt that they thought I was a catch.
Junie teased me about it constantly as she heard them gossiping in her classes as well, but she thought it was sweet and told me to take it as a compliment, so I tried to. I wasn’t exactly eager for the attention of teenyboppers, but alas, here we were.
‘Follow me to your new rooms,’ she waved for us to follow and took off down the hallway. It had been a long time since I’d walked these halls, but I remembered where everything was. They’d upgraded the furniture in the rec rooms, and there was a fresh coat of paint on the walls, but beyond that, everything was the same.
‘The two of you will have adjacent rooms. Juniper, yours is on the left, closest to the girls, and Oswald, yours is on the right by the boys.’ She handed us each a key. ‘Get yourselves settled. You’re the only grad students who have taken on positions in the middle school, so it’s just you and the dorm supervisors. You’re the backup in case of an emergency, but hopefully we won’t need you. I’ve already provided a list of responsibilities that you’ll find on your desks. Read through them, abide by them, and good luck.’
She rushed away, likely needed elsewhere to help the rest of the staff with the investigation. Either way, we were left to our own devices, and that suited me just fine. I hated when people lingered unnecessarily.
‘Right, let’s get these bags in your rooms, hmm?’ Thorne muttered, taking the key from my hand and unlocking my door. He was inside before anyone could speak, and I did my best to keep from chuckling at what – or ratherwhom– he was running away from. Since Enid followed after Thorne like the lovesick puppy she was, I was able to help Junie get her suitcase in thedoor and muss up her hair as I left for my own room. The sound of her cursing me out echoed around in my skull.
She slammed the door as soon as I was out, the wood smacking my ass as it was the only part of me that wasn’t yet completely clear of the doorway. I yelped and jumped away, rubbing my cheeks, but stopped and moved my hands back to my own suitcase when I caught Enid’s head poking out of my new room, glancing suspiciously between me and Junie’s door. I wasn’t used to hiding the nature of our relationship so blatantly in front of my friends, but I was going to have to get used to it if we were living right next door. At least the circumstances provided a cover for us.
I rolled my eyes, waved off her unspoken accusations, and dragged both bags into my new room, only to stop in my tracks at what I saw.
My suitcase was knocked on its side as Hawthorne tripped over it, landing awkwardly on the floor with limbs askew as his eyes rolled back into his head. He started convulsing, his arms and legs banging against the suitcase and the nearby desk as he flopped around.
