Page 13 of The First Trial
‘Shit,’ I swore, dropping down beside him to keep him from hurting himself. Enid followed suit, holding his legs down to stop them from kicking out. This was the only scenario where we stopped sniping and were in complete agreement. When it came to Hawthorne and his fits, there was no room for hostility. There was only keeping him safe.
‘Help me get him on the bed,’ I ordered, already sliding my arms beneath his and picking up his torso. It was tricky to manoeuvre him while he was still thrashing around, but we’d done this enough times to have it down pat. She picked up his legs and helped me situate him on my bed, the softness a safe place for him to have one of his visions.
He settled down after a few minutes, though he remained unconscious and would stay asleep until he’d recuperated. Once he was awake, we were going to need to go to the dean with whatever he saw. I had no doubt it was about what had happened today, and they could use all the help they could get right now to crack this mystery.
I settled in beside him, kicking up my feet and shooing Enid out of the room. She didn’t need to be here to watch him sleep like a creep, though she’d tried in the past. I knew she cared about him, but he only needed one of us nearby when he woke. Hovering wouldn’t help.
She left, albeit reluctantly and with demands that I call her as soon as he woke up. I agreed. I wasn’t that heartless to keep her out of the loop. I may not have agreed with the sexual evolution of their friendship, nor her desire for more when he so clearly would never reciprocate those feelings, but we had been friends for a long time. The friendship between the two of them had started off strong, and I had been reluctant at first to let her into our little duo. Eventually, she’d proved that she meant well when it came to Thorne, but I’d never been able to get passed her games. When she started flaunting herself in front of him, pushing up her developing breasts to grab his attention and wearing short skirts to tease him when she bent over, I gave up on believing we had any hope of our friendship extending beyond our shared love for Thorne.
It was a shame, really, because she was a good girl. And a good friend, once upon a time.
Now, she was mostly just a nuisance I was quickly losing patience with.
The room descended into a peaceful quiet after she left, and I spent the time listening to the sound of my breath in tandem with Thorne’s. After a while, I could pick out a few rustling sounds from the other side of the wall of Junie putting herbelongings away and settling in. It was nice to hear it, to audibly sense the closeness we now had physically as well as emotionally. Our sibling bond could only grow with the new proximity and the telepathic connection.
I was thinking up ways to trick people into giving away their newfound telepathic abilities (if they had any) when Hawthorne finally stirred, but when his brilliant blue eyes opened and clashed with mine, I knew.
My heart sank.
Whatever he’d seen, it wasn’t good.
Chapter 5
Juniper
Ifelt Oz’s fear through the walls. It wasn’t an immediate kind of fear, but more like that type that slowly built as you overthought things. The anxious kind. While the wall separating us seemed to prevent us from speaking telepathically, emotions trickled through instead.
I didn’t go over to check on him since we were surrounded by other people, and I hadn’t heard Hawthorne leave, so I didn’t text, either, but I wanted to. I tried to send soothing feelings through our new magical connection and hoped for the best.
I got a sense of gratitude and love in return, though the anxiety still lay below with enough force to start my own rising.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else I could do but be his silent support system for whatever was happening over there. I hoped everything was okay…
Once everything was packed away the best I could get it, I picked up the piece of paper detailing everything I needed to know regarding keeping the middle school campus safe and panic-free. From what I gathered, it was mostly about keeping some sort of structure and normality. Oz and I were basically babysitters and substitute teachers. Our sole purpose was to keep everyone distracted from what was happening outside. No one was to leave the building, so we were going to have to create some makeshift spaces for classrooms and activities. We were going to be spendinga lotof time in the cafeteria…
Luckily, according to the note, Professor Sweeney and the other senior staff members would have already gathered thestudents for a quick assembly outlining all the new rules by now, so that was one less thing for us to worry about.
I placed the instructions back on the desk, using a roll of tape I found in the drawer to stick it down so I wouldn’t lose it. It was basically a daily schedule to uphold. I was familiar with it from my own years at the middle school campus. It altered with each transition into the next school up, but it was pretty much the same across the academy. Obviously, the older we got, the more responsibilities and freedoms we were afforded, but twelve- to fourteen-year-olds were going to be rowdy enough as it was, let alone with these mysterious happenings hanging over our heads.
I was dreading going out there. I could already hear the excitable gossipers trading theories about what was happening, and without any information flowing their way (or mine, for that matter), those theories were bound to get out of hand. Oz and I were going to need to rally together to keep everyone from panicking, and that was going to be a task and a half with around five hundred students to corral.
Sadly, with the clock on the wall ticking closer to lunch time, there was nothing else for it. I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs all day when there were things to be done.
I stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging from the wall beside the closet to smooth down any flyaway hairs or wrinkles in my clothes. That was when I realised I still had on everything from yesterday. With my makeup smudged from sleep and my hair still unbrushed, I looked quite a state. No wonder Kendra accused me of having something to do with the madness when I embodied it myself, so I rushed through a half-assed freshening routine.
I wished I had made more of an effort, however, because the mirror shimmered, and the next instant I was no longer staring at my own face, but my mother’s. Flawless features in a stern expression greeted me. She was beautiful but cold, like marble,with alabaster skin framed by pin-straight hair as black as night and eyes just as dark, but there was a tightness to those eyes she couldn’t hide.
‘Mother? What’s wrong?’
‘Juniper, darling. This is not a social call.’When was it ever?‘I have just spoken with Dean Winters.’
‘Ah, yes, well… I was going to call, but I’ve been reassigned to the middle school dorms and I was just finishing unpacki-’
She cut me off. ‘I was the one who contacted him.’
The admission pulled me up short, and a sick feeling churned my stomach. ‘Why?’
‘Something’s happening, Juniper. Beyond strange buildings appearing at the academy. I didn’t want to worry you before, but it had grown into a problem we can no longer ignore.’
