Azure Dragons (Supernatural Shifter Academy #2) - G. Bailey Page 0,42

Silas was talking about when he mentioned being worried before we even left the U.K.. This is what comes of leaving the fate of an entire population up to a handful of bureaucrats. It doesn’t matter that there are shifter representatives involved in this too, because the humans are the ones who run the Academy. It all feels too cunningly perfect, engineered so that no matter what we do, as students, there’s no way to fight their decisions. I can’t help but wonder how many of the shifter politicians have any real power, and how many of them are just puppets, put in place to keep the shifter community from rebelling. It’s a system that’s worked fine until now, but for some reason—maybe the modern world, maybe the fact that shifters have finally seen through the bullshit—it’s not working anymore. I should be grateful for that, but I’m not; everything feels like it’s about to fall apart again, and we’re hopeless to stop it.

I try to tell myself at dinner that night that maybe things won’t take a turn the way they did last time. The board didn’t seem too keen on Hawthorne’s proposal; at least, most of them didn’t. Maybe he’s an outlier, and the humans really are just trying to promote peace and coexistence between our species. But maybe not. Is that really a chance we can afford to take, anyway? What happens if they decide Hawthorne is right, that the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few? What happens if, with the board backing him, Hawthorne is finally able to come out of the shadows, to restart the experiments with the permission of the entire administration? Images of my friends tortured and drained of their magic flit through my mind, making it hard to choke the food down, and it’s all I can do not to fall into a complete panic attack at the prospect of that kind of subjugation.

I’m sitting on my bed in my room that night, staring down at my hands, which are balled into fists in my lap, when I hear a quiet knock at the door. “Come in,” I call listlessly. Moments later, the door opens, and I see Landon standing there, looking apprehensive.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you,” he says after a long pause.

I shake my head. “No, not at all. I was just… thinking, I guess.”

“You and me both.” He shuts the door quietly behind him and comes over to me; I pat the spot beside me on the bed and he takes a hesitant seat, folding his hands in his lap. “You know, I do really like this set-up,” he remarks, looking around the room. “All of us being in the same suite, I mean. It’s nice. Forget about all the talk of conspiracies and experiments, and I could get used to this.”

“Yeah,” I agree, adding dryly, “although it’s a little hard to see the bright side when the Academy is talking about turning us into test subjects.”

“Well, we’ve been test subjects once,” the siren shifter remarks, “and we survived that. I’d say we have a pretty good track record.”

“Thank god for that,” I agree, turning to him and forcing a smile. “I just hope that’s not a theory we have to test out.” There’s a long moment of silence, both of us struggling to think of something to say. I bite my lip, but the words come tumbling out before I can stop them. “I got a text message,” I blurt out. “From an unknown number. It was during the peace talks the other day.”

“Really?” Landon frowns. “Can I see it?”

I nod, fishing my phone out of my pocket and handing it to him. His eyes narrow as he reads over the anonymous message, his forehead lined with worry. “What does this mean?” he asks finally.

I shake my head hopelessly. “I don’t know. But it feels like a warning. Do you think whoever sent it to me knew Hawthorne was planning on converting the rest of the school board?”

“I mean… maybe.” He sighs, handing me my phone back. “Any idea who it was?”

“No,” I reply. “None. For a while I thought maybe it was Hawthorne himself, but now I’m not so sure. It could be anyone here. Whoever it is, though, they seem to know something that we don’t.”

“Let’s just hope they’re on our side, then,” Landon remarks grimly. There’s a long pause, and he looks at me, his dark eyes meeting