things to talk about. Why don’t you go get breakfast or something?” Jetta suggested.
I nodded my thanks to her and turned to look for Katrina to give her phone back. She was standing two feet away. Spooky. Giving her a grateful head bob, I handed her the phone back, then glanced at Caeco. She had her poker face on, but I sensed apprehension. Super. Looking around, I spotted some papers and stuff on Jenks’s teacher podium. I felt really, really tired—drained. Maybe Mom had left out some other important details about battle magic.
There were a couple of mostly blank pages in Jenk’s notes so I helped myself to them, along with a pen. Then I led Caeco to another classroom, this one empty.
She hadn’t said anything yet, but had let me pull her along. I wrote my first question.
Do you like Delwood?
She snorted and looked at me in disbelief. “Don’t be absurd. Why would I like him?”
He’s a big, muscular fighter that turns into a beast. You are a strong, gifted fighter. I’m not so much.
“That’s idiotic. I met tons of guys like him at the lab. All the meathead soldiers that thought being big and tough was all that. I guess some girls like that but trust me, when you beat them up every day, they lose their appeal.”
You beat me up almost every day… in practice?
“Yeah, cause I’ve been trained from birth to do just that. How long would the fight last if you used magic? For that matter, how long did Delwood last as a fully Changed werewolf? Two seconds?”
Then why were you ashamed of me after Delwood beat me up?
“I wasn’t ashamed of you. I was upset and ashamed of me. Jenks made me an assistant instructor and suddenly I was right back to being in the lab and taking orders. Snapped right back to being a good little soldier for a guy I don’t even know. A guy who let a fight happen to my boyfriend that was the equivalent of a sucker punch. And I did nothing to stop it. Jetta and Ryanne, who don’t even like each other, had to come to your rescue because I was just standing there like I was back in the lab watching two soldiers beat each other up. Six months of freedom and what did I do? I followed orders. When I got out, I swore I wouldn’t ever just follow orders again. But I did and you got hurt because of it.”
Oh. I thought you were disgusted with me, being all weak and all.
“Yeah, real weak,” she said. “That’s why you just tossed a quarter ton of monster up a wall and held it there while burning a hundred pounds of wood up in less than ten seconds. You don’t think I know how strong you are? Hello? I was with you in that field last September when you wiped out all those zombie things.”
Revenants… not zombies.
“Whatever. Now you sound like me, Miss Correction and Logic. Watch out or you’ll find yourself following orders next,” she said, truly disgusted.
Fight wasn’t your fault. Okay, so you did what you’ve been trained to do your whole life. So you couldn’t break all your advanced conditioning in under half a year… so what. Make a note and move on. I don’t blame you.
“But you got hurt. That’s not all right,” she said.
I survived. No one is dead, although I might be when Aunt Ash is done with me.
“Yeah, you’re in trouble, but she loves you to pieces. You’re just gonna have to suck up to her and grovel till you get back into her good graces.”
I can grovel with the best of them.
“No doubt. Hey, let’s go get breakfast before we have to go to class. You can tell me about these battle tattoo thingies,” she said, poking at the one on the back of my right hand.
I was pretty hungry. We headed out to the dining room and sat quietly in a corner, far from where my aunt sat with Gina, drinking tea. I didn’t have too much time to explain the glyphs because class was fast approaching for both of us, but that was okay. At least she was talking to me again. I wrote out a lengthy bit about using my mom’s grimoire to find the tattoos and about how it was in the section I’d promised not read.
I gave her a ride to the campus and just after I parked in student parking, she unzipped