Trinity flashed Emma an overbright smile. “You heard us. Time for soup.”
Emma picked up the spoon and began to ladle the carrot soup into her mouth. It was cold by now and smelled foul. Her hands were shaking, and some sloshed onto the tray.
Trinity snatched her spoon. “Steady. Maybe you need to get a little closer.” She snarled her fingers through Emma’s hair and shoved my friend’s face into the bowl.
My feet instinctively shuffled under my chair, as if I might pop up to help, and Masha shot me a deadly glare. “Do you have a problem, Acari Drew?”
Emma gripped the table, her spine stiffening as she held her breath. Her face was in the soup.
I opened my mouth, paused long enough to curse what a coward I was, then said a subdued, “No.”
Emma’s knees began to knock under the table, her hands a death grip on the table. I held my own breath, imagining what it might feel like for her, wondering how long she could keep it up.
Trinity ground Emma’s face a little harder into the bowl, and a little whimper escaped my friend.
Maybe it was my mood; maybe I’d let myself wallow too deeply in thoughts of my own lonely loserdom; maybe imagining Ronan and Amanda together had made me surly. Who knew what inspired me? But I found my feet under me and realized I’d stood. Then I heard my voice sharp in my own ears. “Stop.”
Trinity was so shocked, she let go of Emma’s head, and my friend sprang from the table, coughing and gasping. In my peripheral vision, I saw her wiping orange muck from her face.
The Guidons went still.
“Stop?” Trinity slowly turned her head to look at me. “Did you just tell me to stop?”
“I think she did.” Masha’s voice had taken on an exaggeratedly marveling sort of tone.
I thought of Ronan and Amanda. Would they have helped me as I was helping Emma now? It was childish—I’d felt a part of their inner circle, and with the realization that they were a couple, it hit me—I wasn’t their friend at all. Not really. I was the lame, outcast Acari. Just as I’d been the lame, outcast Annelise Drew before arriving on the island.
But I had a friend now, and that friend was Emma, and I would stand by her. I wasn’t going to be the outcast any longer. “Yes. I said stop.”
“Fine, Trinity,” Masha told the redheaded Guidon, “you may stop now.” But then she rose from her chair, unfurling her whip. “I’ll take over from here.”
That whip again. I should’ve known I hadn’t seen the last of it. Trinity might’ve hated Emma, but Masha just hated. If she had it her way, I’m sure she’d see every last one of us thrashed to a pulp. All the times I’d felt that whip kiss the backs of my legs, my face…
My eyes swept the dining hall, taking in the other students. Everyone watched avidly and silently, visibly relieved they weren’t me. It was everyone for herself in this place, and I was sure nobody would step in to help.
I looked back at Masha, meeting her vengeful stare. I decided to lead with my brain, trying to talk my way out. “Do vampires encourage such public hazing? Seems a little crass to me. Don’t you think they prefer a good show instead—a little pomp, a little circumstance? I mean, where would we be if we all let loose and started killing one another at the drop of a hat?”
Seriously, it was a miracle any of us was alive with these girls eager to run shivs between our ribs at the first opportunity. And we were expected to take it. Thank you, ma’am; may I have another?
“Vampires encourage the natural order,” she said. “In any form.”
“Yeah, yeah. Kill or be killed. Very Darwinian of you. Like our own little Galápagos Island here, right?”
But then I considered the times the Guidons had tried to kill me—and failed. They’d locked me outside to run half-naked in the snow. They had dropped me in the middle of the island, in the middle of the night, surrounded by demonic creatures and my even more demonic fellow Acari. They’d tried to take me down, but I was still in the game.
Masha’s ragged voice brought me back to myself. “You think to challenge the way we do things, Acari?”
“No, I think you’re just pissy because you haven’t been able to take me down. But look at me.” Pulling my shoulders back, I stretched my five-foot-two-inch frame as tall as it would go. “I’m still standing.”
“Not for long,” she said, her Russian accent grown thick in her fury. “You go down now.”
“I don’t think so, comrade.” I tensed for the contact I knew was coming.
She gave a casual flick to her wrist, and her whip rippled elegantly to the ground, like a ribbon, or a cascade of black water. A smile cocked the corner of her mouth as she raised her hand, looking excited to flay the skin from my body in teensy tiny strips.
Maybe it was because of Ronan, and just Ronan. Maybe because I had a better chance of getting killed than getting kissed. But this time, when Masha came at me, I fought back.
She cracked that whip, and this time, instead of standing there to take it, I did the impossible. I caught it.