Vampires and Watchers.
If Yasuo and I survived this, someday I’d be taking orders from him. He’d be the one able to take my life on a whim, the one telling me where to go and what to do. I wasn’t ready to think about how that dynamic might play out.
It was all the more reason for me to hightail it out of there. Escaping from an island tightly guarded by a bunch of vampires and located in the middle of a freezing sea seemed eminently easier to navigate than the new-to-me waters of friendship.
“Later, then. Off to class.” He thumped his chest and gave me a fist salute. “Peace out, Blondie.”
“Yeah, you’re such a gangsta.” I’d tried to be playful but was feeling a little too out of sorts to sound it.
That left just me and Josh.
I’d burst in there on the warpath, but then my interaction with Yas ended up less showdown and more Dr. Phil. Honestly, it’d just made me kind of depressed. I turned on Josh, eager to make him my next target. “You.”
He was cute and scruffy and blond. We were on a place called the Isle of Night—so how the hell did he still seem to be sporting a tan?
I cut him off before he could open his mouth. “You say gidday and you’re a dead man.”
He raised his hands. “I’d not deign to greet you, oh rampaging Acari.”
Damned if his stupid comment didn’t startle a laugh out of me. I blamed the accent. But my flash of good humor gave him an opening I hadn’t wanted to surrender.
“Go easy on Yas, eh?” he urged in a chummy tone, his accent making Yasuo’s name sound something like Yaehz. “He’s got a lot on his mind, and you know he can’t tell you the lot of it.”
“Well, aren’t you two cozy,” I said, feeling defeated.
But Josh remained calm, refusing to rise to the bait. “We’re roommates. We talk.”
Well, that was news. There was a lot the girls didn’t know about the creepy castle on the hill that was the guys’ housing, but someone’s roommate situation seemed like pretty basic information. “How did I not know that?”
Josh paused. “We aren’t supposed to talk much about things. But…” He met my eyes, thought for a moment, and decided to continue. “Don’t be mad, mate. It was new this summer. Our last roommates were…They died. So they put us together to make room for more. They just did—I swear. I’m sure Yas would’ve told you himself if you hadn’t come in here ready to tear him a new one.”
His Australian accent had loped along, rough and lazy, making his words sound more offhand than they really were—because he was talking about boys dying, and it chilled me. As did all the mystery—I knew Acari dropped like flies, but I had yet to find out what killed the Trainees, or who.
I realized he hadn’t spoken, and I looked up to catch him ogling my mouth. “Goddammit, mate.” I lunged closer and gave him a shove in the chest. Though the gesture was playful, I let my hand push a little harder than was strictly necessary. But then I fisted my hands at my sides, assuring myself those were definitely not rock-hard surfer abs beneath his uniform sweater. “Not you, too. What is with you guys?” I licked my lip, feeling the scab there. “It’s almost healed up. Learn a little control, would you?”
“Control is difficult, where you’re concerned.” He winked, and I didn’t know if he was flirting with me or just making fun.
“Do not go there. Seriously, this”—I waved my hands between us—“this tutoring thing is unpalatable enough.”
He clapped a hand to his chest. “I’m not to be palated? Harsh.”
“Palated? Not a word, Harvard boy.” I put my hands on my hips, fighting a smile. “I swear, you are asking for it. If you can’t even speak English, what could possibly be this arcane German knowledge you possess that I don’t?”
“Easy, easy.” He reached down to grab his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Look, my father worked for one of the big pharmaceuticals, and we were based in Germany for a while. I know you speak the language, but some of the business etiquette is…different. When to be formal, when not—stuff like that.”
My stomach growled, and I put a fist to it. “Jeez, will nothing cooperate?”
Josh gave me a funny look, trying not to laugh. “Does that mean Acari Drew is actually human? Because I’d been under the impression you were some rare breed of supergenius wunderkind.”
“Shut up. I haven’t been to the dining hall.”
“Since dinner?”
I paused a moment, then confessed, “Since lunch yesterday.”
A look of understanding dawned on his face. “Oh, that.”
“Were you there?” I lost my appetite just thinking about it. Masha wasn’t done with me yet. And I needed to eat sometime.