Bloodrage - Helen Harper Page 0,26

and swirled its way down the pipes. I’d need to see if I could get hold of some tweezers or something to pull out all the tiny shards of glass.

I was still standing there, staring down at the white ceramic bowl and the splashes of blood continuing to inexorably drip down into it when there was a knock at the door. Startled into action, I jumped and managed to call out, “Just a minute!” in time to hastily flip over the corner of the bedsheet to mask the books that still lay there. Then I turned off the tap and creaked open the door an inch, peering through the gap to see whether it was Dean coming to take me away.

“Hey, Mack! Look what I’ve brought!”

Relief flooded through me. It was Mary, holding up a first aid kit. I opened the door all the way and ushered her in.

“Hi Mary,” I said weakly. “How are things?”

“Awesome! Although, I mean, like, wow. You’ve really been tearing things up, huh?”

“I guess.” I took the kit from her and unzipped it with my teeth, then searched through until I found tweezers. “Is Higgins okay?”

“Mage Higgins? Yeah, so I hear. I think he’s just a bit shaken up. What on earth happened?”

“Honestly, Mary, I have no idea.” I headed over to the sink and turned on the tap again, the bent over my head and began digging into the wounds to get out the glass that remained embedded in my flesh. “Have you heard anything about what the Dean is going to do?”

Silence answered me, so I craned my neck backwards. Mary was staring at my hand with a faintly sick looking expression on her face. “Does that not hurt?”

I blinked in surprise and then looked back down at my bloody hand. “Um, yeah, I suppose. A bit.” I hadn’t really thought about it much. “Have you heard about the Dean?” I prodded her again.

She shook herself. “Uh, no. I don’t think he could do anything even if he wanted to. Mage Thomas checked and says you were telling the truth that you were just doing as you were told. His Divination skill is good for that.” She shrugged. “That makes it the fault of the teacher for not taking appropriate precautions.”

I yelped slightly. Higgins? “Fuck!” I swore. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“Was it your fault?”

“No, but, he didn’t know that would happen. I mean, I didn’t know that would happen either, but that doesn’t mean he’s to blame.”

“He kind of is,” said Mary, gently. “That’s why he’s there, to make sure that nothing goes wrong.”

Yeah, but he didn’t know that he had a fucking Draco Wyr who had no idea what she was capable of in front of him, did he? Now I had the guilt of making him look bad to add to everything else. I turned off the tap again. “I need to see Thomas.”

Mary ignored me and rummaged inside the kit, pulling out a small bottle. “Here’s some disinfectant.”

“I mean it, Mary.”

“He won’t see you. He said that he’s busy or something, and that I should make sure you’re all cleaned up and that you get some food, and then some rest.”

I bristled at Thomas’ seeming solicitude. Yeah, he was a wanker. One minute he was forcing me to shave all my hair off and the next he was pretending to look after my well-being. I trusted him more when he was just being nasty. I grabbed the disinfectant from Mary’s hand and rubbed it on, hissing slightly at the sting, then took a pristine white bandage and wrapped it tightly round my hand and wrist.

“When was the last time you ate?” Mary enquired.

My stomach growled in answer.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said. “You didn’t even have lunch, did you?”

I could feel myself getting annoyed. The last thing I needed right now was to be mothered by a teenager. She beamed at me. “Let’s head down to the cafeteria. It’ll have just opened so the food’ll be fresh.”

I pasted a smile onto my face, forcing the corners of my mouth to curve upwards. “Fine.”

I took a surreptitious look at the lump on my bed where the books were as we left. If Mary had noticed it, then she hadn’t thought to mention it. I mentally crossed my fingers and prayed it was going to be alright, along with poor Higgins. As we walked down to the cafeteria, Mary gushed away about her day, and the success she’d had in conjuration