Caeco and I had each brought a dorm-style fridge and small microwave, gifts from Levi. When I extended fridge rights to Mack, he had seemed both surprised and cautiously pleased.
Mack was a freshman like Caeco and me, but Jetta would be finishing out her high school degree here while taking college courses too. I never heard of that before, but what the hell… anything to get out of high school.
Most of the kids in the room seemed to be just kids—human, that is. I know that because I scanned them with my Sight and their auras were the solid blue of normal humans. They sat in pairs or quads, looking around at their peers with expressions of curiosity. But a couple groups stood out to my Sight.
Sitting several rows below us was a small group of weres. At least I was pretty certain they were weres. Chris Gordon had told me that weres had an aura of blue flecked with green, which matched theirs exactly. Six males, spread out over twice that many seats, lounging. Talking and joking among themselves, they were studying the other students, particularly the females. One kid was a giant, maybe six-five or so and built like a wall. He was the loudest, having draped himself over three seats, demanding that people notice him. I already didn’t like him. Much of his attention was centered on the four girls one section over, but that was understandable, as mine was too.
Attractive yes, but it was more the fact that they were all witches that had me studying them, their auras flecked with black. A pair of tall, curvy identical blonde twins who had a Nordic look going on, a girl of obvious Native American ancestry, and another dark-haired girl I hadn’t been able to get a good look at all sat in one row.
Above them sat a very pretty Asian girl and a small brunette who didn’t look old enough to be out of high school yet. Those two had normal auras.
Sitting even further above them was another young brunette, but this one had a white aura. The only aura I had seen like it before belonged to Tanya Demidova and her two vampire teammates, so I was pretty certain this girl was a vampire. She was strangely isolated; the three seats next to her and the row above and below her were all empty. Maybe some deep-seated instinct warned the other kids not to get too close to a dangerous predator. She suddenly swiveled around and locked eyes with me. I jerked my gaze down toward Caeco’s reading material as if I, too, found it fascinating. Smooth, O’Carroll, smooth.
“Stop creeping on the other kids, Declan,” Caeco said in a quiet voice, not looking up. “Especially the vampires and werewolves.”
Below us, a brown-haired boy in the wolf pack snapped his head around to look up at us and I could just about feel the vampire still watching. The boy started to turn back around, but noticed Mack and Jetta giving them a shy wave before facing forward.
“You know they probably have hearing as good as yours,” I said in a whisper.
“Maybe,” she allowed, finally looking up at me and smiling.
Five adults filed into the room, led by a pretty woman with very dark hair and deep brown eyes. She was in her thirties and wore a genuine smile and a blue aura. She looked much different than the scared mom I had met several months before. Her name was Gina and she was the director of this school for monsters and maniacs.
One of the two men following her had the green and blue aura of a were, giving possible explanation to the deep scar that trailed from his lower right jawline, down his neck, and under his blue golf shirt. He was muscular and fit, also looking to be thirty or so, with a decidedly military air about him.
The woman behind him was a witch, and possibly forty years old. She was tan, with dark hair and dark eyes.
The other male was even tanner than the witch, with flashing white teeth and a bald head. Maybe fifty to fifty-five. The last person was a woman, the oldest yet, with unabashedly grey hair, but thin and healthy looking.
All four sat in in the very front row of the room facing Gina.
“Good evening everyone and welcome. I’m Gina Velsaquiz, the Director of this little experiment, and I sincerely hope you are feeling at least a little excited